When I went to college in early 70's, anyone could walk on to XC team....What happened?

Okay, Boomers.

HRE wrote:

Those are two very different things. Double the kids in your class and you double the number of tests you have to grade, double the number of papers and homework assignments to grade, double the number of parent conferences. In all likelihood the quality of instruction your students get will suffer.

Agreed. Of course there's SOME extra burden on the coach when there are additional kids, but coaches can be up front with the walk-ons about the fact that they aren't going to get a lot of attention and resources.

I ran D3, then transferred to D1 around 1990 for academic reasons, but was able to walk on. I was no standout, but a decent runner. The D1 school did not have cuts at that time. We usually had 50 guys and about 25 girls come out for cross country. The better runners got to travel, the others just practiced and a lot eventually gave up. End of season had <30 guys, <20 girls. Now Title IX enforces 16 man roster and essentially unlimited women. The number of women on the team is roughly the same as back then.

All things equal, I would not be able to run at the D1 school now, though I became good enough to run in conference meets. Heck, the guy who still owns the school record at 28:xx was a 10:10 3200 guy in HS and he would be turned away today. Another HS 4:40 guy ran sub 14 5k and would be turned away now.

As Smoove said, this improved my life in many ways not related to sports. It is a shame that Title IX has this unintended consequence.

Sammy Seems... wrote:

Old and slow wrote:

Yep, this. Title IX has done more to harm men's sports and limit men's opportunities than it has to help women's sports.

This wins dumbest post of the week...

Before Title 9 there were no women's sports. Without it there would be no women's sports. I'm sorry your sensitive male ass is butt-hurt by the fact that not every 10:20 guy gets to walk on at D1 schools. Get over it. It's a small price to pay for equality.

+1 Resoundingly obtuse yet no surprise given what a fossil-magnet this thread clearly is.

skeet fandom wrote:How about the teams that give every scholarship to a foreign runner? What sense does that make? Let’s pay an international runner to run for us????

Worked for Washington State and UTEP back in the 70's.

Most of you don't seen to understand how it works at a real D1 university. Every athlete on the roster is a large burden for the athletic department. The scholarship is irrelevant. Everyone is drug tested. Everyone must be monitored by the compliance department with the NCAA for grades and eligibility and outside scholarships and gifts and outside activities. Everyone gets gear. Everyone gets a physical. Everyone gets attention from the trainer and the strength coach. Everyone receives free medical care. Everyone receives some food from refueling stations or other approved means. Everyone is setup in the dorm regardless if they are paying or not. Everyone gets entered in a few meets. Nearly everyone travels occasionally.

go away run wrote:

The best teams have smaller rosters today. More guys means more drug tests and more gear and more compliance with the NCAA and more meal cards and more dorm scheduling and more travel and......

Well, sure. It would be more work and some coaches don't want to do it. That's sort of talking point for Ghost of Igloi's comment about lazy coaches being an explanation.

Roster restrictions are absolutely not mandated by Title IX and when it was passed the idea was that schools would expand sports opportunities for their women. But one way to be in compliance without doing that is to reduce the number of male athletes you have. In Brown's case the courts found them non compliant and ordered them to become compliant. They could have added some women's sports and been in compliance but rather than do that they chose to eliminate a men's sport or two (I believe, it's been ages) and put roster restrictions in place for the remaining men's sports.

I ran for an ACC school in the 70/80s. We allowed anyone to walk on as the coach -who was a great guy but not all that involved-viewed the marginal cost of an extra athlete pre-Title IX as zero. The walk-ons really helped me in a lot of ways. As I was an 800m/1500, runner, I had a choice whether I wanted to run cross country and did in so my junior/senior year. Without the walk-ons, I would have to train alone as I maxed out at around 50 miles per week and even here, I had problems. My whole career, I had a hard time 2x a day training and just didn't do it. During my senior year, I was typically 1-4 man on the team depending upon the difficulty of the course, and we almost won the ACC-much to my surprise. I got 4th! Without walk-ons, I am sure I would have done our fall track program. And by the gist of things here, I doubt whether I could have even been on the XC team today. It was just a different age. Everything in real terms, tuition, salaries, etc. was far, far cheaper and resources were more available. I remember we gave a full ride to a great javelin thrower who could only do outdoor track and no indoor. Coach liked him as a student and wanted him to come, allocation issues be damned.