The legacy of Title IX

[ChewaBrave]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that the Rhode Island mens swimming team tennis team, and field hockey weren't exactly wheeling money into the athletic ofice in flatbed trucks or anything. At the end of the day, Cut football, bradley did it. Not to mention, if those programs can develop into money machines, why can't others?

[mike radigan]

CzechBrave, you've got to add your name to the all 50 states thread. And just to make you feel at home here:

[Da Coach]

Czech, the big difference I see, is that all those male athletes in sports like swimming and wrestling have been participating in those sports for most of their life, and they want to pursue them in college.

I know that is important to many females, and for those athletes, it is good that Title IX exists to provide opportunities.

But there many cases of females being given scholarships to play field hockey and badminton in colleges who created those teams just to meet the specifications of Title IX, not because there was any interest in those sports. And in some cases, those female athletes had never played those sports in their lives before getting to college and becoming scholarship athletes.

Creating sports and awarding scholarships just to meet some quota is just as wrong as having to eliminate men's sports to keep the numbers acceptable under Title IX.

[ChewaBrave]

Whilst i would agree that the creation fo teams to fill the quota is a difficult issue, the fact remains that without title 9 you would more than likely see schools with 2 football teams as oppose to field any womens sports. The principle is good, and at the end of the day its getting someone into college that wants to be there which in my view is a bonus. Of course if they could use a scholarship somewhere else it would also net another athlete, but just as articles have pointed to the lack of positive income in womens sports, they have also noted the dismal rates of men graduating from schools in which they play collegiate sports. Thusly an argument could be made that in general women probably make far better use of college scholarships on an aacademic level than men do.

Lastly, there isn't anything that can or should be done about it. Maybe thats the democrat in me, but leveling the playing field is what i'm about.

[Da Coach]

Thusly an argument could be made that in general women probably make far better use of college scholarships on an academic level than men do.

If that is an argument you would use, then it would favor giving more scholarships to men, because the government always wants to correct what's wrong with society.

If we use the same argument regarding race or ethnicity, then we would be doing the opposite of what affirmative action does, and just give the advantages and the scholarships to the groups that are already more successful.

[tornado]

Not to mention, if those programs can develop into money machines, why can't others?

Hmm..then since I can make an adequate income for me and my family, why can't everyone else?
I say cut all the programs that help those who don't and make them pay their own way.

....the truth is some programs are not going to make money, and yes...sometimes they DO get cut...
But...that's different than cutting MENS programs because the womens programs lose money but the school is FORCED to offer a quota of scholarships to women regardless of the cost or the difficulties.

That's like legally forcing me to not work and make money because maybe someone else feels offended that I do!

[Dallas Brave]

we had a discussion a couple years ago on this board ....

what we showed was that many if not most college womens' teams, even the best of the best like Tennessee and UConn hire on-campus men to play against the women so they can have atough practice competition.
These practice teams, sometimes called scout teams, are the subject of serious controversy, since there are womens advocates claiming that by using men to practice against, this technique robs other women of possible scholarships and walk on spots...

Read this and numerous other such articles that even try to get the NCAA to intervene and stop the women fromm practicing against the males.

http://media.www.dailyorange.com/media/storage/paper522/news/2007/02/21/Sports/No.Boys.Allowed.Ncaa.Might.Forbid.Womens.Hoops.From.Practicing.With.Men-2732299.shtml

But here's the point I am making....
Most of the males used as scout team members are NOT great players.
they are generally average kids who might have played or even didn't play high school basketball - but kids right off the college campus/NOT ATHLETES at the college level, but they are bigger and stronger than the women, thus giving the women what they want in practice, tough, strong opponents.

BUT-- here's the catch....time and time again....guys who play on these scout teams easily beat the womens teams...and I MNEA EASILY!!
In fact, it is so routine that if the women CAN beat the guys, they dismiss the guys and look for different guys who are even better.

This causes me to be 100% convinced that a GOOD high school team WOULD beat most of the TOP college teams.
As to whether that translates into also beating a WNBA team...well...
I think it is quite likely they could, especially if you pick a HS team like the one Derrick Rose played on or Kevin Love played on.
The women would get exactly ZERO rebounds against such a team and would NOT be able to even get a decent shot.

Feel free to disagree because I know we'll never see the possibility of a HS team play a WNBA team any more than we'll ever see a top pro play a Bobby Riggs again.

Very interesting about the men's squads. Still, I'd put my money on the WNBA champs in a game against the Mid State 6 boys champs.

[ChewaBrave]

You can only use that point, if men were not recieving them as much, and this isn't a government issue. The fact is, that roughly men and women at a university get the same amount of scholarships (or representatively anyway). And the fact is that men graduate less. Thusly, it would be better to give a scholarship to someone that is going to use to the greatest efficiency.

You make the argument that it is wrong for schools to make up programs to give scholarships away. Well i would say it is equally wrong for schools (Academic insitutions, not sport factories) to give scholarships to someone like tyreke evans, or anyone that has zero intentions of staying at a school for only a year or what have you. The fact is that everyone seems to be makign their arguments in this bubble where sports is the basis for college. On a purely hypothetical note, lets assume colleges do things other than sports, or rather that their job is to educate, and develop for which they "generally" ahve a four year plan. Why would investing in someone that has no intentions in fulfilling that plan be considered right, while making concessiosn to someone that wants to pursue those same goals (as in education), be considered wrong?

[tornado]

One other thing...when Chris Everett was 25 years old and the best tennis player in the world, she appeared on Johnny Carson.
He asked if she'd ever want to try to play a male opponent.
Her answer was a shocked look then a comment of how her own 15 year old brother (who never even became a pro) was readily able to beat Chris any day, any where, thus confirming why no woman pro would ever want to play any man, even a 65 year old washed up guy for fear of getting beat.


One more thought.
In the weeks before the Atlanta Olympics, the womens' DREAM TEAM, the collection of the best womens basketball players (pro and college) the world had ever seen, came to Atlanta and tried to figure who they could scrimmage against.
Of course it wouldn't have done any good to call up a local college womens team, as these Womens Dream Teamers were 100 times better and it would have been no challenge.

They settled on inviting a bunch of men from a local army base.
All this was captured in a documentary shown on PBS, and the guys from the base were all 30 somethings, balding, maybe a bit overweight but obviously in pretty good shape as they were in the military.
They even interviewed a few and none had been stars or played college ball, most were just weekend jock types maybe some high school ball experience.

The outcome...the army base guys demolished the women. In fact it was so bad that one of the played was injured badly and missed the Olympics, and several others were so whipped by trying to run with and play with the men that they absolutely collapsed on the floor and had to be helped off.

The women quickly decided to quit this and they never again used a male counterpart scrimmage team for fear of being beaten badly and injured.

The guys weren't trying to hurt the girls, just give them a good game.

The guys simply ran the girls to death, and outhustled and outbattled them on every rebound, loose ball, and every trip down court.

I believe a good high school team could have done the same and this Dream Team was as good as any WNBA team.


ps-- I even recall there was a little uproar over the PBS showing of this part of the documentary since it
showed the Dream teamers crying and blubbering on the floor and acting like.....yes, crybabies.
The Olympians felt it showed them in a bad light and were upset it was shown.
Never the less, it was pretty graphic.

[mike radigan]

Rightly or wrongly I think all sports that can be PROVEN to make money should be exempt. After that, equality.

[ChewaBrave]

I understand, We get the idea that "Men are beasts that are far superior to any woman", People have alluded to it several times, but that isn't an argument for while they shouldn't be able to play. The duke football team has been terribad since i can remember, but yet they keep funding them, even bringing in new coaches an whatnot. hell they hadn't won a game in like 2 years at one point. Not being the epitome of greatest, or hell, not even being that good - doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to be given the chance to do something.

[ChewaBrave]

CzechBrave, you've got to add your name to the all 50 states thread. And just to make you feel at home here:

I appreciate the pic. Good ol Prague. In a couple of months i'm actually moving to Lusaka, Zambia, so i'll be able to throw both of them on the list

[TheAsianSensation]

The argument should not be if women are men's equals in sports. Who cares if they are or not.

The argument should be for equality. If you have a women's team, generally speaking, you should have a men's team. Equality. Title IX's intent was equality, not biased towards the females like it is today.

And again, it's football messing everything up, because the massive amounts of scholarships there throw all the numbers off. Women's football just isn't feasible, and there's no realistic female-only alternative you can put in there. So women get the advantage in "lesser" sports.

I think a whole heck of a lot would be solved from making football exempt from Title IX. A LOT.

[tornado]

When you force or legislate "equality" all you ever get is someone else's design but yet it seems it's also unequal and unfair, just a different group gets a bigger share of the unfairness.
eg...Affirmative Action, Title IX, fill-in-the-blank-minority "rights" legislation.

[ChewaBrave]

I'll concede the point that its not perfect, its just necessary.