Posted on 10/10/2007 8:17:51 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
WHEN Title IX was passed 35 years ago, high school athletics were an overwhelmingly male pastime. The boys played sports and the girls cheered them on from the sidelines.
In the years since, Title IX has radically changed the local high school sports landscape. Once the law banned schools from engaging in gender discrimination in sports, girls flocked by the millions to the fields, courts and swimming pools to join their school teams. Today, a high school without opportunities for girls to play sports is almost unimaginable.
Yet as much as things have changed, much has remained the same. Though schools added competitive girls' sports to their athletic programs years ago in response to Title IX, they still frequently treat the boys' teams better than the girls' teams. And in the area of special treatment, football reigns supreme.
Because of the tradition and importance placed on high school football, school administrators routinely turn a blind eye toward the special treatment given to the football team. Football teams frequently have their own special locker room and weight room. Football teams have a proportionally higher number of coaches than other teams. Most football teams have booster clubs that raise money to provide special benefits for only the football team.
Title IX is not just about opportunities to play - it also mandates that girls and boys compete on a level playing field. Title IX requires schools to provide equal athletic benefits to male and female athletes. That means that athletic facilities, uniforms, equipment, practice and game times, publicity, coaching and transportation must be of equal quality and quantity for girls and boys teams.
While the football team has its privileges, invariably, the girls' teams do not. Instead, girls' sports are typically provided with fewer benefits than boys' basketball and baseball, and are often treated worse than other boys' sports as well.
The main rationalization for the special treatment provided to the football team seems to be tradition - that it has always been done that way. Yet, no school administrator would argue with a straight face that tradition was a sufficient justification for providing the boys with calculators and the girls with slide rules to use for their calculus homework.
At many schools, football is more than just a sport - it defines the school's culture. By eliminating the football team's special privileges and instead providing equal athletic benefits to boys and girls teams, schools will do more than just comply with Title IX. They will stand for a new sports tradition - equality for all.
www.cwlc.org
Vicky L. Barker is the legal director of the California Women's Law Center. She has successfully litigated Title IX cases throughout California.
OK! So we should REQUIRE that the same number of people watch Girl’s rowing as do football? Imagine limiting the Notre Dame football stadium to 5 people for a game (of course after this season that may be a target crowd).
WNBA players should be paid the same as NBA players? TV time should be EQUAL for men and women’s sports? How about the announcers? Why stop at locker room facilities? Geez
Morons. Guess what, it’s about what people want. When 10,000 people pack the stands to see a girl’s field hockey game, then the girl’s field hockey team will be treated differently.
Here’s what happens. The booster club is forced to distribute funds equally to whatever team needs money. So the membership in the booster club dwindles. And then an alumni football club is formed. This club supports the football team only.
Stick your title IX in your ear.
I notice that during its prime events, the NCAA likes to focus attention on female grads as “I am not just a (insert sport) soccer player, I am a (insert occupation) doctor” type promos. It seems very forced onto the viewer.
Title IX isn’t about equality. It is a viscious anti-male crusade started and perpetuated by ugly lesbians.
It's bad enough that now on ESPN they have women announcing football games.
Let the boys and girls wrestle each other and see who has the most fun and ends on top.
Local sponsorships and fund-raising efforts are ideal for cases like the one you describe. And for specific cases involving poor kids on teams where most members don't have a problem paying the cost, people like me would be more than happy to provide financial support in any way we could.
“I’m not so sure about that. I was always under the impression that a football team is one of the most costly line items in any high school athletic budget — “
Looking at cost only, yes, football is at the top. Now if you factor in revenue, well, now it depends on where you are. For an average Division I school in Ohio, (the largest), you can expect 3k-5k fans per game. That’s $15k in revenue. At our school, a wealthy alumnus just donated $40k for a weight room, a weight room that will be used by all teams, but was donated with the football team in mind.
So, 5 home games at $10k, and 5 away at $5k. $75k in ticket sales. That doesn’t count booster clubs, and individual gifts. And remember coaches are usually teachers and make about $3k-$5k a year for their coaching.
Then there is the intangible. High School football contributes a lot to a community in terms of perception, and entertainment, (at least in Ohio it does).
I think football pulls it’s weight.
She has the bitterness of a third-string softball shortstop.
Football teams usually attract more total spectators than all other sports combined. Football spectator admissions and concession sales subsidize all other sports.
“Who wants to bet that Vicky Barker never dated the high school quarterback?”
This presumes the quarterback saw any reason to ask her out in the first place.
Hey, Vick — why not suit up and see how equal you can be out on the field? Or does your equality stop just short of being tackled?
“It is a viscious anti-male crusade started and perpetuated by ugly lesbians.”
Yes and we all hate ugly lesbians. Beautiful lesbians, hmm.
Pulls its weight? Are you joking? Football is the ONLY sport at colleges and universities that actually makes money. There’s only a few select men’s basketball programs that do (maybe half a dozen last I saw) and that’s it.
If we do to football what we’ve done to other men’s sports, college athletics is finished. Some states (like Texas) won’t allow the public funding of athletic programs, so I’m not even sure why federal law applies. Federal funding goes to the school but not the athletic program.
At some point, the schools are going to divest themselves of the actual athletic program and establish separate entities that run them. I’m surprised no one has done that yet.
Well, at least they should have plenty of room since most schools closed down their wrestling teams to help get themselves inside that stupid rule.
It’s easy to understand why. Most sports spectators are men. Men do not prefer to watch women’s athletics (tennis and beach volleyball excepted).
MORE WOMEN’S ROWING!!!!!!!!!
Perhaps what these universities need is a televised string bikini college jello wrestling national league.
I graduated HS in 1988 and we had a girl on our varsity football team. She also chewed Copenhagen. I’m not kidding.
“It’s bad enough that now on ESPN they have women announcing football games.”
I don’t mind that. Those women have played as much football as Mike Greenberg and he does games. Actually a couple of the women are pretty good.
What I do mind is the constant promos for ESPN Desportes! It p*sses me off like I can’t tell you. I now avoid ESPN as much as spossible because of that. Just like I shop at Home Depot versus Lowes because of Lowes prominent bilingual signage.
Title IX has some worthy goals, but when anyone tries to demand an equal number of playing opportunities for boys and girls it’s just one more demand that others pay for activities that don’t pay for themselves.
Even in small high schools, boys’ football games draw crowds in the thousands, bringing in $20,000 - $30,000 per game and more. In many schools, particularly major universities, football pays for all other sports. This whining about football’s special treatment just shows how far the entitlement mentality has progressed in this country. Entitlements, of course, that others will be required to pay for.
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