Posted on 08/28/2002 8:10:34 PM PDT by Nonstatist
There's going to be an unusual sports team touring the country this fall -- the new federal commission that will study Title IX, the gender athletics law. And if it does its job fairly, it will be hearing from some pretty upset folks in the bleachers. That's because the breadth of people who have been adversely affected, yes harmed, by the dubious enforcement of that law is much wider than you might think.
It includes tens of thousands of male student athletes who have had their teams eliminated to comply with the law's onerous "proportionality" quota. There are also moms such as Deborah Downy, whose son lost his team and scholarship when Bowling Green State University axed its track program.
There are sisters, too, such as Brooke Brandon. Her brother's swimming team at the University of Nebraska had the diving board pulled out from under them. Brooke traveled to Washington last week to meet with her congressman and stick up for her brother.
And there are coaches such as me who have seen firsthand the heartbreak when we have to tell athletes who have given everything to a sport that their dreams of competition are being dashed. If I get the chance, I would like to speak up for minority athletes, who are affected in a particularly insidious way by the proportionality quota.
Educators know that college athletics provide one crucial gateway for minority students, especially ones from impoverished communities to reach for higher education. Among collegiate baseball players, for example, approximately one in 10 is a minority. In soccer it's one in eight and in track it's one in four. When athletic directors apply the cruel logic of the gender quota to cut those teams, it is the minority athletes who are hurt the most.
That's exactly what happened at Bowling Green in May when the men's track team was replaced by a women's rowing team -- a sport mostly unheard of in the inner-city neighborhoods where I recruit. As colleges replace men's teams with rowing, equestrian, precision skating and other women's sports that have no constituency in our inner-city high schools, the word "equity" loses its meaning in Title IX.
The fact that there are now 600 more women's teams than men's in the NCAA provides no relief.
It saddens me enormously that the chances are ever-decreasing that a determined African-American or Latino boy from the projects will be able to use a sport such as wrestling to elevate himself and return to his community to help lift others. For my sport, like many others, that decrease has been steep -- from nearly 800 programs 20 years ago to fewer than 300 today and falling.
And as a coach who uses a spreadsheet, I can tell you that budget crunches don't explain it all. Non-scholarship athletes and walk-ons are a negligible cost and yet they are shut out by gender caps at virtually every school.
Activists who say we shouldn't have a commission to study Title IX are wrong and their view is narrow. The effect of gender quotas is real and the voices that yearn to speak about it are many. A quota based solely on gender has a kaleidoscope of unintended consequences.
When college coaches are forced to eliminate men's wrestling, track and baseball teams or ordered to shrink the number of athletes on their teams for gender quota purposes, that is a tragic loss. Far more than high-profile sports such as basketball and football, these so-called "minor" sports offer minority kids a realistic alternative to the gangs, drugs, and other problems that plague our communities.
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Bobby Douglas is the head wrestling coach at Iowa State University and was the head coach of the 1992 Olympic wrestling team.
While the girls? are trying, I don't think it matters. They just play really terrible ball...
I would call it below the rim!!
Well said, sir.
Ding! Ding! Quote of the day nominee!
But most of the sports programs cut are small school Division III, which don't offer scholarships. Does that make sense? Its because of the safe harbor proportionality rule that apportions monies based on overall attendance in the college.
Did you know over 3 million boys play high school football every year? Thats more than any other sport by far. And that 60 % of the HS athletes are boys? Then why MUST less than 50% of college athletes be boys?
Bobby Douglas is not a "bean counter". He was and is a great coach, who got his position on merit alone
Fact is, what he says is richly ironic. Fat cat upper middle class (mostly)white women (you know, the ones that do "crew", et al) got themselves a quota which is screwing every male athlete out there , including poor inner city kids who happen to be good at sports and not as good at everything else.
I take it you're not a big "poor kid sports scholarship" fan? Well, maybe thats another discussion altogether. But not all "black folk" are "bean counters", if I get your drift.
You make good points; I can see you "get" it.
But remember, in High School, at the moment at least, schools provide equal opportunity to women to play sports but dont require their rosters or funding to be exactly the same..But wait, that might happen some day too, just wait and see.
Did you read the same article I did?!?
Can you explain to me how the following quotes are not the quotes of a “bean-counter”?
If I get the chance, I would like to speak up for minority athletes, who are affected in a particularly insidious way by the proportionality quota...
Among collegiate baseball players, for example, approximately one in 10 is a minority. In soccer it's one in eight and in track it's one in four…
a sport mostly unheard of in the inner-city neighborhoods…
It saddens me enormously that the chances are ever-decreasing that a determined African-American or Latino boy from the projects will be able to use a sport such as wrestling to elevate himself…
But not all "black folk" are "bean counters", if I get your drift.
Nice try Jesse, but you do not “get my drift”
People, like the author of this article, who measure success of a social program by skin color, are "bean-counters" by definition.
And your baseless and pathetic insinuation that I am a racist based on that statement is typical of vapid, weak-minded, liberals who can’t argue a statement on its merits.
Grow up.
Crew is a huge sport at colleges in the Northeast, especially. Go watch the Head of the Charles Regatta, or sit on the banks of the Schuykill on any warm afternoon.
Most participants have limited rowing experience prior to college, simply because there are not many programs at the HS level. I suspect that this is why it is one of the most often added "parity" sports for women: All they need to do is find reasonably athletic, coordinated girls with good upper-body strength, and they've got a team.
There's nothing wrong with crew, just like there's nothing wrong with fencing, wrestling, track and field, or any of the sports that are getting killed off by Title IX. The problem is government interference in college athletics to promote this silly-*ssed social agenda.
And your baseless and pathetic insinuation that I am a racist based on that statement is typical of vapid, weak-minded, liberals who can’t argue a statement on its merits
Lighten up, deadhead. From my view point, he merely points out that "minority" males dominate participation in many sports and are adversely effected by these quotas.
If I was to point out that MEN were being screwed by this system and made up 49 % of the population, does that make me a bean counter? How can he make a point without using numbers? How can a program purport to be equalizing if the numbers show that it doesent work? That it actually discriminates?
I happen to know this guy and hes not a "racialist". He coaches and recruits the best, and couldn't care less what color the person is. And his sport is being decimated by greedy female "bean counters".
Oh, and maybe you should grow up, eh?
It is not I that needs to lighten up.
My assertion, based on the author’s statements, is inarguable.
Your implication was absurd. Maybe you're just tired. Go to bed.
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