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On Tuesday morning, a literal dark cloud hovered above the building that houses the office of University of Tulsa athletic director Derrick Gragg. At the same time that the TU campus was soaked with rain, and as Gragg provided a fairly startling revelation about his department, there seemed also to be a figurative dark cloud above Golden Hurricane sports. Not true, Gragg said. TU’s current budget situation is a difficult circumstance, he acknowledged, but not a crisis. What would qualify as a startling revelation? Specific numbers aren’t known, but recent budget cuts have affected all aspects of TU’s operation. In an effort to avoid a reduction in services for student-athletes, Gragg said, Hurricane football coach Philip Montgomery, men’s basketball coach Frank Haith and Gragg himself all have accepted pay cuts. At the major-college level, this could be unprecedented — that a football coach, men’s basketball coach and an AD simultaneously and willingly absorbed salary reductions for the sake of the greater good of a money-starved school’s sports programs. “Basically, the budget reductions to me are a microcosm of what’s going on, not just at TU but across the country at a lot of different places,” Gragg said. “We’re like a lot of other athletic departments — we’ve been asked to tighten our belt. Full article link: https://www.tulsaworld.com/sportsextra/tusportsextra/bill-haisten-derrick-gragg-philip-montgomery-and-frank-haith-accept/article_833b8a0b-9b60-5982-be6d-ecda78465987.amp.html?__twitter_impression=true