So much for Title IX increasing opportunities...

[rmayes]

I thought Title IX was supposed to increase the athletic opportunities for women...Colorado State University decided to add a women's water polo team as their 16th sport to meet NCAA requirements and meet the minimum Title IX requirements, but look a little closer, to quote from an article in the local paper: "And up to 12 members of the current women's swim team can pull double duty as water polo players. The current women's swim coach will coach the polo team." So really few new female athletes will be added to the athletic department. Is this common practice for universities trying to demonstrate title IX compliance? Do universities that have both a women's cross country team and a track team get to double count all the distance runners even though it's the same athletes participating in each sport (and reduces the number of scholarships required to field two teams)? Here's the whole article:
http://www.coloradoan.com/news/stories/ ... 57103.html

[MJR]

Re: So much for Title IX increasing opportunities...

This is typical of the NCAA. They count the numbers 3 times in many schools for participation, yet give the coach one budget line for the whole year and pay him/her as if they only worked one season too, instead of the whole year, usually way less then the offensive line coach gets too.

[dl]

Re: So much for Title IX increasing opportunities...

There was controversy at a Bay Area DII school a few years ago after coaches recruited P.E. students to come out for one race in order to boost the size of the women's roster. Although this sounds nefarious, I can't blame the coach at the time, a woman who coached both teams, who could barely field a women's team. They bascially wouldn't cut anyone and still they had trouble fielding a squad.

[jhc68]

Re: So much for Title IX increasing opportunities...

A lot of the problem comes from the requirement for equity rather than equality in balancing programs between genders. (i.e., Numbers in athletics must mirror the gender percentages of the student body... with a lot more women than men now at many schools, this leaves AD's desparate to raise the numbers for females, females who may not necessarily be interested in competing) The government had the opportunity to remedy this a few months ago but decided not to rock the boat. It is all absurd and degenerates quickly into hot-button political issues.

[Guest]

Re: So much for Title IX increasing opportunities...

This issue is so politically charged that it seems impossible to have a rational discussion over both its positive and its negative ramifications. Unfortunately, the latter are painfully real--proof, once again, of the inescapable reality of the law of unintended consequences.

[Hunter]

A different take,

I'd first like to say I agree whole heartedly with the principle of title IX. There are many excellent female athletes competing in the NCAA.

Because Football takes up so many scholarships, womens teams are watered down with crappy athletes so the numbers are equal.

I go to a Big Ten school, do you know how our crew team recruits? The first few weeks of classes they go around asking athletic looking girls if they'd like to row and be on full scholarship!!!! Many of our womens soccer players DONT LIKE TO PLAY SOCCER and smoke dope all the time-they get drug tested-they just dont care!!! The problem with it is that it makes it much easier to for women to suceed than men.

Womens Track teams give full rides to pretty good female athletes while all-american males are getting 30%. There was a female discus thrower on my team that "didnt really know how to throw the discus" and she was on a large scholarship! She couldn't throw 80 feet! THIS IS INSANE!!!!

I'm sure its not this way in every program or at every school but it is more common than we'd all like to think.
Many of us have lost sight of the goals of title IX, many AD's are just concerned with the bottom line.

[Guest]

Re: A different take,

But...if an apparently worthy priniciple leads to such obvious evils, is that principle really worthy?

[Guest]

Re: A different take,

>> Many of our womens soccer players DONT LIKE TO PLAY SOCCER and smoke dope all the time>>

Man, like I smell a marriage proposal coming up. What school did you say you went to man?

[Guest]

Re: So much for Title IX increasing opportunities...

Title IX is bullcrap anyhow as it applies to college sports. It was driven by a bunch of men-hating women who want to stick it to the men. Sorry, but I thought I'd cut to the chase here. It is bull$hit. Women do not participate in sports in the numbers men do. They never will. Now, I think there was room for improvement. I'm happy that we have women's soccer in almost all colleges now. Softball too. But to expect equal numbers is crazy. Football never should have been included in the equation. Title IX has killed off many great men's programs: UCLA swimming and diving, Notre Dame wrestling, several baseball and track programs, etc.

[Guest]

Re: So much for Title IX increasing opportunities...

Agree with BV -- Title IX has really done much more harm than good.

The main result of Title IX is that there are about 250 awful D1 women's college basketball programs (from a total of about 300 or so); meanwhile, sports like wrestling and, yes, track and field have been cut for men.

I'm all for women having opportunities to play sports, but the fact is that the law (as it currently stands) is so rigid that it has led to all kinds of terrible and unintended consequences.

[gh]

Re: So much for Title IX increasing opportunities...

>Title IX is bullcrap anyhow as it applies to
>college sports. It was driven by a bunch of
>men-hating women who want to stick it to the men.>>

You're treading very close to the sexism line here; no more commentary like this please.

Title IX indeed sucks, but don't go misogynistic on us.

gh

[Guest]

Re: So much for Title IX increasing opportunities...

fact: the D1 school that my daughter goes to has an excellent track program with many nationally qualifying female athletes. But the track team has huge numbers (to fill Title IX requirements) because ANYONE can walk onto the team, get all the cool gear, call themselves a varsity athlete, and have absolutely no competitive abilities. They'll compete in a few home meets at a level commensurate with any average HS team, and the University gets credit for the female body. Title IX really is a joke.

[Skeets]

Re: So much for Title IX increasing opportunities...

There is a D-1 school in the East with a small number of female Track and Field athletes. In compliance meets the coach had soccer players and basketball players come to meets to fill out the roster. A scholarship distance runner that I had coached in high school said that she competed under different names in the same meet in the high jump and shot put. She called it "knocking the bar off" and "dropping the shot" knowing fully well that she could not even attempt to do those events. She said that the officials were disgusted at this travesty.

[Natasha]

Re: So much for Title IX increasing opportunities...

I'm really disturbed with what's being mentioned here. I really had no clue that American universities were doing this kind of thing. It sounds like the whole system is in desperate need of an overhaul. Another bad side effect of this is that the truly worthy female and male athletes in the smaller sports are brought down by these rules. There must be a better way to keep things fair and avoid this craziness.

[Guest]

Re: So much for Title IX increasing opportunities...

cut the insane number of scholarships football gets down to a reasonable number.