Posted on 01/03/2007 9:14:28 PM PST by Valin
For years, women's teams have been honing their game by practicing against men. A panel says the custom violates the spirit of gender equity.
Practicing against men has been a women's basketball tradition for more than a quarter century, designed to allow women to push themselves against bigger, stronger opponents. "It's good for us because it makes us better," Gophers freshman Ashley Ellis-Milan said. But last month, the NCAA's Committee on Women's Athletics (CWA) called for a ban on male practice players. It concluded the custom violates the spirit of gender equity and Title IX, the 1972 federal law banning sex discrimination in sports.
On Monday, Division III administrators at the NCAA annual convention in Florida will consider two proposals to limit the use of male practice players, action that could influence both Division I and Division II athletics.
College coaches uniformly denounce the proposed ban. Michigan State coach Joanne McCallie called the committee recommendation -- which states "this approach implies an archaic notion of male preeminence that continues to impede progress toward gender equity and inclusion" -- political correctness gone awry.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Viewership and ratings have nothing to do with defining an activity as a sport, but does have everything to do with defining it as a business.
If you don't enjoy watching women compete, so be it, but don't denigrate these athletes by saying their hard-work and love of competition doesn't rise to the level of "sport."
And for the record, this decision about not being allowed to use male practice players is ridiculous, and an example of the ill-conceived social engineering that the feminists in the baby boomer generation keep trying to foist on the rest of us. Unfortunately, they are firmly entrenched in academia, and that includes the NCAA.
I do like the tennis garb a whole lot, but I was thinking of team sports.
There's another kind of vollyball!
/dirty old man
I just cannot put it into words correctly.
Here's a try: "The fight" has become a part of their identity, and women playing basketball against men seems to these hoary old lesbians like fraternizing with the enemy. ;)
They remind me of the Ellen Jamiesons from The World According to Garp.
I wonder how much money ESPN is losing by broadcasting all those Womens Basketball games that NOBODY WATCHES!
But ESPN has to fill those 72 hours a day with some programming.
"Yeah, you pretty little ladies can go off and practice by yourselves." In the interest of equal opportunity we don't want anybody having an unfair advantage.
Title IX is almost the definition of the law of unintended consequences.
BEACH volleyball!
"Jennifer Warmack-Chipman, an assistant director of athletics at Muhlenberg College and a member of the NCAA's Committee on Women's Athletics, told attendees that the committee opposes the use of male practice players, a strategy many women's programs use to improve the skills of top female players. (Teams often bring in men who played in high school who are bigger and faster than second-string women's players.)
The committee believes that the approach impedes female participation, Ms. Warmack-Chipman said, and "reinforces the implied notion of male pre-eminence."
Wouldn't want to reinforce the implied notion of male pre-eminence. Almost like reinforcing the notion of wet water, round earth, gravity...
That's...um...Robin. Robin. Not "Batboy."
This is Batboy:
GOD! That things gives me the creeps.
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