Should Title IX be modified or stay in it's present form?

[blockski]

Re: Should Title IX be modified or stay in it's present form?

"Profits on the back of scholarship labor?" What are you, an organizer for the IWW?

Apparently I did a fly-by.

My hypothesis is simple - Title IX is not nearly as big of an issue (regarding reduced men's sports) for Division 3 as it is in Division 1 because of the money.

I ask that as a question to some degree - I'd love for people with more experience in D3 athletics to come tell me I'm wrong if that's the case.

I think the only model the Dutch can offer us is increased yield per acre for tulips. D-III? Surely you jest. As to soccer. A nice game but not, IMHO, a template for college athletics in this country. Based on your conclusions and choice of language, you aren't a fan of big time college sports. No doubt, lots of problems, but Dutch soccer isn't going to show us a way forewared here. Besides, Title IX presumably exists to eliminate gender inequities--to ensure equal opportunities for women, whether they want them or not, not to restore some DeCoubertin model of "amateurism" which has been long gone for decades. You can always screen "Chariots of Fire" if you're feeling nostalgic.

First, I like college sports just fine - in fact, I love attending games for basketball, football, hockey, etc. However, I recognize those revenue sports for what they are - semi-professional athletics. That's why I bring up D3, which is certainly the NCAA (and the Department of Education's) idea of what amateur college sports should be.

Again, my hypothesis is that in the context of Division 3 athletics, Title IX is much less of a problem. In Division 1, it's a huge problem, but that's basically because you're trying to shoehorn that requirement on a semi-professional athletic league.

That's why I brought up the European soccer academies - they are cold-blooded professionals looking to develop talent to the benefit of the club. I'd suggest taking a deeper look at the article (it's long, I know), because I think it offers a lot of good lessons about how our college sports system falls short of actually developing professional talent. I'm not suggesting that's a model for college athletics at all - quite the opposite, in fact - it's a model for professional athletics. It's something that MLS has learned with soccer - that they can develop better talent through their own academies than they can via college scholarships. We obviously see that play out with hockey all the time with the development tracks for college vs major junior (also essentially a semi-professional system but without the NCAA's whitewashing). It's a worthy contrast to look at.

The point is this - enforcing gender equality doesn't apply to professional sports. The inherent tension within big time college athletics is between the ideal of the student athlete and amateur athletics and the pull of semi-professional revenue sports aimed at developing talent for the professional leagues. Your average D-1 athletic department has to deal with both of those aspects, but must conform under one law.

[HoosierBBall_GopherHockey]

Re: Should Title IX be modified or stay in it's present form?

Sorry you evidently missed the fact that Bush hasn't been president now for going on two years. So the question becomes: when does the hopemeister actually become responsible for his own actions or lack thereof? When will it become possible to comment on Obama misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance without referencing Bush?

I'll defer to your obviously greater understanding of what "outright stupid" is. But it's really a little boring that on matters great and small, Obamnics find it necessary to rush to the barricades to defend their guy by pointing out that Bush was worse or Bush did it, too or whatever. Of course with approval ratings in the 40's and no immediate prospect for improvement, it's important to keep waving the bloody shirt of the previous administration. However, the public seems to be getting wise.

The reason why Dick Durbin and the president and virtually that entire top heavy majority in both houses wouldn't even consider changing Title IX (even in the absence of any other concerns) is the hurricane of opposition that would generate among their Code Pink and Emily's List (et al) admirers.

And while I'm not altogether certain you can simplfy your posts any more than they already are, you keep trying, hear?

Good God dude. I merely referenced Bush because he was the last President. I would have been worried if he decided to start delving into Title IX when there were a lot more important things to worry about.

I am not here to talk politics with you. They have no place in this conversation.

Outright stupid means blatantly stupid or inexcusably stupid. I guess I could have used those terms instead.

[LynahFan]

Re: Should Title IX be modified or stay in it's present form?

I have actually been involved with a couple of Title IX fights (for the female side...) and your statement is absolutely correct.

I want to give an example of my earlier statement regarding men picking up the check. I know of several D1 Women's Hockey programs, in hockey hot-beds, that struggle to get 300 fans to a game, yet will sell out 6,000 for a Men's game. And we're talking prime time-slots for both. The same for high school, few will attend the girl's/women's games for whatever reason. Who generates the revenue to keep the female population playing? One guess... However, everything from uniforms, locker rooms and transportation has to be, not only equal but in some instances better than the men/boys receive.

Let them all play, but don't expect one side to support the other side financially for ever. Help them get started, but then let them swim or sink.

Your last paragraph got me thinking: what if the regulations changed to say that the money supplied by the school to fund athletics had to be equal, rather than the overall budgets?

For example: Say the football and men's basketball teams bring in $15M per year, and only cost $12M to operate. If the total athletic budget is $20M, then the school is kicking in $5M, so the school would be required to spend at least $2.5M on women's teams (half of the amount the school is paying for). Therefore, the athletic department could spend $17.5M on men's teams and $2.5M on women's and be in compliance.

This scheme recognizes that it is clearly not the case that Federal money is paying for football and basketball, since they pay for themselves. Of the Federal money that goes to the school, the portion that gets sent "over the wall" to the athletics department is being spent in equal proportions on Men's and Women's teams - $2.5M each, in this case.

If that's too radical, you could pare it back so that only the budgets of profitable sports are exempt, so in my example, the $12M budgets of football and basketball would be exempt, leaving $8M, so the school would be required to spend at least $4M on women's sports.

For schools that DON'T make money on their football teams - well, they can still pump in money to prop them up, but they have to match that spending dollar for dollar on women's teams.

The more I think about this, the more fair it seems - it is completely logical that the Federal government should be allowed to attach strings to the money it gives to educational institutions. But why should the government get to dictate how the university spends the revenue it generates from its sports teams? Put it another way: it's (somewhat) logical that if the government gives a school $10M to build a new science lab, and the school gives its athletic department $10M that year, then you can easily make the argument that the government's grant freed up the $10M in the school's budget, which it chose to spend on sports - in that sense, the $10M going to the athletic department could be seen as the government's (people's) money. Therefore, the sports that those $10M go to support should be proportional for men and women.