FanNation - The Republic of Sport

I think the idea behind title 9 was good, woman's sports should not be neglected however the application of title 9 is attrocious. Instead of raising up women's sports it has served to lower men's sports.

I found Deford's article more than a little insulting since he is basically saying most men are muscle-headed idiots incapable of qualifying for college based on intelligence alone.

Bemoaning a statistic showing that women are finally catching up with men in higher education (yet still not caught up in pay equity!) is ludicrous, but blaming dwindling sports funding on these numbers is simply daft. Say it with me: correlation is not causation!

Why can't boys compete for university spots on their own academic merit? Sorry, perhaps I have this wrong, but - isn't college about, um, LEARNING? If a boy (or a girl) wants to be a professional sports player, perhaps college isn't the right place for them. If, on the other hand, they want to increase their knowledge and become trained for a more scholarly profession, but they happen to also enjoy playing a bit of basketball on the side - well then, go to college, join the ballclub, but focus on COLLEGE.

It seems that Mr. Deford's concept of college is entirely misdirected, and his logic in this argument is sincerely lacking.

I am so fed up reading columns like this! It totally misrepresents the law and blames women's participation for a lack of institutional control of spending on men's revenue sports. Institutions DO NOT have to drop men's sports to come into compliance with Title IX. If they choose to do so, it's because they don't want to reapportion their spending in a more appropriate way. Much easier to blame Title IX (it's those **** women who want to play sports -- why can't they just stay home and learn to cook and clean?) than to stand up and say we'd rather spend our money on football and men's basketball, and because the law says we have to let women play (even if we don't want to), we are going to dump men's non-revenue sports. The rhetoric spewed in this column is legally indefensible! Before you start in on "those sports make money" -- if participation in college athletics is supposed to be about making money, then just dump the entire athletics program and only offer sports that can actually sustain themselves (no institutional subsidy) and run it as an entertainment entity rather than an extra curricular activity.

A school should have a right to only give scholarships to athletes that benefit the school and not to be bullied into giving freebies to either women or men athletics that do not benefit the school. Title IX is just another forced socialist welfare program that needs to end. I have a daughter. I wouldn't mind her getting a free ride athletic scholarship. If the welfare is there people will suck on the dole.

Title IX is bad law. Anytime a law is created that tries to create equity, rather than fairness, is just a recipe for something like this. This is Affirmative Action for college sports. The problem is not at all what Mr. Deford states, but rather that Title IX is a law that creates this ridiculous notion of equity in sports, rather than fairness. Yes, women should compete in sports if they so choose, but taking opportunities from someone is not what this country is about. I can pinpoint many male athletes who excel in the classroom, and would take real exception with what Frank states. His article is classic liberalism, giving Title IX credit for having good intentions, rather than producing anything worthwhile.

Two points: First, most of the discussion about Title IX revolves around sports. What many people don't realize is that Title IX affects *all* opportunities and activities on a college campus. Sports is arguably the least important part of this. Second, rather than declaring football to be somehow Different, just declare that revenue-producing sports don't count towards Title IX numbers.

Colleges and Universities should not be involved in sports. period. beyond club or intermural sports.
Leave entertainment to the professionals.
Tom LaGarde
UNC basketball 1977

I am a student at James Madison University, and as such, have pretty strong feelings about Title IX. While I am not an athlete, I have many friends who are being effected by Title IX, and it's simply not fair. Taking these sports away is not fair in any way to the athletes, the school, parents who support their athletes, or even the sport. Case in point is JMU's archery teams (mens and womens). Both teams were nationally ranked archery squads. We have sent many athletes to the Olympics to represent America in the archery competitions. Somehow, archery ended up on the cutting block because of Title IX. When news of this reached the archery coach at Arizona State (our biggest archery rival), the coach of ASU's squad wrote a letter to our school newspaper asking students to do all they can to save the sport. The coach compared archery at JMU to football at Ohio State or basketball at Duke. Taking archery away is a crime. Most of these archers came to JMU just to shoot arrows, and now they are going to transfer because of antiquated legislation, so not only does the school lose the team, but we also lose the bright and gifted students that were on the team. In addition, news of these cuts reach potential recruits for the few teams we have remaining, and it scares the recruits off, thinking they will not get a chance to fulfill their entire college careers at JMU. The law therefore effects the teams that remain, and the school as a whole. JMU is in a period of rapid growth, but it cannot grow properly if this law can scare away recruits that can only improve our teams. One last point of note is that JMU is cutting ten teams, but only seven are men's teams. Why are women's sports being cut if the goal is to level the balance between men and women? If we left those three women's teams alone, it might have been possible to save men's archery. The decision of which sports to cut fell on the administration, and for that they should receive the blame for the death of one of the premier archery teams in the country. However, the administration would not have had to make this decision if the laws regarding Title IX were changed. The only bright spot that came from this travesty was the support that the student body showed for the students and coaches effected by the law. A new organization, Save Our Sports, was born mere days after the ruling was announced, and has fought dilligently all year to try to change the minds of the administration. Unfortunately, the administration's hands are tied, and unless the law changes, JMU archery is dead, and JMU's track team will run independently next year.

When I was a public school teacher, I was always botheres by male atheletes who were basically not even average students getting scholarships. At the same time many of boys and girls who excelled in the classroom, in the arts, and in school clubs had to struggle to find financing for their college educations. That made me wonder, "What are colleges really for"?

Grassroots groups from all over the country have joined together in coalition that is working to reform Title IX enforcement policy. Our group includes athletes, parents, coaches and alumni. You can learn more at:

www.SavingSports.org

Jim McCarthy

Not only is Title IX bad law, it is a joke! A sad joke that has been played on men. Generally speaking women's sports are a joke. I would not walk across the street to watch a women's game of any sport, except maybe volleyball. Football SHOULD be taken out of the equation. It is totally a different animal. When men's sports are eliminated in favor of women's teams, something is terribly wrong. In some cases there is not even anything the college or anybody can do about it. They simply cannot find enough interested female athletes to fill out the ranks of various teams. I say repeal Title IX yesterday, not today. It is ridiculous!

My solution is to do away with separate men's and women's teams. What could be more fair than that? The best twelve basketball players would make the team, regardless of gender. This is equal opportunity writ large. Of course, this would virtually eliminate women from inter-collegiate athletics, but why is that a problem? Most male athletes (%99.99) are also eliminated for the same reason - they aren't skilled enough. Playing inter-collegiate sports isn't a constitutional right.

Some people are very misinformed. Title IX does not require schools to cut men's teams ever. It is not a quota system. I suggest you people visit this link to learn about what Title IX truly requires.

http://www.titleix.info/content.jsp?content_KEY=179

This point is particularly important:

Myth: Title IX requires quotas against men.

Fact: Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education programs, which means female students must have equal opportunities to participate in educational programs, including athletics. Because Title IX allows sports teams to be segregated by gender, schools themselves decide how many participation opportunities they will give female, as compared to male, students. Title IX does not in any way require quotas; it simply requires that schools allocate participation opportunities in a nondiscriminatory way.

A school can meet this requirement if it can demonstrate any one of the following:

that the percentages of male and female athletes are substantially proportionate to the percentages of male and female students enrolled; or
that it has a history and continuing practice of expanding athletic opportunities for the underrepresented sex;
or
that its athletics program fully and effectively accommodates the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex.

Myth: Courts and OCR only look at the numbers, which means Title IX is a quota.


Fact: Prong one is not a quota; it simply measures whether a school is providing equal participation opportunities. In any event, schools have three separate ways to meet Title IX's participation requirements. This test is both lenient and flexible, allowing schools to comply with Title IX even if they do not satisfy prong one.? And contrary to popular belief, schools do not always choose prong one. For example, between 1994 and 1998, of the 74 OCR cases involving Title IX's participation requirements, only 21 schools, or less than one-third, chose prong one as their means of compliance.

Deford, you've got to be kidding. If you were talking about blacks and whites here, you'd be drummed off the staff for being a racist. I am a woman who excelled in all sports. I played baseball with the boys in my class and was better than most of them, but was denied any chance to play Little League because "we don't take girls." In high school I was the leading scorer in field hockey AND took advanced placement classes in the classroom -- athletics and education are not mutually exclusive -- but I was denied any opportunity at a college scholarship because Title IX had been passed but hadn't yet been implemented when I went to college in 1975. Women deserve the same opportunities as men. Period. I do think the percentage rule is a bit bogus -- to me, if you've got a men's track team, have a women's track team, too. And vice versa. But your idea to eliminate all scholarships except in football and basketball again leaves women out in the cold -- unless, of course, they're 6'5" and can dunk. You're just another male who doesn't get it -- because the opportunities have always been there for you. You have no idea what it's like to look back on your life and wish you'd had a chance to do some of the things that women can do today.

I have to agree that the male students should study harder and keep up with the females. I for one feels that there is not going to be a solution that will make both sides of the argument content.

One thought that I have had and not liked by many is let the boosters and alumni fork over the money to pay the athletes. The universities are making money off of them, why not let them make have a piece of the pie to pay for there schooling. Then you could do away with athletic scholarships .

"Sterling", your bitterness toward men is only slightly veiled. Duford is "just another male [interesting how women can only be referrred to as "women" but men are always "males", like it's a disease] who doesn't get it." Maybe if you and so many Title IX supporters weren't always putting men on the defensive for simply being born with a **** there'd be less resistance to it.

Agree with everything you said.

As much as people don't want to acknowlege this fact, football and men's basketball are revenue generators for schools, while almost every other sport is a revenue loser. We can debate the specifics of why this is until the cows come home, but the bottom line is that these two sports are "different."

Now, the practical application of Title IX on the athletic field is that universities are forced to "choose" equal opportunities for both sexes, and that the "choice" is to keep revenue generating sports in place while cutting revenue losing sports such as archery. While sad, this "choice" is not really a choice when faced with supporting an athletic budget with football or allowing men the opportunity to participate in track, archery, etc.

In an era of constantly increasing tuition, schools are forced to generate revenue to subsidize all sorts of things...kind of like the chicken and the egg argument.

Bottom line is this: football (and probably football alone) should be exempt for what it brings in revenue-wise. Philosophically, college sports ARE business now, and not "extra-curriculars" - and the professional sports are encouraging it with the "one and done" or "two years out of high school" rules. Allow these kids opportunity to ply their craft at the next level, and those who cry that "school is for learning only" can be quiet. But when the "next Michael Jordan" is FORCED to go to college...don't cry that there's inequality in those sports. Every other major sport allows their players to come directly from high school without a bogus "education" requirement.

Let's face it, gender equality is not equality, it is inequality. Title IX makes it institutionalized inequality. When women are denied an opportunity to play on a men's team, they go runing for lawyers. What happens when a guy tries to go out for a girl's team? Ever wonder why men who can't make it in the NBA don't try out for the WNBA? Because, stupid, the WNBA is for girls only!! I like the idea of getting rid of all athletic scholarships. Making colleges the minor leagues for football and basketball defeats the whole purpose of higher education.

I am an advocate of sports and do support the arts. In college I competed in men's track and today, I umpire women's lacrosse. It is a travesty to be cutting sports to come in compliance with Title IX. It was never intended to cause a decrease in men's sports. Moving football to a separate category does have merits, but the whole Title IX needs to be reviewed. I don't think any sport should be cut as a result of Title IX, only cut for lack of participation. Is there a good solution? Probably, I just don't know the answer right now. I do know that cutting opportunities for men or women, in sports or the arts is not the right thing to do.