Title IX of the Education Act Impacts on Men as Well as Women
ARE 85 COLLEGE FOOTBALL SCHOLARSHIPS TOO MANY
In collegiate sports the attendance is significantly different. In the 2003 season, the difference was nearly double between Kentucky’s men’s team (the top attendance holder for men) and Connecticut women’s team (the top attendance holder for women.)
While Connecticut had approximately 12,800 people attend their games, Kentucky had nearly 23,000 people attend. In fact, Connecticut’s 12,859 attendees would have placed them 23 overall in accordance with men (Unique Circumstances cause dip in Final Four TV Ratings). This means that there are 22 NCAA men’s basketball programs that bring in a larger fan base per game, then the number one girls program.
Today, Title IX divides everything equally. Scholarships, for example, are given out in according to each sport and how many they require. Before Title IX, every Division I college is allowed 206.9 scholarships for men and 173.1 scholarships for women. While it appears that men receive more scholarships then women this isn’t true. If women used all their scholarships, men would also only be allowed to use 173.1 of their scholarships. This is supposed to keep things equal. However, there are 33.8 scholarships that go wasted throughout the men’s sports. This obviously means that men’s sports have to be cut and trimmed to create them equal with women’s scholarships. At UCLA (University of California Los Angeles), over the past decade three men’s teams have been cut. Two of these sports were swimming and men’s gymnastics teams.
During the same period, UCLA added three women’s teams; soccer in 1993, water polo in 1994-1995, and then they restored rowing in 2000-2001 (Sacks, Men’s Athletics Suffer due to Growth of Women’s Programs). San Francisco State athletic director Betsy Alden commented that,
“we needed about a 120 women athletes, or about six teams of 20 women each, if we were going to keep football. There aren’t even six more sports out there” (Sacks, Men’s Athletics Suffer due to Growth of Women’s Programs).
Football seems to be the issue when dealing with scholarships. A school is permitted 85 scholarships for football. Every scholarship is needed. On offense there are 11 players, then on defense there is a different 11 players. Then there are 6 different special teams. Special teams are the teams that usually involve a kicker.
The six teams are kick-off, kick-off return, field goal, field goal block, punt, and punt return. Each team requires 11 players and coaches tend to use different players then that of their starters, due to the fact that special teams involve much contact and there is a great risk of getting hurt.
Also there are key second string players. Say there is only one per position, that is still 11 on offense and 11 on defense. That is an additional 88 players. Add 88 to the 22 actual starters on offense and defense, and the answer is 110 players that can be used in one game. So that means there is an estimated 110 players that make up a football team. 85 scholarships all of a sudden doesn’t seem like so many.
It appears that if football were eliminated then the solution would be solved and every sport could have an equal number of scholarships. However, this isn’t true. Without football most sports would not be funded. Sometimes the argument is made that football does not bring in money for other sports; however, evidence proves this to be wrong. At UCLA, football alone brings in $15 million in revenue every year. That is over 40 percent of UCLA athletics‘ total, both men and women. USC (University of Southern California) men’s teams, mostly football and basketball, are responsible for over 99 percent of nearly $20 million in total sports revenue (Sacks, Men’s Athletics Suffer due to Growth of Women’s Programs).
The dilemma is obvious. The majority of schools cannot afford to cut football. Football is too popular and brings in too much money to be cut. That’s why other male sports must be cut. Tennis, swimming and wrestling usually go first. It was estimated that in 1999, 40% of colleges had cut their wrestling programs (Coulter, Title IX Defeats Male Athletes). The NCAA, has declared that a college is only allowed 13 male scholarships for basketball, where as women are allowed 15. It used to be even at 15 a piece, however, the NCAA was forced to change the men’s team down to 13 several years ago to even the scholarships among men and women. This is the case with every sport except football, wrestling, lacrosse, and swimming. In every other sport, women’s scholarships out number men’s. The only sports that women are not allowed any scholarships are football and wrestling, both of which are co-ed sports if a woman chooses to play those sports. However, men are not allowed scholarships in either rowing or field hockey. These sports are not co-ed, so any male player has no chance of earning a way through school with a scholarship as all other athletes do.
This article is in seven parts. This is part Three.
Part 1 Women enjoy a distinct advantage over men in college athletics.
Part 2 Bakke believed that his rejections were in direct violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment.
Part 4 When Title IX was created it was crafted with intent to make it easy for schools to comply with its guidelines.
Part 5 For the first time since 1968, the USA freestyle wrestlers failed to win a single gold medal.
Part 6 Every college is required to have a designated Title IX coordinator.
Part 7 Over 110,000 women participated in intercollegiate sports. Where as in 1971 just about 25,000 participated.
A review of the National Collegiate Scouting Association. NCSA reviews…