More title IX garbage

To avoid any hint of discrimination they should have the same number of sports for girls and boys. Since they have boys football and wrestling teams (even with the caveat that girls are welcome), but no girls' teams without a boys counterpart, there's always that hint of discrimination. At my HS we had girls volleyball, softball and gymnastics teams to balance out the boys sports of football, baseball and wrestling.

www.azcentral.com/.../20101111deer-valley-unified-school-district-title-IX-investigation.html Why do we continue to point to lower participating numbers of women in sports to justify the assertion that society is persecuting women? Fort, it's been awhile, please educate me again.:) It's college football and basketball that are/were persecuting women. Now they're persecuting men who do endurance sports. :angel: Way too many scholarships for knucklehead sports. :) I leave the squabbles about revenue generation, profit, distribution to Geek.

It's college football and basketball that are/were persecuting women. Now they're persecuting men who do endurance sports. :angel: Way too many scholarships for knucklehead sports. :) . I don't know why so many guys seem to be so blind to this point. Blame the big business of CFB (and CBB to a lesser extent). If schools hadn't decided that making money from college sports is of primary importance, the "non-revenue" sports wouldn't be suffering. There was a time when all university sports were basically non-revenue. And players of those sports were actually students who were attending the university primarily to get an education. Now it's all about "pseudo-student" athletes earning big money for schools, the NCAA and various media entities. Non-revenue sports are considered unimportant, in comparison. Title IX is a very minor part of the big $$$ picture.

It's college football and basketball that are/were persecuting women. Why do you include basketball in this? Women's bball is alive and well. When I lived in Knoxville, the women's team was more popular than the men's team. (Actually being able to win their games probably had something to do with this.) That certainly isn't the rule, granted, but lots of schools have a women's team. As much as I (really really really) dislike their coach, UConn's women's team is pretty amazing. I agree with Amy's sentiments. The NFL and NBA need to get their own minor leagues instead of treating NCAA football/bball as their development league. University administration and the NCAA certainly share in the blame.

Kurt -- I agree with your hypothesis that, on average, girls are less interested in sports than boys and that can probably explain a large part of the gap between enrollment percentages and participation percentages. As someone who has done and seen loads of market research, I would suggest that the group laying forth these charges first embark on a robust study to understand the attitudes and barriers (perceived and actual) of both boys and girls towards participation in HS sports. If there were data to show that lack of opportunity contributed to 90% of the participation gap, their claim would be stronger. If lack of desire to participate accounted for 90% of the gap, they could then turn their attention to developing programs and outreach to help girls see the value of participation ... instead of spending their time in the courts. However, I also agree with Kirk, that one way for the school district to quickly demonstrate they are "doing something" about this would be to add more sports. Again, though, if lack of desire is the overwhelming reason for the participation gap, this will likely have little impact. For all of us athletically oriented parents, I hope we're sending the same "value of sports participation" messages to our daughters as we are to our sons. I only have daughters so they get the full force of my gung-ho love of sports! As for college football, as much as I wish some of the exorbitant number of scholarships for that team were diverted to the swim team, I'm acutely aware now (and believe I was when I swam in college) that the football team funded the swim team and other sports. I don't care how many times the Texas men's swim team wins NCAAs, I doubt the team is "profitable" or even cost neutral. Even with the 5-7 season the football team had, they're going to fund the swimmers. I would prefer to see the NFL develop a real farm system, but, until that happens, I'm still going to cheer for football teams to be successful and make money because that can drive swim programs. Correction: I actually do care how many times the Texas men's and women's swim teams win. Hook 'em Horns. Where's that Bevo icon when I need it?

See Death to the BCS - U.S. Masters Swimming Discussion Forums. College football enriches bowl sponsors and some coaches,but not athletes and very few athletic departments. It gives guys 80 scholarships which totally distorts the system.

For those arguing that girls have less interest in participating in sports, remind me of what the girl/boy ratio of participation is in USAS. Aren't there more girls swimmers than boys?

Amy, that may be true. My guess would be that girls' participation in gymnastics far outpaces boys' too. I think you need to consider the entire spectrum of sports opportunities available to kids though. Age group ("talent pool" available for high school and college sports. As a consequence I think a lot more boys than girls reach high school thinking they will participate in sports. Skip

I believe there was good intent behind Title IX. Unfortunately, it has turned into a sham that forces schools to prop up women's programs (that are sometimes non-competitive) often at the expense of men's programs. In a perfect world, everyone would have an opportunity to participate, but that's never going to happen. My alma mater was one example of this situation. We had numerous girls on our team with full rides who were not dedicated to the sport. I won't go into details, but I'm sure you can figure out what I mean by that. Are they more deserving than a male athlete who has been training his entire life? Absolutely not. Requiring hard quotas for schools is absurd...the NCAA needs to be more realistic in doing a case by case basis. If a particular school has offered opportunities for women that consistently fail short of being competitive within their conference, the NCAA should accept that and allow the program to be dropped in favor of another (men's) sport. Or put pressure on the AD to suggest a coaching change if that's the possible problem. In the case of my school, we had the same coach for both men and women. The women were consistently at the bottom of the conference and the men consistently in the top third.

Are they more deserving than a male athlete who has been training his entire life? Perhaps, though, they are more deserving than the men taking up 80 football scholarships, many of whom sit on the bench or might not even graduate. Football is what needs to be fixed, not eliminating women's programs. Plus, I can see "lack of competitiveness" as a frequently invoked excuse to get rid of inconvenient women's programs ... I agree with Amy, Allen, Chris' posts on this topic. Chris, I understand women's basketball is alive and well. But do women playing basketball receive the same number/amount of scholarships as men playing basketball?