Female equility,

[Niceguy4186]

This is a spin off of the babe fencing topics, but last night i saw a story on 60 minutes or something like that about woman and equility in college sports. I was wondering what everybody thought? Do you think there should be one female athlete for every male athlete?

[Peach]

I think colleges ought to get a grip about the number of athletes and amount of money they spend on football, which is one main reason Title 9 is a problem for male athletes. They could keep all the programs like wrestling and gymnastics (and fencing) for men if they weren't so hyped on football. (ducking and covering) (yes, I know football is religion. I just don't happen to like it much). Another reason is that colleges would rather cut a men's program than add a women's program.

I could be prejudiced, because my daughter, a fencer and rugby player (who at one point also did crew), is a serious athlete in college. When I was her age, girls weren't encouraged to be athletes, to say the least.

[JEC]

What title IX ignores is what all athletic dept administrators know well. Some sports (Football and Basketball) bring huge revenues to help pay for the facilities of non-revenue sports such as fencing. Revenue sports should have some form of exemption IF, and only IF, they support scholarships in the non-revenue sports. A formula that might work could be one revenue scholarship exempted for two non-revenue scholarships given in a 2:3 ratio favoring the other sex than the exemption over three years (Some women's BB programs might bring more than their male counterpart).

[epeemike81]

When the Brown Title IX decision came down, schools DID add a lot of women's programs to try to balance the mens. This is how many schools ended up with women's fencing as varsity and mens as club. However, at this time, the athletic departments have achieved a tenuous balance. the problem is that whenever programs need to be cut, they cut more to balance it, and they are hesitant to EVER add programs, due to the hassles of Title IX.

-m

[epeemike81]

Originally posted by JEC
What title IX ignores is what all athletic dept administrators know well. Some sports (Football and Basketball) bring huge revenues to help pay for the facilities of non-revenue sports such as fencing. Revenue sports should have some form of exemption IF, and only IF, they support scholarships in the non-revenue sports. A formula that might work could be one revenue scholarship exempted for two non-revenue scholarships given in a 2:3 ratio favoring the other sex than the exemption over three years (Some women's BB programs might bring more than their male counterpart).

yeah, but the problem is the MYTH of revenue programs. At UMass, for example, they pump TONS of resources into the Football and Basketball programs for just the reasons you were talking about. Problem is, they both lose money. Last year the football team lost $2.6 million.

-m

[achilleus]

Another complicating factor is the sheer desire of women to play sports at that level.

Universities have found that women who don't receive scholarships for their sport, have a high rate of dropping their sport in college (at a NCAA competitve level). The men's teams have more walk-ons than they can accept, but on women's teams, they have to recruit on campus to get a full roster.

So, now we have the opposite problem. Lots of opportunities, but very few takers...

That's one of the chief arguments of the people against title 9.

[edew]

What a lot of people don't realize is that the revenue that football and basketball programs make do not go back directly to the university. It goes to feed the voracious appetite of the athletic department. At the same time, the athletic department continues to drain the college in terms of using scholarships, in terms of using facilities (stadiums and such as paid by the general university funds, but the income derived from sports held at said stadiums go to the athletic department, who then gets to pay coaches and assistant coaches the millions of $$ that professors don't ever see), in terms of using academic benefits like tutoring centers, etc.

If the athletic department is willing to include their income/expsnse statements as part of the college/university, you'll quickly see that the big sports, specifically football, will be wiped out. Minor sports like fencing do very little to the budgets of most universities.

When I was in college, at UCSB, we didn't have a football program, because of two reasons: it was not so popular (couldn't recruit top players and no one was interested in watching it) and it was a financial drain.

[JEC]

True, in some places Football is a drain on financial resources. However, I have been/am faculty at the Univ. of Wisconsin, Colorado, and Texas system, and attended Duke, and all those 4 schools have profitable athletic programs. There is no question that some universities would never have a good football program. Not to long ago I read an ad for MIT showing a football player and a sign that read (or something to that effect):
Heisman's trophy winners=0
Nobel prizes = 58

The amount of money associated with FB/BB is enormous in the big 6 conferences. If NCAA wants to really give something to student athletes, it should begin by putting an incentive for "exempt" scholarships that truly pay for other athletic scholarships of non-revenue sports. Univ. would not have to use exempt scholarships if they don't want, but it will certainly re-direct a bunch of money that goes for things like recarpeting the football/BB lockers every year, and supporting track, fencing, etc.

[Moonitic]

I'm soooo not going to get into this! I'm dealing with it on a high school level right now. Our athletic director is a...won't say it. He's also boy's basketball coach. Even though color guard isn't considered a "sport" (lol...try twirling a wet, heavy & much bigger flag than you in the rain!), we fall under the athletic department's guidelines (bizarre!).

It comes down to this: All hail the almight dollar!

[Crin Dalmeiier]

Your colorguard actually fits the guidelines for being considered a sport? Really? My school is trying to ignore the fact that the colorguard exists. They need new flats, and the school is not even providing that much. I mean, a hundred bucks for new flats isn't that much, in the grand perspective. but, unfortunately, the high school has a five-star cheerleading squad (State Champs, two years in a row! Whoop-de-doo. Now everybody graduated, where's my school now?) and a football team capable of making the play-offs.

What's sad is that we have the 'guard moms buying and sewing material for flags.

Gender equality in athletes is hard to maintain, they say. I'll agree that statistics-wise, this is true. However, whenever I walk into the rec center to work out, the population of females is higher there. You get the big money-spending things like Football and Basketball going, but you also have the people who return to the track day after day, religiously.

Also, intramurals are popular at a college level. Combined with the professional, sponsored-by-the-school sports, I think the numbers are more balanced out. I'm just in the school of belief that the professional sports offered men are more obvious to the public, as mentioned before. We're fighting back, trust me, but we're going the sensible way to do so.

[Swordsman]

First of all: Colorguard peoples is cool. I could never (and would never want to) do colorguard myself, but I can certainly appreciate the effort, practice, etc. that goes into the activity, and definitely enjoy watching them. It's also a big equalizer - think of Larya from Fantasy Land on colorguard. Well, her real-life counterpart is!!

Now, on to Title IX:

A classic example of a law that looks good in principle, but doesn't work in application, and then people are too afraid to repeal because they might look sexist, racist, stingy, etc.

I completely agree with a law that keeps athletic departments from discriminating against girls; however, it's also an undeniable fact that more males are interested in sports than are females. So why should male sports suffer for lack of interest on the part of females? Even female sports suffer. My sister was captain of a soccer team, and had to deal with some of the meanest, laziest, foulest, and most malicious girls around. Why? Because they couldn't kick them off the team for offenses that would get any male kicked off in an instant. Why not? Because then they wouldn't have a team. And that would violate Title IX, because then there would be one less female team.

The thing they should have done should have been to require schools to OFFER the same number of male and female teams. If enough females aren't interested to fill out one of those teams, can the school be held responsible for that? The same goes for affirmative action programs, scholarships, etc. It sucks to be a middle-class white guy right now.

[Moonitic]

Go fig...I'm a former guardie myself!

Anyhoo...

Apparently, all of marching band is now considered a "sport" & falls in line with the guidelines of the athletic department (I guess it's because they play at sporting events like football games...we use their venues to "do our thing"). When this came to be, I do not know! We rely heavily on fundraisers, but thankfully we have the band boosters that help us out too.

As far as the male/female thing goes, I'm all for equality! Both sides of the sex fence work just as hard, & deserve the respect & recognition that both should receive. Doesn't matter if you wear a cup or BP's!

Or don't, but that's an entirely different debate.

[epeemike81]

Originally posted by JEC
True, in some places Football is a drain on financial resources. However, I have been/am faculty at the Univ. of Wisconsin, Colorado, and Texas system, and attended Duke, and all those 4 schools have profitable athletic programs. There is no question that some universities would never have a good football program. Not to long ago I read an ad for MIT showing a football player and a sign that read (or something to that effect):
Heisman's trophy winners=0
Nobel prizes = 58

The amount of money associated with FB/BB is enormous in the big 6 conferences. If NCAA wants to really give something to student athletes, it should begin by putting an incentive for "exempt" scholarships that truly pay for other athletic scholarships of non-revenue sports. Univ. would not have to use exempt scholarships if they don't want, but it will certainly re-direct a bunch of money that goes for things like recarpeting the football/BB lockers every year, and supporting track, fencing, etc.

The schools you cite are all div 1A programs. true, at Div. 1A schools, those are profitable. At most schools, however, they are not.

-m

[Swordsman]

Originally posted by Moonitic
Go fig...I'm a former guardie myself!

Anyhoo...

Apparently, all of marching band is now considered a "sport" & falls in line with the guidelines of the athletic department (I guess it's because they play at sporting events like football games...we use their venues to "do our thing"). When this came to be, I do not know! We rely heavily on fundraisers, but thankfully we have the band boosters that help us out too.

As far as the male/female thing goes, I'm all for equality! Both sides of the sex fence work just as hard, & deserve the respect & recognition that both should receive. Doesn't matter if you wear a cup or BP's!

Or don't, but that's an entirely different debate.

Equal opportunity is great. Enforced equality, however, is what Communism is all about. Not everything in nature is equal, and that includes male vs. female interest in sports. People shouldn't try to make them equal.

As for band as a sport: I'm rather against people at school getting varsity letters for band, as well as for "Saturday Scholars", a scholastic program that consists of five Saturdays of seminars, etc. I'm even more against the Saturday Scholars, since no achievment is necessary - only attendance. I don't mind recognition for band; I just think it should be separate from varsity letters, which are usually associated with athletic sports. After all, do cheerleaders letter?

Like I said, I don't really agree with letters for band. I have no problems with it being considered a sport, though, because that opens the door for one more male sport in a school unfortunately hindered by the misuse of Title IX (as all public schools are). Hockey can exist only as a club here! How sad is it if you can letter in something that the school can't even officially recognize as a sport?

[Crin Dalmeiier]

Like I said, I don't really agree with letters for band. I have no problems with it being considered a sport, though, because that opens the door for one more male sport in a school unfortunately hindered by the misuse of Title IX (as all public schools are). Hockey can exist only as a club here! How sad is it if you can letter in something that the school can't even officially recognize as a sport?

</a bit off topic> well, Sword, I know you're out there running at four in the morning, so this is the wrong person to tell this to, but I got up early all through my high school career and listened to Malv lecture. If Triad's too cheap to buy band students something beyond a letter, I'm taking the bloody letter just to show that I survived! Besides, we get plaques, and instrument pins, and lovely little oddities like that. I lettered in soccer at my other school; I want something to show for band, darnit. I think cheerleaders letter at Triad.

Other schools have actual hockey teams. It's just Triad that doesn't. I heard once that it was because the school didn't see a big enough league, or whatever. The hockey players are a lot better than the football players.

</on topic> And the enforced equality is communism. You're right. Also, it's not exactly fair tot he students. The only sport I was relatively good at was soccer, but like your sister, I ran into the problem of a very witchy team. Other people have my problem, so wouldn't we be acting an unknown hindrance to the males that want to play, but cannot since the balance is off? Everybody gets the raw end of the deal...

[Purple Fencer]

Band not a sport? With all the high school that doa drum corps style show -- and blatantly steal from the top corps like Cavaliers, Santa Clara Vanguard and (my alma mater) Blue Devils -- it most certainly IS!! YOU try carrying a set of tenor drums around the field for a 11 minute show...they only weight about 50 lbs!

Hell, I marched cymbals in the Hollywood X-Mas parade yesterday (as a member of the Impulse Drum & Bugle Corps...watch for me in the cymbal line...nice yellow uniform tops with a big black exclamation point on the front! I'll be the one with the goatee in the middle of the line)...slapping 20" cymbals around for three miles (we played almost constantly)...I'm STILL feeling it in my biceps!

[lochinvar]

Originally posted by epeemike81
The schools you cite are all div 1A programs. true, at Div. 1A schools, those are profitable. At most schools, however, they are not.

-m

Nor are they profitable at all Div 1A schools.

It is not uncommon for the University of Michigan football program to run a deficit. Not in all years, granted, but often enough to make the local newspapers. (I live in Ann Arbor).

Several years ago, during the waning years of Bo Schembechler's reign as football coach, U of M's then-president James Duderstadt launched a bold initiative for the university presidents to recapture control of the NCAA from athletic directors and coaches—and was nearly handed his head by the university regents.

Though the effort failed for lack of a second it was nonetheless noteworthy for its courage and its clarion call to adhere to principal instead of convenience.

The so-called "money sports" bring nothing of real value to any school. At best they are raucous distractions from the true work of the institution, which is extending the boundaries of human knowledge and producing educated graduates. At worst they are cesspools of cynicism and hypocrisy, as exemplified by the sordid litany of schools fined, disciplined, and/or suspended every year for blatant disregard of the alleged "amateur" status of these sports. (For an example of the latter, we need look no further than the recent scandal concerning the U of M's "Fab Five" basketball stars that took the NCAA championship in public... and took money, cars, and special favors from 'boosters' in private.)

Yes, Title IX is a mess. As Swordsman and others have pointed out, it attempts to enforce equality of numbers instead of equality of opportunity. It doesn't work as intended, it will never work as intended, and yet it will not be repealed or changed because the powers that put it in place are afraid of the public backlash if they did so.

But in reality, Title IX is just another symptom of the rotting sickness that collegiate athletics has become. Until the "big money" sports are banned from the campus--something I don't expect to see in my lifetime--the circus will continue. No one wants to be the first to point out that the Emperor has no clothes.

And we can expect to see even more "social engineering" in future trying to solve problems that wouldn't be problems if they'd simply face reality and cauterize the infection.

[Catlady]

If you think color guard gets no respect, try being part of the drama program. My high school had a very good one, but got almost zero support from the administration. Being in a play, even a small part, often involved going straight to rehearsal after school at approximately 2:10 and not getting finished until 9. During tech week-- the week before the production opens, which involves running through all the lighting and sound cues, which involved some presence of the actors on stage, and various dress rehearsal, as well as a bit of general wide spread panic-- things often went on until mid night. I usually had small parts, the directors, people with lead parts, and tech guys--sometimes one person fit into multiple categories, such as an actor who also did a lot of the set painting-- had it worse. There was generally very little sleep to be had immediately before and during productions. In the case of my school too, we were not doing the easy--and frankly often cheesy-- typical high school productions. I was not in this play, but the department did Brecht's " A good Person of Szechuan", which is considered incredibly difficult, the year I was most heavily involved, we did short plays by Moliere, and Ianesco (specifically, The Bald Soprano, which is very absurdist and very difficult), Diary of Anne Frank--okay, so that's a bit more typical--, a series of student, written, acted and directed one-acts (and this may sound terrible, but these were good plays, this was stated by a newspaper theater critic, and it was for a long time a unique program in the state, many students who participated in this program went on to be prominent in the state theater scene, and to have theater careers in other states), a series of scenes from selected plays--this was to give the beginning classes performance experience, and the advanced classes did the same scenes every night. However the beginning classes did different scenes, so there were roughly five scenes that were different each night, so as you might guess even though they the scenery was minimal and easily adapted to different things, the tech guys had a lot of work to do as far as learning and remembering cues. There was also a musical, How to Suceed in Business (Without really trying). Granted the musicals were more traditional. Not to mention the selection is limited because since theater was not considered "manly" in the school I attended, there were a lot of women and few men, so finding plays whose casts were mostly female, or where you could get a way with either having a female play a male, or change the character's gender to male was difficult. And if you make the decision to change the genders of character you can get in copyright trouble, so that is not really advised. The poor theater teacher essentially sacrificed all vestiges of a normal life to make the plays run smoothly, and put on quality productions, and make sure that we really learned and got virtually now respect for that either.

I know the band went through the same thing, as did dance and the choral groups--though to a lesser extent because it was cool among the popular kids to participate in A'cappella as it was called. The creative writing department also got minimal respect. For quite a while they consistent won national awards for the magazine they produced at year end. The fact that they won fewer awards around the time I graduated was due to better competition, especially from private schools where the parents, under the assumption that the pubic schools were benefitting from state funding, poured tons of money into the program allowing for higher production values, and because other schools got tired of losing all the time, rather than a decline in our quality. It was a very rigorous program. Significant amounts of poetry in various forms, villanelle, sestina, haiku, senryu, and many others as well as free verse, in the first quarter, a complete short-story, usually of high quality, in the second quarter, a short play, to run approximately 15 minutes, the third quarter, and some kind of anthology/portfolio type project for the fourth quarter. Maybe this is typical elsewhere, but I met many people in my creative writing courses in college who had no where near this much training and suffered for it.

Yes, none of these are sports--though at my school you could earn the block "E" award, which was somewhat like getting a letter for enough involvement in extra-curricular activities-- but despite the hours that were put into them and the dedication of the participants these activities got neither the support, or the funding that football and basketball did. For the record, most of the people who were truly active in drama, creative writing, and band got very good grades--I say truly active because there were some slackers in drama, but they usually were not the people who were involved in the productions. The football player, for instance, would get consideration for the effort they put into participation, and yes I acknowledge that they do have to put in effort, as do the flag people and others-- but the people who had been up until oh-dark-thirty trying to do the magazine layout, or running tech, or acting, or preparing to run tech, or act in theater productions did not.

I'm sorry this is immensely a sore issue for me. At least where I am, the drill team got an article in the local paper outlining how hard they really work. In contrast, the student play program I was talking about was celebrating its 25th anniversary my senior year, and local media was informed, we got one theater critic, who was pleasantly suprised. BTW it should not be comiing up on its 35th anniversary--just revealed how old I am, and yes I'm mortified that it's been ten years-- this spring, I doubt they'll get any coverage for that either.

Also BTW the football team was terrible to a degree I cannot express. For several years they did not win a single game, as a matter of fact they were named one of the worst teams in the nation by Sports Illustrated because the no-win streak was so long, yet they had tons of money poured into their program. The parents wouldn't have it any other way. I guess 2 + 2 = football. Sometime, on a related note I'll have to tell you about the red headed step-child of my University, the humanities department, which I was also a part of.

[Catlady]

I'm just going to do another post, rather than try to edit that monster I just created--that can't be good for the prospects of someone reading it all I guess The donors to producing the lit. mag were: the parents of various editors, past editors who could afford it, and the ocassional parent of past editors. So it's the same as the "guard moms" there. This reminds me, I need to drop a line and send a check, but I'm broke. The theater parents weren't directly involved often, unless you count rides to and from rehearsals and performances, and the way we raided their homes, not to mention the teacher's home, for props. Still, it was a do it yourself effort for the most part. Not that I'm saying that we're better than anyone else, but just pointing out more inequality.

And, yes football usually runs a deficit, and I'm sure someone will contradict me, but how many football players have a truly rigorous major? Granted there are one or two a