A solution to Title IX

Allen, That sounds like a great idea! I agree with you that swimming is sure getting the short end of the stick here. What is odd is that when it comes to the Olympics, it seems that swimming gets very good TV coverage. It is too bad that NCAA swimming, a breeding ground for some of these athletes, gets dissed so often.

Allen, Good ideas and we need to keep them coming and implemented. Only problem is that the NCAA places a limit on scholarships to athletes no matter what the source. We ran a small scholarship in St Louis (in honor of Penny Taylor) and ran into this problem. If the school was already giving out the limit (something like 9.5 for the men and 11 for the women) then the student could not accept our money. The thing that gets you is the fact that the scholarship required the student to be an athlete. One thought that I have been trying to get people excited about (and not getting very far :-( ) is the following. It is based upon the fact that men's swimming is one of the first to go, that football keeps getting bigger and my youngest daughter is a freshman at Rutgers where this was the last year of mens swimming. I would like to see the Congress pass the following TAX legislation in support of Olympic Sports. Contributions to non-Olympic Sports at colleges and universities are tax deductable only if the school provides at least as many full scholarship equivalents to Olympic sports as non-Olympic sports for each gender (men and women counted separately). This would have the effect of placing a bottom on the number of Olympic Sport scholarships at least 80 (current football limit) for the men. Then Title IX can come into play as it was intended and cause women sports to be added to bring them into compliance. The Ted Stevens Amateur Sports Act gave colleges special rights in light of the fact that they were, at the time, doing a good job of developing Olympic athletes. Things have changed since then so we have to revisit. Right now the congress has shown a reluctance (at least before the last election) to open up the Amateur Sports Act because of concerns about more politics being interjected than necessary. So the above approach could help without touching the ASA. Also, it seems that the IRS is looking at college football with respect to their not-for-profit, tax deductable status right now. The NCAA might actually go for this if it gets the IRS off of their back. Leo

They should get rid of title nine all together. When they drop mens swimming programs at schools like rutgers and jmu they should just tell them, sorry guys because of title nine we have to make these women over here feel good. thats basicly what is happening. no offense to anyone, I'm just saying that title nine is wrong. And I think this statement is wrong. This seems to be the most prevalent comment I hear about Title IX. Not surprisingly, it's often made by men. No offense, of course.

Rutgers was fully compliant with Title IX in spite of what the AD has said. Title IX is used as a convenient excuse by those Athletic Departments who want to get rid of "non-revenue" sports. (Note: most revenue sports are also no-profit sports which is not what they would have you believe.) Now the fact that most football teams loose more than the budgets of the Olympic sport teams combined is lost in the noise. The Rutgers AD has been wanting to drop these teams for several years because he has too many sports for him to handle. the alternative of finding and AD with enough brain power was not apparently considered. Leo

Rutgers was fully compliant with Title IX in spite of what the AD has said. Title IX is used as a convenient excuse by those Athletic Departments who want to get rid of "non-revenue" sports. (Note: most revenue sports are also no-profit sports which is not what they would have you believe.) Now the fact that most football teams loose more than the budgets of the Olympic sport teams combined is lost in the noise. The Rutgers AD has been wanting to drop these teams for several years because he has too many sports for him to handle. the alternative of finding and AD with enough brain power was not apparently considered. Leo Precisely.

And I think this statement is wrong. This seems to be the most prevalent comment I hear about Title IX. Not surprisingly, it's often made by men. No offense, of course. I'm in complete agreement with Fort on this, believe it or not. Title IX may be flawed and it may chafe folks but it has nothing to do with making someone feel good and that's a ridiculous comment. My older daughter loves sports and 90% of what is on TV is men's sports, maybe more. But, let me tell you, it makes an impact to sit down and watch the NCAA women's championships with her. The vast majority of sports lose money for universities so blaming Title IX is just bologna. If you want a school that only has men's sports, there are plenty of men's only schools, but their programs don't make any money either. For anyone who thinks this is killing sports, take a look at the massive contracts universities are getting for sports events.

It is not all about money. The average expenditure on a football player at Rutgers is MORE than the cost of the entire mens swim team. The mens team esentially had all of their scholarships endowed. There was a single coach for the men and women. You ask a basic question though. Why do we have college sports at all since they, with very very few (

I thought a little data might be of use in the discussion. In Illinois, this is what the state university situation looks like: Eastern: Mens & Womens Swimming, number of sports about equal. Illinois State: Womens Swimming, Women have more sports teams. Northern: No swimming, number of sports about equal. Southern @ Carbondale: Mens & Womens Swimming, sports about equal. Southern @ Edwardsville: No swimming, sports about equal. Western: Mens & Womens Swimming, sports about equal. University of Illinois: Womens Swimming, Women have more sports teams. Of interest, the University of Illinois and Illinois State are the two largest schools by enrollment. They also stick out as the schools where only one gender has swimming, and that gender has more sports to choose from. At Illinois, football is huge. Not so at Ill State. Both have venues in place that are adequate. So, the data here is mixed, at best, although in terms of swimming, women have the edge in Illinois at State Schools.

Redbird, It is more complicated than the number of teams. You have to look at scholarship opportunities, the relative proportion of men and women. Sometimes they look at demand and sometimes they look at numbers of students. The only way to solve both problems is to get football out of the equation from both the scholarship and power/ego perspective. One way to do that is the tax deduction scheme I suggested. Leo

They should get rid of title nine all together. When they drop mens swimming programs at schools like rutgers and jmu they should just tell them, sorry guys because of title nine we have to make these women over here feel good. thats basicly what is happening. no offense to anyone, I'm just saying that title nine is wrong.