<p>I think this tv episode says it the best. The way Title IX is enforced is crazy and needs to be relooked at. To many sports are being cut. </p>
<p>The clip is about 10 minutes long but worth it. I had the pleasure of meeting the Leo Kocher (head wrestling coach at University of Chicago) who thinks Title IX is overstepping its bounds. He has a lot of passion for the subject.</p>
<p>I have never - EVER - met a female coach, in any sport, who thought that Title IX was "overstepping its bounds". Not one. (I'm sure there's one out there - it's a big country - but I haven't met any.)</p>
<p>Title IX has never shut down a single sport of any kind. Decisions are made, usually by white male administrators (almost never by women), simply that football or wrestling or whatever are simply not valuable enough to the school to be worth the investment in women's sports in order to keep them.</p>
<p>...........Title IX has never shut down a single sport of any kind. Decisions are made, usually by white male administrators (almost never by women), simply that football or wrestling or whatever are simply not valuable enough to the school to be worth the investment in women's sports in order to keep them........</p>
<p>I agree with you MINI - Title IX just forced the issue and decisions to be made to come into compliance with it.</p>
<p>Have either of you watched the video from the link??? Some of the stuff in the video makes you think how can they do that... </p>
<p>I believe the men coaches in the video imply that is overstepping its boundaries. They don't say it exactly. I don't want to speak for the coaches. Just hear what they have to say in the video.</p>
<p>Video seen - and the male coach is ... well - wrong - plain and simple - tho I honestly have to say the lady lawyer is a bit much as well. Tho the ''how can they do that'' is the law - and yes has benefited female athletes tremendously over the years - which has not benefited male athletes in many cases - but has leveled the playing field alot since Title IX inception.</p>
<p>So tell me, where are the softball parents at for that particular school? Oh wait, they're busy suing the school board. STUPID.</p>
<p>Also, it talks about how there are "equal" numbers of girls and boys interested in sports. So I'm going to use my high school as an example..</p>
<p>Waterloo High School has approx 950 students.
Girls Basketball program: 20 players come out for the team total freshmen thru senior.
Boys Basketball program: 40 players come out for the team total.</p>
<p>Girls keep 20 players in their program. Boys keep about 32. Sounds like the girls must be getting the shaft huh? But if the girls don't come out, it's hard for the school to keep their numbers in the girls program even close to that of the boys! And you tell me that the boys program should be cut down to come close to equalizing the "opportunities" between genders?!?!?</p>
<p>Next example:
Boys Baseball: 56 show up for tryouts freshmen thru senior.
Girls softball: 14 total.</p>
<p>We're not talking about who makes the team after a cut.. we're talking about the number of bodies that SHOW UP for a particular sport!!!</p>
<p>How can you tell me that Girls and Boys have the same percentage of interest in sports?!?!?!?</p>
<p>Look, contrary to what you'll believe, I'm a big supporter of female sports. I have three older sisters. The oldest played volleyball and softball winning Regional Championships and maybe a Sectional Championship in both sports. The 2nd one was on the Dance Team (all girls BTW). The 3rd one was a Cheerleader and played volleyball.</p>
<p>I believe Title IX has been blown out of the waters. Part of that goes along with the fact that our country has become a zoo where everyone expects the world to revolve around them.</p>
<p>Case in Point:
Can anybody name a Division I women's rugby team? Come on?</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>Can anybody name a Division I women's rugby team? Come on?<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Eastern Illinois University.</p>
<p>coureur, you are correct. That is the ONLY women's rugby team considered Division I. That makes sense, doesn't it?</p>
<p>^Rugby isn't a popular sport in the US, there are a preponderance of CLUB rugby teams for women though.</p>
<p>Also, hops_scout, the situation at your school in not the same situation at other schools. My school had an equal number of boys and girls going out for sports, especially because most sports (soccer, basketball, lacrosse) had teams for both boys and girls. The only slight difference may have caused by football, but was, in many ways, eliminated by the presence of a women's crew team.</p>
<p>Is Title IX fair to the students whose sports are cut? Of course not. But that is an issue to take up with the administration of a given school NOT with the law. Most schools are able to support a football team under title IX. After title IX was passed some schools funneled money into new women's teams. A school in Arizona dug their own lake for a women's crew team and then offered full scholarships to any and all rowers who would commit.</p>
<p>And that report is DISGUSTINGLY sexist and the facts are twisted. It is biased reporting and truly depressing.</p>
<p>ses, sure there's a great deal of club rugby teams and EIU plays them I know. So why isn't EIU a club team as well? Because when EIU started the rugby program there it needed the women's sport.</p>
<p>Really, in my opinion, there are a few sports that shouldn't count towards the Title IX stuff... football, wrestling, and cheerleading should not be factored. Why? Because in all reality, those sports are available to both, it's just that not many females have an interest in football or wrestling.</p>
<p>Cheerleading is coed at many schools. In order to do the most impressive stunts you need a significant number of boys on the team.</p>
<p>According to your logic, we should also factor out Field Hockey and Gymnastics because only girls are interested.</p>
<p>As long as a school is willing to dedicate the same amount of FUNDING to programs for both sexes, then usually it isn't a problem. But with football teams that have 100+ bodies on the roster and field hockey teams that only have 25, it becomes a problem.</p>
<p>The truth is that MOST schools never even consider cutting their football teams. Anywhere that has a decent alumni network wouldn't allow it. INSTEAD they create new teams-crew, fencing, gymnastics, etc-for girls in order to allow them to keep their programs.</p>
<p>The law isn't flawed but how institutions are choosing to comply with it is.</p>
<p>No... I doubt that it would be allowed for a male to join a Girls Field Hockey team. But, on the other hand, girls would be allowed to join a football or wrestling team provided they can make the cut.</p>
<p>The law is flawed and institutions are messing some things up because they are afraid of lawsuits. A lawyer is allowed to charge $1000/hr when she normally charges $150/hr? I'll bet if she loses and the institution wins, their lawyers can't charge $1000/hr...</p>
<p>^Boys can join field hockey teams. And, actually, outside of the US field hockey is a sport played by mostly males.</p>
<p>Lawyers can charge whatever they want, unfortunately. And the ACLU uses their fees to cover the costs of other pro bono work that they do. </p>
<p>However, this is not a discussion of the ethics of lawyers' billing practices.</p>
<p>............No... I doubt that it would be allowed for a male to join a Girls Field Hockey team. But, on the other hand, girls would be allowed to join a football or wrestling team provided they can make the cut..........</p>
<p>Boys are allowed to play field hockey - under the law a schools cannot discriminate - if there is not an 'equal' sport for the boys - then they can play - alot of people don't like that idea at all - when my gal was in high school - the next town over had a boy on the field hockey team - he was an awesome player - tho took alot of abuse along the way - he is now on the US National Team!! :) - and hopefully headed for the Olympics :D</p>
<p>And there have been gals on college football teams - not many - but a couple - one that I recall in the past couple of years is a kicker :)</p>
<p>That video is not a good example or explaination of what Title IX really represents.</p>
<p>Many schools who attempt to come into compliance with Title IX (especially those with football teams) have difficult choices to make - to add girls teams - or to cut guys teams - and it is not up to coaches to make those decisions - it is up to the administration to do so. Of course coaches would be upset if their team is cut - it is the loss of a coaches job as well.</p>
<p>The only thing I would like to see is the women's sports advocates put a little more $$$ where their mouths are. They talk talk talk but when it comes time to raise $$$ to fund sports they seem very silent. If they were as aggressive in fundraising as they are in advocacy there still might be some wrestling teams.</p>
<p>Hops-scout, you could hardly have picked a worse example than rugby. There are no Div. 1 men's rugby teams at all. The reason that there's a handful of women's NCAA rugby teams is because NCAA just started the process of sanctioning rugby as a women's sport two years ago. (Men's rugby competes outside of NCAA.) And they did that because there's over 350 women's rugby teams which were organized by college women, on their own, just for the opportunity to play. How does that fit into your "Girls don't want to play sports" riff? Do you think we'd have had 350 self-organized and funded women's rugby teams in 2006 if we hadn't had Title IX working for them since they were little kids?</p>
<p>My son was the captain of his high school wrestling team. He placed fifth in his weight class in Northern California, and he loved the sport. Of course, there were no NCAA programs available to him at any college he was interested in attending. But he could have competed in club wrestling - he just elected not to. I don't think he got screwed by Title IX - and I've heard all of the caterwauling from the wrestling boosters for years. Here's the thing: unlike football, you don't need a huge investment in facilities for wrestling. Some mats and some gym time, and you're good to go. You need some money for refs for meets, and, f desired, for coaches, although volunteers are frequently available and willing to help out. (The wrestling fraternity is an awesome group, in my experience.) So Title IX might have provided an excuse for some tight-fisted colleges to cut sports, but that doesn't mean wrestling was eliminated. It just meant that the wrestlers needed to want to compete badly enough to undertake the effort to get organized and handle their team themselves (as many have, I'd note - club wrestling is also big.) Of course that means no scholarships; no one will pay you to attend college just because you're a good wrestler - but I for one don't consider that to be a bad thing.</p>
<p>And as to your high school sports? My kids' school cuts dozens of girls who try out for soccer, and no football players. They also cut more softball players than baseball players. I don't know about other sports.</p>
<p>barrons, you make a good point there. That was one big thing I saw in that video. Those softball players and their parents were suing because baseball parents and the coach raised money and DID THE WORK THEMSELVES. But the softball team doesn't have the same kind of parental support therefore they don't have near the stuff that the baseball team did.</p>
<p>kluge, we posted at about the same time....</p>
<p>"I believe Title IX has been blown out of the waters. Part of that goes along with the fact that our country has become a zoo where everyone expects the world to revolve around them."</p>
<p>That is why I started with the rugby. Unless teams have been added recently, Eastern Illinois University is still the ONLY Division I rugby team. Which means they have to compete against schools at a different level, but are still considered Division I. That way they count as a female sport that is supported by the University. That doesn't make any sense to me.</p>
<p>One of the more ironic outcomes of Title IX is the schools often least associated with college sports, DIII schools and DI schools like the IVY and Patriot League shools, now typically have way more varsity programs than most "big-time" sports schools like the SEC or Big-12 schools.</p>
<p>The DIII schools have been able to absorb all the women's teams into their low-cost sports programs without cutting into their men's programs. Check out the IVY league or NESCAC leagues schools, for example, and they have 30+ varsity sports virtually evenly split between men and women. Even worse these schools all have football programs that lose money ... so how did they manage to keep virtually all their men's teams and keep all those women's teams. The schools decided it was an institutional priority.</p>
<p>At the same time a bunch of the "big-time" sports schools have maintained the men's programs that make money or come close and whacked the crap out of non-revenue sports like wrestling, track, and gymnastics ... and adding just enough women's sports to even out the male participants in football and basketball. If schools generating almost no income from sports can maintain 30+ teams how did Title IX cause the cut of men's team? TO me it sure seems like a very conscious institutional decision.</p>
<p>Hops_scout, the NCAA process which was initiated in 2004 involves convincing rugby teams to elect to become sanctioned by NCAA. There's a serious debate in rugby circles as to whether that's a good idea. If 40 teams sign up within ten years it will become an official NCAA sport - which it isn't yet. There are lots of top women's rugby teams; they just aren't "Div. 1" because they haven't elected to affiliate with NCAA at this time. Go to usarugby.org to see the top women's collegiate teams. "Div. 1" has nothing to do with it.</p>