Posted on 12/08/2004 9:53:14 AM PST by JesseHousman
(GOT BALL ROLLING: Pressure by UM President Donna Shalala pushed The Miami Touchdown Club to change its no-women membership rules at a meeting Monday night. Shalala made her move after Coral Gables lawyer Natalie Lemos wrote her a letter about the club's no-female membership policy. CHARLES TRAINOR JR./HERALD STAFF)
Goal crossed: Men's club to accept women
The Miami Touchdown Club raises money for charitable projects and college scholarships. And now women can join in the effort.
Score one for women.
For the first time in its 45-year history, the all-male Miami Touchdown Club will be accepting the opposite sex as members of the football booster organization.
Pass rush-like pressure by University of Miami President Donna Shalala pushed the club to change its no-women membership rules at a meeting Monday night. Shalala had told the club's president she wanted to join last month after a female lawyer's earlier application was rejected.
Club President Adam Lubkin said Tuesday that the organization, a bastion of football worship founded in 1959, welcomes the UM president.
''Speaking on behalf of the board, we would be honored to have you as our first female member if you choose to apply,'' Lubkin wrote Shalala Monday in an e-mail.
Shalala was unavailable for comment because she was traveling on university business, but she publicly expressed her interest in joining the club before last month's University of Virginia game.
Shalala made her move after Coral Gables lawyer Natalie Lemos wrote her a letter about the club's no-female membership policy.
Lemos, a UM football season-ticket holder and mother of four, including a son who plays high school football, applied for membership in The Miami Touchdown Club back in September.
HELPING PLAYERS
She liked its primary goal: helping Miami-Dade high school football players with no hope of playing for UM or other football powerhouses win athletic scholarships to smaller colleges.
Lemos' application was the first from a woman in the club's history.
Two family friends, club members Hal Sears and Al Palewicz, who both played linebacker at UM in the 1970s, sponsored her. The cost of membership: $125.
But Lemos was told the club only accepted men. Lubkin, the club president, suggested that her husband join and that she attend one of the club's entertainment activities, such as the Bernie Kosar Celebrity Golf Classic, that allow women to participate.
In November, Lemos wrote a note to Shalala, declaring the rule ''overt discrimination.'' She noted that the club co-sponsors UM's annual awards banquet, which will be held Dec. 16 this year.
SHALALA INVOLVED
After Shalala stepped onto the field, the club's board decided to change its bylaws along with its status to a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization. He said that change, in the works for months, will take effect in the upcoming year with IRS approval.
''By opening up the club, I think we'll be a more well-rounded, diverse organization,'' Lubkin said. ``We'll get rid of that stigma that we're an all-boys club.''
Lubkin said the club's longtime men-only policy was not illegal because the 170member organization was private, received no government donations and was not formally affiliated with UM.
''I'm glad they made the change in their bylaws,'' Lemos said Tuesday.
And is she still interested in joining the club?
''Please let me know once you submit your application,'' Lemos wrote Shalala in a second letter, ``so that I can follow up and re-submit my own.''
The club president further stated that Shalala could join, but would have to wear a bag over her head at all times.
I couldn't resist. Take two Albrights, stir in one Helen Thomas and you get a Shalala.
Are their hands broken? Why can't these kids write a letter and send a tape to whatever small schools they want to play for?
I guess it should be okay. As long as they just shut up and watch the game or take their conversations about shopping and stuff out to the garage...
I had my shalala removed when I was 12. They said it was red and inflamed.
I hope it doesn't grow back!
There's another club shot all to hell.
Sheesh.
You know. "Tis the season to be jolly, sha, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!"
Yeah. Now it'll be full of bitches and 'hos.
Damn, what a brown-noser.
Wouldn't be so bad if there weren't "women only" clubs springing up all over the place. Such as excercise clubs.
Just another chink in the Men's Only clubs to further emasculate the male animal!
Its a matter of fairness...
All part of the big plan.
Wonder how that lawsuit a guy brought against the women's only excercise club is going...
Wonder if the judges have the stones to rule against the gurlz?
In the interest of accuracy in media, you should point out that the pic is defintely NOT Shalala..
One way to look at it: she can pick up all the beer bottles. It will be cheaper than hiring a maid.
Of course not, Ken. Waterbuffalo are incapable of bearing human-type children.
Yes, in respect to fairness, the clubmen should have been "reaching out" to women, gays and other minorities.
They did reach out...to wave them away...as it should be.
Let 'em start their own clubs if they want and think its such a great idea.
Some times a man has to have a place to be alone with his buds...to swill beer, f*rt and raise a few mil for the less fortunate.
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