Further cuts to come for men's sports

And, yet, there are a few posts on here that say Title IX is bad and the cutting of programs is due solely to its existence. If that's not what they mean, they need to communicate more clearly. Does the end justify the means? If a law allows one specific gender to overcome what no one has argued at one time were unfair inequalities but thru its "interpretation" allows a loophole to create fewer sports for another gender can't you understand why some would think that it would be a "bad" law (again, not because it created the original oppurtunites. An older but interesting read on this topic which touches on one aspect of this not being mentioned....here is an exerpt: "Despite accommodations made across the country, females make up 56% of undergraduates across the country, while still only 41% of college athletes. This 15% gap translates to 59,000 male athletes who would be cut if quotas were more rigorously enforced. The result would be that every football program in the country would be eliminated; or alternatively every men’s golf, track, gymnastics, swim, water polo, and basketball team would have to be dropped. When faced with these facts, feminists often claim that fault lies with football not Title IX. They claim that men’s football teams, often with over a hundred players and coaches with six or seven digit salaries, are to blame for the cut in other male athletic programs. Gavora demolishes this claim. She points out that the majority of Division I-A football teams earn revenue for other sports, while with the exclusion of the Connecticut basketball team, no female program turns a profit. The average NCAA women’s basketball team spends more than 10,000 dollars more per player than football teams." www.lewrockwell.com/.../epstein12.html

I've never read the book but may pick it up...sounds interesting although it talking about it I fear I have fallen into complete Neanderthal classification. Tilting the Playing Field: Schools, Sports, Sex, and Title IX Amazon.com Review In the tradition of Who Stole Feminism? and Christina Hoff Sommers, Jessica Gavora offers a devastating account of feminism gone haywire. For more than a generation, liberal women's groups have used a piece of federal civil rights legislation called Title IX to expand opportunities for women to play sports in college. In a classic case of unintended consequences, however, they've wrought enormous damage on men's sports programs. The cost of complying with Title IX has led to the abolition of hundreds of men's sports programs, including some heralded ones. In 1993, for instance, UCLA dropped its men's swimming and diving teams, which had produced 16 Olympic gold medalists. This is all done in the name of sexual "proportionality"--the supposed iniquity of men playing sports more than women. Gavora is a good writer and a perceptive critic who notes an exquisite irony: "Whereas in every other area of life, from the military to the boardroom to the bedroom, women's rights activists have insisted that women be allowed to compete in the same arena with men, Title IX activists have worked in athletics to protect women's special status.... On this narrow score, difference is accepted." Gavora also points out that Title IX radicalism won't halt at the edge of the sporting field; it's now stepping into new areas, including school harassment policies, student testing, and math and science achievement--anywhere males and females don't conform to feminist expectations of gender equity. Tilting the Playing Field is an excellent book on an important subject, and will appeal to right-leaning readers who dissent from feminist orthodoxy. --John Miller

Not to knock where you swam as I know it has always been ranked pretty far up, but I don't think it mere coincidence that one of the best conferences in football, the SEC, is also one of the best conferences for women's swimming. My son is 9 now and will never have the build of a football player. I'd like to think that when he applies to colleges, if he has excelled in a non-football sport in high school, he will have as much opportunity to play his sport in college as a woman. That is my main concern. When my mother was in college, she swam with the guy's team. If she wanted to swim in competition, she swam with her club team. Was that fair? No! My mother just accepted it and enjoyed socializing with her team mates on both teams. Perhaps we have come full circle and it will now be the male swimmers that will be doing this. Again, is that fair? I think not, so I don't blame them for being upset. It is wrong to blame it on Title IX. Something does need to change, however, to balance things out. What concerns me though is that anybody that wants to change the status quo will be viewed as anti-Title IX or anti-athletics for women.

Does the end justify the means? If a law allows one specific gender to overcome what no one has argued at one time were unfair inequalities but thru its "interpretation" allows a loophole to create fewer sports for another gender can't you understand why some would think that it would be a "bad" law (again, not because it created the original oppurtunites. I'll say it AGAIN: I am not arguing that Title IX is a flawless legislation. It does allow a loophole for the creation of fewer sports for men. Got it. Had it long ago. Not arguing that point. My point was that the law itself (in its original application) was a good thing for women. John and trjpatt were the ones that weren't communicating any kind of understanding of that fact. Both seem to think the law itself was defective from day one. Should things be tinkered with in light of what's happened with sports today? Probably. But that doesn't make the law inherently "bad." It's just an old law that was put into place in a very different society. An older but interesting read on this topic which touches on one aspect of this not being mentioned....here is an exerpt: "Despite accommodations made across the country, females make up 56% of undergraduates across the country, while still only 41% of college athletes. This 15% gap translates to 59,000 male athletes who would be cut if quotas were more rigorously enforced. The result would be that every football program in the country would be eliminated; or alternatively every men’s golf, track, gymnastics, swim, water polo, and basketball team would have to be dropped. Not sure why we're arguing this point since it's pure speculation. Part of the reason there are fewer women college athletes is football. Football takes a huge number of participants compared to any other sport. There is no comparable sport for women. Or for men either. When faced with these facts, feminists often claim that fault lies with football not Title IX. They claim that men’s football teams, often with over a hundred players and coaches with six or seven digit salaries, are to blame for the cut in other male athletic programs. Gavora demolishes this claim. She points out that the majority of Division I-A football teams earn revenue for other sports, while with the exclusion of the Connecticut basketball team, no female program turns a profit. The average NCAA women’s basketball team spends more than 10,000 dollars more per player than football teams." www.lewrockwell.com/.../epstein12.html I would love for someone to name all these evil feminists that are controlling the actions of the AD's of our nation's universities. I thought the argument was that AD's are using Title IX's loopholes to get rid of men's sports. And, Paul, I thought your argument was that football didn't make money for any school. Which is it? Do we, as second-tier sport athletes, owe our very existence to football or not? I don't think that was how things worked before Title IX. Didn't Universities used to spend money on Olympic Sports as part of education? Was any sport a major money maker back then? Are we women now beholden to the men playing football for providing us with sporting opportunities that wouldn't exist without them? Or do we expect the University to provide opportunities for us like they provided men for years? That statistic about spending $10,000 more per player for women's basketball than football is crazy. I'd love to see the stats on that one. I don't know any women's basketball coaches that earn nearly what the football coaches do. I can't imagine their training facilities are anything like men's football. What figures are included in that stat? By the way, did I mention that I get it that Title IX is an old law that wasn't written for today's sporting environment? Did I mention that I agree it's getting used by AD's to cut men's sports? Just wanted to make sure...

From the article you cited, Paul (www.lewrockwell.com/.../epstein12.html): While Gavora is excellent at identifying the symptoms, she comes up short with the cause and the cure. Gavora would be fairly characterized as a moderate feminist. While deploring radical feminists, she praises Berry Friedman’s The Feminine Mystique and generally sees the changing sex roles of women since the 1950s as a positive development. Therefore, she considers Title IX and other anti-discrimination measures to guarantee women equal footing with men as necessary. Gavora views the outrages that are thoroughly detailed in her book as unintended consequences of Title IX. This is all I'm trying to say.

Just a bit of trivia - A year ago, Forbes selected the most valuable college football teams in the country, stating as follows: Our second annual ranking of the most valuable teams in college football is based on what the football programs contribute to four important beneficiaries: their university (the value of contributions from football to the institution for academic purposes, including scholarship payments for football players); athletic department (the net profit generated by the football program ultimately retained by the department); conference (the distribution of bowl game revenue); and local communities with a vested interest in the team (incremental spending in the county during home-game weekends). Our system weighs those four elements in declining order. This year's rankings were expanded from 15 to 20 teams. www.forbes.com/.../notre-dame-fooball-biz-sports-cx_ps_1120collegeball.html I did a comparison of the top 5 football programs in 2007 and looked at the most recent NCAA Div. I women's rankings and this is what I found: Notre Dame football - produced $45.8 million PROFIT - women's swim ranking - 24th Univ. of Texas football - produced $46.2 million PROFIT - women's swim ranking - 4th University of Georgia - produced $43.5 million PROFIT - women's swim ranking - 1st Michigan - 36.2 million PROFIT - women's swim ranking - 18th Florida - $38.2 million PROFIT - women's swim ranking - 5th

Again..... another one of your dramatizations with twisted facts. Its amusing how you hold your two girls up in front of you like a shield of guilt to protect yourself during a discussion......... As if I don't have two girls in sports myself...... really. I'll one up yah..... I have a boy as well who swims and faces a declining scholarship market for his skills. Stick to the facts. Men's swimming programs are being shot down like birds on a wire. Your son is a top level swimmer, as you were. He will have no problem swimming anywhere he wants. Fortunately, women now have that same opportunity. I'm happy for your kid, as well as my own.

Elise - I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, if any. The richest athletic departments (the "haves") generally excel in almost all sports they choose to participate in. I'm sure there are lots of reasons but fundamentally money means great coaches, great facilities, focus on recruiting, and an expectation of winning. Those rich football programs distort the NCAA world for all other teams that try to compete in football. The Texas Tech example earlier is a great case study. They spend most of their money on football to try to compete in the Big12. gobears asked me what my husband was basing his argument on in saying that football means more scholarships for women. The facts speak for themself. More revenue from football = ability to pay high caliber swim coaches + ability to give out lots of scholarships, attracting the best swimmers = strong women's swim program. It's a fairly logical argument that because of football, there are more scholarships for women. That is the point I suppose I'm making above. This is outside the Title IX argument. Without Title IX, of course, there might not be many athletic scholarships for women.

Here I am, a left wing liberal ERA supporting leftover '70s democrat being accused of not supporting women's sports. You left out Atheist, hypochrondriac, gator hating, Element driving, whiner who lives in the shado of his wife's Olympic glory.....

www2.indystar.com/.../show_field_rank The link should take you to a database that lets you sort/rank division I schools in a variety of sports. (Sorry, swimming is put into the 'other' category.) According to this, football is a pretty good money maker for a lot of schools. UT made more than $30 million. Even lousy schools (Florida International) made money (though that was mainly from diverting student fees to the football budget.) Don't know how this contributes to the discussion, but I think it's work poking around with.