Unfair advantage

As Title IX turns 35, the law needs to be reevaluated.

Even as Title IX celebrates its 35th anniversary on Saturday, we still hear critics moaning that too many universities are dropping too many men's sports just to stay in compliance with the statute.

Basically, Title IX says schools must offer athletic programs in proportion with their gender population. This was reasonably easy to accommodate three decades ago, when President Nixon (of all people) signed Title IX into law. At that time, you see, 55 percent of college students were male.

“Today, though, about 58 percent of college students are female. Very soon, three out of five collegians will be women. Can two-thirds be far behind?”

Well, at least there’s a little good news for the guys going to college!

Part of the problem is that the 58% of students who are women do not show sufficient interest in college athletics to "man" the programs and fill the available slots.

The answer is raw coercion. Women should be required to participate in organized, interscholastic sports as a condition of enrollment to the degree needed to justify the men's athletic programs.

What a stupid article, but it doesn’t surprise me, coming from the liberal Sports Illustrated. The reason men aren’t going to college is primarily that they don’t want to listen to the white male-bashing of the professors. They can make just as much money with an associates degree or a license from a vo-tech. Btw, my sons played 3 sports and still went to college. None of the high school male athletes from either of their classes were offered scholarships, but all of the softball girls were.

There are two simple solutions. First, except in the so-called revenue sports -- football and basketball -- get rid of athletic scholarships. It never made any sense that a volleyball player should earn a scholarship, while a piano player shouldn't. End that inequity that gives special dispensation to sports over the arts. With the money saved from supporting many unqualified students, whole teams could be financed.

Or, get Congress to declare that football is legally in a different category. Realistically, it is. Take it out of the Department of Athletics and put it in the new Department of Entertainment or the Department of Amusing The Alumni. Football is twice the problem. It has no female analogue, and it is by far the costliest sport. Remove it from the Title IX equation, and once again young men could swim and run and jump and play tennis and lacrosse, just like young women.

I think his first idea has some merit -- though I would extend it to football and basketball, too.

I would have no problem eliminating collegiate athletics entirely -- at least as it now exists. Let students organize their own teams, and let groups of student-organized teams form their own leagues. This is how ice hockey was played in my school, and it worked just fine.

Division 1A football is a cash cow for universities. They get a TV contract, ticket sales and concession revenues for venues that have, in some cases, over 100K people attending the games and bowl revenue sharing. Let’s also not forget the booster cash that comes in. Money that football generates can subsidize many other sports. Basketball brings in serious money for top programs as well.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.