Title IX solutions?

--> 100 meters - 60% of college students are not females - that is way too high. Here's a quick sampling of 9 colleges and their percentages (and populations)

Yale University - male (2,661) 51% female (2,592) 49%

University of Miami - male (4,222) 43% female (5572) 57%

Ball State University - male 44% female 56%

Amherst College - male (835) 51% female (796) 49%

Ohio State University - male (27,408) 49% female (28,329) 51%

Stanford University - male (3,382) 51% female (3,255) 49 %

University of Tennessee (Knoxville) - male (12,243) 47% female (13,790) 53%

Vassar College - male 40% female 60%

Virgina Tech - male 59.1% female 40.1%

Granted, this is only 9 schools, but it includes an Ivy League school, a technical school, a small private college, a formerly all-women's school, and a number of state universities. My guess is that out of this group, males are like 47 % and females 53 % - but again that's just my guess.

--> Regarding this debate as to whether or not football generates revenue - someone made an excellent point earlier, that extra-curricular activities do not exist to generate revenue. Debate clubs, intramural sports, varsity wrestling - all that stuff uses lots of money each year and rarely generates any. When it comes to extra-curriculars, at best you hope that the participants can raise enough money to have the activity pay for itself.

--> Bitter Seaman, you're an idiot. Wow, you figured out that men are better at sports than women. So what, of course women should still be entitled to compete amongst themselves.

--> Dunes Runner, you are just flat out wrong about there being fewer women interested in participating in sports. I was in charge of the intramurals program at my college. It was a really good one too, we had about 50 sports in all, with fall, winter, and spring seasons. Year in and year out the sports that had the most forfeits (due to lack of participation) were women's soccer, women's field hockey, co-ed football (men's football never had forfeits, but in the co-ed version you needed 3 women to play - if you couldn't get 3, you forfeited), and women's squash. Granted, some women's sports were well attended - women's basketball and volleyball being two of them. But trust me - trying to find women to play all the co-ed sports that required female participants was a bitch. And trying to field teams for the all-female sports was ridiculous. It wasn't due to lack of opportunity or publicity. Females just didn't want to play.

Excuse me, Dunes Runner disagreed that fewer women wanted to participate in sports. I disagreed with her.

[quote]Man wrote:

--> 100 meters - 60% of college students are not females - that is way too high. Here's a quick sampling of 9 colleges and their percentages (and populations)

Yale University - male (2,661) 51% female (2,592) 49%

University of Miami - male (4,222) 43% female (5572) 57%

Ball State University - male 44% female 56%

Amherst College - male (835) 51% female (796) 49%

Ohio State University - male (27,408) 49% female (28,329) 51%

Stanford University - male (3,382) 51% female (3,255) 49 %

University of Tennessee (Knoxville) - male (12,243) 47% female (13,790) 53%

Vassar College - male 40% female 60%

Virgina Tech - male 59.1% female 40.1%

Granted, this is only 9 schools, but it includes an Ivy League school, a technical school, a small private college, a formerly all-women's school, and a number of state universities. My guess is that out of this group, males are like 47 % and females 53 % - but again that's just my guess.

quote]

very much just a guess.

Women in College: The Gender Gap Grows

by Mary Anne Feeney

Originally published Jan. 22, 2001 on studentadvantage.com.

This is the eleventh in a series of articles and columns on the lives of women in college today.

The Women in College series:

? The Gender Gap Grows

Many critics have a problem with the fact that women are increasingly outnumbering men in U.S. colleges. Certain schools have even considered instituting affirmative action policies for men to counter the trend.

In 1999, 8.5 million women enrolled in U.S. colleges, versus 6.4 million men, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. Last year women made up 57 percent of those entering college. That percentage is expected to rise to 61 percent by 2009, according to the NCES.

Everyone is talking about scholarships, but my understanding is that schools look at total participation. So even if a school gives out no scholarships at all, they have to balance the number of total participants or the number of sports offered. If they use total participants, then they have to count, not only the 85 football players on scholarship, but the 30 or 40 others (and most DI programs have at least 100, and sometimes as many as 150, players on their practice squads) who are walk-ons.

Yeah, football is the roadblock to real parity. If it could be taken out of the equation, that would be a good first step. The next problem is the financial drain that football represents. It's going to take a couple of courageous administrators (an oxymoron?) to put the brakes on football spending. If their coaches don't like it, they can go somewhere else. They can at least start by limiting the squad to 80 players. If it's good enough for the NFL, it should be good enough for the NCAA. As a matter of fact, limiting the squad to 80 players is something that the NCAA can do whether schools like it or not. But does the NCAA have the courage to stand up to the football constituency? Probably not.

BTW, count me in as a title IX supporter. It's been great for women's sports, both collegiately and post-collegiately. But if it helps one group and hurts another, then it needs to be fixed.

1) Mary Anne Feeney's statistics are wrong - she claims that she got her numbers from the National Center for Educational Statistics, but here's a chart from their webpage:

http://nces.ed.gov//programs/coe/2002/section1/tables/t05_1.asp

By my count that puts women at 56.12 percent in 1999, which is closer to my 53 % guesstimate than your 60 % claim.

2) The projections for the years after 1999 are not necessarily valid in this chart. After all, in 1998 women comprised 56.21 % of the college population, but in '99 went down .09 % to 56.12 % And yet beyond 1999 the women's population continues to rise. Interesting extrapolation. Not sure what formula they used.

Anyway, I don't even know why I took the time to look this up, I guess I'm just bored. And the 60 % caught my eye because I've definitely never seen that kind of ratio at a party.

Whatever.

BostonGuy wrote:

the 85 football players on scholarship

A good start would be to limit that number to the average of the athletics programs.

They can at least start by limiting the squad to 80 players.

80 is quite a few. How many can be on the cross country team/s? Just make football the same as the other programs.

Apparently you've never watched football... Cross Country teams use SEVEN runners, football teams use atleast 30. They include 11 offense, 11 defense, punter, kicker, place holder, long snapper, plus 6 other players for different sets (third wide receiver, second tight end, fifth defensive back, fourth linebacker or defensive tackle, etc.) Sure, some of the 80 players on most teams are just freshmen and sophomores who haven't yet developed into regular players, but with injuries and substitutions teams must use 45-50 each year. That's why NFL teams, for example, who have strict salary caps and are also looking for loose ends to waive, still keep on around 50 players, plus a practice or taxi squad of sevearl more.

third choice wrote:

with injuries and substitutions teams must use 45-50 each year.

i don't see what point you are making. are you arguing that football needs 90 scholarships? If they use 45-50 players a year shouldn't they need at most 45-50 scholarships. I'm not a title IX supporter the way it is currently interpreted but i sure as hell don't think that 40 stupid fat kids who won't even put on a uniform deserve to go to an educational institution for free, whether the team makes money or not. Everyone, man or woman, title IX supporter or not should agree with that.

Well, like I said, teams will have taxi squads of 20 or so players. Also, most high school athletes are not strong enough or mentally prepared to play in Division I as freshmen and, as such, they will need a year to strengthen up and learn how to play in practice. These players also count on the roster. All in all, this definitely adds up to 80 players. And don't think these kids are fat and will never play. Many of the finest athletes you've ever met wouldn't even get considered for one of the 80 scholarships given by one of the better division I teams.

Women's athletics and equality with males is wonderful. The more the merrier. Everyone, male or female, should work out one to three hours a day and this world would be a better place. There are definitely sports where women kick men's asses. Female gymnasts are superior to male gymnasts IMHO. Female rockclimbers are equal to men. Try doing adductor reps on the weight machine with a female cyclist, she'll probably bury most men.

But if you play you pay. So far, men's football and to an extent basketball is picking up all of the costs for women's college athletics. Men they love to hate. If you cut them you cut yourselves because they fund women's scholarships. We need reform but you cannot cut football until you have an alternative solution in place. None has been offered by the critics. Just pissing and moaning so far.

Football brings in more alumni dollars than anything else related to a university athletic department and in many cases brings in more than academic donations too. Whatever a college football program might lose at the ticket gate is a woefully incomplete measure, as it is more than made up for by alumni donations. These monies then fund 90% or more of women's athletics. Over 70% of universities show a profit from football when alumni donations, T-shirt and memorabilia sales, ticket sales, concessions, licensing, TV, bowl games, etc., are taken into account.

If football can be just as or more profitable with 35 less scholarships, I'm all for it. But without football, women's sports would simply not be funded at universities unless they did all of the fundraising for it themselves. There are ninnies like dunes runner and 16x who expect free handouts (if they are even women). Without football, where are these women going to get the capital to fund their athletic scholarship? Actually I think 16x and dunes runner might be males who really hate Title IX and are riling up men against it. Either that or they are extraordinarily clueless for college-educated women. Good lawd, get a grip on reality here.

Message boards are unique in that you can have intellectual people arguing in the same forum as uneducated. Take for example the following...

One Keg wrote:

But your pusillanimous arguments....

One Keg provided a "word of the day" for many people.

Pusillanimous (adj.) - Cowardly; timid

Girl Opinion wrote:

AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEM SUCKS, I red from a paper...

Here, Girl Opinion unwittingly offers herself as an apparant product of the system she denounces. As appealing as her unintentional argument may be, it is not conclusive that the system is responsible for her (or others') deficiencies.

Then again, Girl Opinion may not be a native English speaker or simply doesn't bother proofreading a post (perhaps due to time constraints or a belief that it's not a very important venue).

Here's a thought. Let's flip this around. Suppose a certain college does not have a football team. For whatever reason they decide to add football (perceived prestige, community pressure, etc.) Pre-football, they had a 50/50 gender balance in sports. Now what do the administrators do? Do you think that they'll effectively double the dollars and create 100 slots for female athletes in new sports, or do you think that they'll just hack away at men's wrestling, cross country, etc.?

Get my point?

third choice wrote:

Well, like I said, teams will have taxi squads of 20 or so players. Also, most high school athletes are not strong enough or mentally prepared to play in Division I as freshmen and, as such, they will need a year to strengthen up and learn how to play in practice. These players also count on the roster. All in all, this definitely adds up to 80 players. And don't think these kids are fat and will never play. Many of the finest athletes you've ever met wouldn't even get considered for one of the 80 scholarships given by one of the better division I teams.

Did anyone else find this post hilarious?

Give me a freakin' break. They aren't mentally prepared? You'd think they were going off to war or something. They train military boys in our forces in 14 weeks and send them off to risk their lives in potential battles. Football players need 2 years to be able to take a hit from another skillet-head.

This is hilarious!

third choice wrote:

Many of the finest athletes you've ever met wouldn't even get considered for one of the 80 scholarships given by one of the better division I teams.

You've got that right. They'd be on the women's cross country team.

One Keg wrote:

without football, women's sports would simply not be funded at universities unless they did all of the fundraising for it themselves. There are ninnies like dunes runner and 16x who expect free handouts

I'd be satisfied with getting the fat pigs off the fields.

If they need (translation = "want") 50 players for each game, fine. That doesn't mean they need 50 scholarships.

There might be 50 runners on a men's track team, but when is the last time they all got scholarships, proportional to the football ones? Probably, never.

So let them play all the players they want. BUT give them the same scholarships as the average of the other programs, and that's it. When they subtract all the kids with injuries and brain damage, and not being able to replace them, they won't be in business much longer.

By the way, thanks for the honor of putting me in the same sentence with 16x.

I have a good stat for the Feminists (or guys trying to get laid by feminists) to swallow on. Last year, over 1000 funeral caskets were sold with the Nebraska Cornhusker logo painted all over them. You think people bought those because of the women's water polo team, or because of the football team? Just selling those caskets probably brought in the university enough money to give scholarships to a few women's water polo players. But do they thank the football team for giving them a free education? Probably not. Probably they're complaining that they don't get as many scholarships as the football team, and that it's not fair that one team gets more money than another. Silly girls... they bite the hand that feeds them. Kill football and basketball and you destroy college sports.

The harsh reality is that those "fat pigs" you want to get off the field pay for every dime of your free ride to college, your sport and your performance doesn't generate shit. They pay for your spikes, to your trips to the conference meet, for your singlets, for your free meals at the athletic center or wherever, for your van's gas to trail runs, for your running shoes, for your track sweats or warmups, for your scholarship if you're good enough to earn it, which means your books, your tuition, your dorm room perhaps, whatever you're squeezing out of it. That free ride you get doesn't materialize out of thin air...you're not owed jack in this world, male or female. Football doesn't take your scholarship FROM you, it generates the money to pay FOR you. You owe them thanks not disparagement. Without football you wouldn't even exist as a college runner unless you had rich parents. Realize it within yourself and deal with it.

Title IX is poo poo. I think women should only eat poo.