Is there a comprehensive thread for gymnastics recruiting? The rules are rapidly changing and would be interested to discuss with other parents/gymnasts currently involved in the process.
Have you tried the Chalk Bucket forums?
There isn’t a gymnastics thread. It would be great to see one. Having just been through it, additional advice is never a bad thing.
My daughter was a 2016 recruit. I’m curious as to how the rules are changing?
I suspect there may be confusion around the change in the recruiting activities timeline (ex. when unofficial visits can be taken, when coaches can call). Even though the NLI “Plan” rule has been in effect for a few years, I believe there is still confusion about that as well.
I’ll just add as a parent of a L10 USA JO Natl BOYS Champ that it’s a short list…like 12 schools incl Service Academices. Title IX ruined something good. When UCLA, whose home LA hosted the 1984 Olympics and 4 UCLA men were on that squad and they drop Men’s Gym (like 20 years ago), something is rotten in Denmark. Thank you NCAA D1 Football.
@bigfandave It sounds like unfortunately, there will be one less female and male program with UIC announcing today this season would be the last for both. Tough times for college gymnastics.
My S has two former teammates there and one at Iowa. 1 just went there last year and 1 the year before. Good thing my S switched to pole vault a couple years ago. The USAG Nasseracre surely is a huge overhang and dark cloud by association. Poor boys. And in this case, poor boys AND girls.
I disagree that Title IX is to blame, and football isn’t at fault for everything. U of Denver doesn’t even have footfall but has women’s gymnastics but not men’s.
If a D1 school wants to have 85 football scholarships, they have to have an equitable number of women’s scholarships available in other sports. How many scholarship were there in gymnastics before Title IX?
While football isn’t at fault for everything, it can become a large factor in determining which women’s sports a D1 school may choose to invest in. It might be better from a numbers perspective to invest in a women’s rowing team than a gymnastics team. I readily admit, however, gymnastics has a host of other challenges that make it a sport easier to cut than others: costs, not enough good L10s in the pipeline to make more schools competitive.
But no, Title IX isn’t to blame for any of that.
The issue is not scholarships. The ENTIRE programs were and are cut. University of Illinois just cut Both men’s and women’s team two days ago. Many peer reviewed published papers have documented the misuse of Title IX. And yes, it is because of money, money that stems from NCAA D1 football. Now colleges are having problems filling their 100K seat stadiums and paying their coaches on the carousel $500K/yr. Finally, some people are realizing how divergent concussion and education are.
And Title IX doesn’t only require that scholarships be equal but opportunities. If a school has even enrollment of men and women, the number of opportunities to play sports should be about equal for men and women, the amount of money spent on the teams should be about equal.
Almost 10 years ago, Cal announced they were eliminating 5 sports, some male (baseball) some female (lacrosse). There was a big uproar and I know at least the lacrosse team was kept. Lacrosse itself isn’t that expensive, but the travel was killing them. At the time the Pac 12 didn’t have that many teams so the lacrosse team had to travel to the east coast to play a lot of games. Now there are 6 teams in the Pac 12.
Things change, schools add and drop sports to reflect what their students and alums want. My daughter benefited from her college adding football as they then had to add women’s sports to offset the scholarships/opportunities for the football team. They added women’s lacrosse.
I would really hope this doesn’t devolve into a political discussion of Title IX. Plus this is a settled question both factually and policy wise. Before Title IX, there were far fewer women’s varsity sports in college, and far more men’s. That imbalance has changed. You can make a credible argument about whether this is a good or bad thing, based on participation rates, interest, etc. But the fact is that Title IX exists, it has for a long time and it likely will exist into the indefinite future.
I think a credible argument can also be made that smaller men’s sports were indirectly harmed as the result of Title IX because football really distorts the picture. There are simply no other sports which require the level of scholarships or funding that football does. So it really puts athletic departments in a bind. The problem is that most of these schools need football. In D1, and accounting gimmicks aside, football either makes money outright for the athletic department or at least contributes to reducing the athletic department’s shortfall in running the other sports. Then too, the facilities required for football; training rooms, weight rooms, stadium, practice field, equipment rooms, etc can be used at a very low cost by a lot of other sports. So dumping football, on monetary as opposed to “ethical” grounds, is a risky proposition if you intend to have a decently sized athletic program. It is a pickle.
Personally, I have always thought that football should be pulled from the Title IX equation, at least in the FBS, because I think it is truly a different animal than other collegiate sports. But quite honestly that would probably do more to eliminate women’s lax and crew teams than it would work to increase funding for things like gymnastics or my own personal favorite, wrestling.
I think it is sad that so many men’s sports are being eliminated because the schools just can’t afford them anymore. It seems like several schools have eliminated swim teams recently.
Daughter was recruited to Presbyterian, the smallest D1 school there is. I asked the coach about funding and she said the women’s teams were all safe because they have football. Well… now they are in the Pioneer league, so will be dropping the scholarships for football. I fear the women’s sports are at risk. I think a better solution would have been to switch to D2, but no one asked me.
It is a pickle for sure. And I don’t see an easy/“fair” way out.
Back to the OP, while the NCAA rules changed, the timeline of verbal offers has not (which was one of the aims of moving the unofficial visit date). I suspect short of the rule changing to no contact at all, directly or indirectly, until September 1st of junior year, that will not change.
you’re right, it doesn’t prevent all the early verbal offers. But compared to this time last year, many of the top programs had already verbally committed their recruits for the class of 2021. So far this year, there has only been a few 2022 commitment (7 or so).
@twoinanddone it’s not a scholarship issue. There are only 12 NCAA men’s programs nationwide…all due to Title IX, which is a direct knee jerk reaction to Football, and the money hounds.