NCAA: Stop blaming Title IX

Title IX: No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

Title IX was passed into law in the United States in 1972, and ever since then its benefits and consequences have been argued ad nauseam.

Basically, the concept of the law was to try and help increase the participation of girls and young women in sports, in particular, at the college level where most of the federal funding goes via scholarships, etc.

Without a doubt, it has done that successfully. Because of the increased participation levels at younger ages, the number of women participating in college athletics has risen dramatically. And with more participation comes better and more experienced athletes, which translates into better results at the "next" level -- for example, the Olympics and now even the professional levels.

The most visible proof of the success of Title IX to date was seen with the results at the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics and at the 1998 Winter Olympic Games. At those Games, women's teams earned medals in soccer, basketball, softball, and ice hockey, and other female athletes won individual medals in many other sports as well.

Another very visible highlight was the USA Women's Soccer team winning the World Cup Championship in 1999 in front of 90,000-plus enthusiastic fans in the Rose Bowl.

Because of Title IX, more and more young women choose to participate in sports every year and as a result, women's sports is gaining more and more acceptance. The NCAA women's basketball tournament, for example, gets prime time visibility on ESPN, and women's volleyball, both indoor and beach, gets TV time on ESPN and FOX.

And with the success and growth of women's sports, professional leagues in basketball, softball, and starting this summer, soccer, are doing well and giving women the opportunity to make a living in athletics just like their male counterparts.

All of this is happening because of the success of Title IX.

However, Title IX has also had one bad consequence as well, and that is the cutting of some men's athletic programs at some colleges so that the college can "comply" with Title IX. The question is -- are the people that blame Title IX for those cuts correct in blaming Title IX?

For example, last year Loyola Marymount and San Diego State both discontinued their men's volleyball programs citing Title IX as the problem. Both programs implied that they could not afford to carry the sport because their budgets were "tight" and they needed to use the funds to ensure they were in compliance with Title IX. And so LMU and San Diego State, which had carried the sport on their campuses for 30 years, cut their teams.

The University of Miami also cancelled men's swimming and crew in the fall of 2000 citing Title IX as the cause. According to a statement in a story on the University of Miami's web page -- "The basis for the decision was the University's determination to bring its overall sports program into compliance with the provisions of Title IX."

There are more examples like this in college sports and college administrators continue to blame Title IX for the ending of all of these programs. On top of that, there also have been articles published recently citing that non-revenue men's college programs like volleyball, swimming, and track, are suffering because of Title IX.

And now college administrators and others are starting to scream, holler, and jump up-and-down asking that Title IX be fixed, changed, revamped, or even done away with completely.

You know what though, the bottom line is that they are flat out wrong, and it does not take an expert in Title IX to figure that out.

The problem is definitely not Title IX. Title IX is working fine.

No, the problem lies with the old-time thinking and good ol'boy networks that reside at the upper levels of the collegiate programs.

On many campuses, one of the key contributors to not being able to balance the men's and women's programs is football, and rightly so. Football teams are huge and need a lot of money to run. But then when you think about it, why does a college football team have to carry so many players? What is it -- 70 or 80 players on scholarships? It does not take that many players to make a football team. Heck, NFL teams do not have that many players.

Here are a few more eye-opening questions that should be answered before people blame Title IX?

Why do NCAA football teams (not all of them, but a large number) have to stay at a hotel on the night before a home game, which was mentioned in an article by Stephanie Schleuder in the February 2001 issue of Volleyball Magazine?

Why do NCAA football teams, and men's and women's basketball teams for that matter, have to fly to an away game that is only 100 miles or so away, instead of taking the bus? Why do they have to go to these games the day before and spend a night in a hotel?

Why do NCAA men's and women's basketball teams have to be given multiple home, away, and travel uniforms, as well as multiple pairs of sneakers for a single season, when other teams at the same college get one of each -- if they are lucky.

Why do the "big time" teams at a college have to be housed in very expensive motel rooms on road trips?

If you take away some or any of the above and treat the athletes on those teams like all of the other athletes on the other teams at the same school, there is a good chance that most of the problems we have been seeing with men's programs being cut would go away.

For instance, if you take all the money needed to put up a football team in a hotel before a home game in one season, there just might be enough to fund a men's volleyball program or other non-revenue men's sport for a season.

Or maybe if a men's basketball team stops staying in those expensive hotels on away matches and only stays in, say, a Days Inn or Holiday Inn, there just might be enough money left over for another non-revenue sport to be covered.

And what about all those football scholarships? If they would cut just 10 scholarships from a football team, you wouldn't hurt that football team at all and there would be 10 scholarships free for other sports. But no, heaven forbid a football coach doesn't have his a backup to the backup of the backup of the guy that will pour Gatorade on his head if the team wins. No way a school could survive without that scholarship player huh?

No, the problem is not Title IX. The problem is that the college administrators and athletic directors are the ones that are at fault, because they either won't make those changes or they are too afraid to confront the coaches of those big sports about it. And, unfortunately, until someone realizes that and deals with it, Title IX will be blamed every time a men's program is cut.

And for the record, this article is not a rant against big time men's college sports. No way. Those sports and the men that play them are just as important in the grand scheme of things as anyone else. The main theme that hopefully comes out of this article is "balance" -- there needs to be a way to balance all of the sports, and all of the athletes, at each school. And it can be done, no question about it, but it will take leadership and it will take courage.

So how does the problem get fixed? Ultimately, it will come down to the leadership at the colleges, but undoubtedly, it will take the political arena to fix it all up. And until Congress gets off their collective keisters and passes a law that forces the college administrators and athletic directors to straighten up their acts, the problem will just continue along.

Now this is not saying that Title IX is perfect? No, far from it. It does need some fine tuning. Right now the wording of the law is so complex and so discombobulated, you almost need a doctorate degree to understand it all. So simplifying it would definitely help people understand it and, even more important, be able to implement it.

However, the essence of Title IX should never be changed. Women have the same right to athletics as men do and that should never be taken away from them. And men who play the non-revenue sports at colleges have the same right as well. The split between what men get at a particular college, however, should be the same for women, it is as simple as that.

It is time to stop blaming Title IX for the discontinuation of some men's sports at colleges and placing the blame directly where it belongs. It belongs on the heads of the college administrators and athletic directors and their old-time, closed minded thinking about the sports programs on their campuses. It is as simple as that.

VolleyCentral.com is an online volleyball magazine that provides volleyball fans with scores, stories, and more on the sport of volleyball. Rick Capone, who has been a writer at e-sports.com since 1998, is the editor of VolleyCentral. The URL is: http://www.volleycentral.com.