Im Pumped

Wrong on the first part, three parts wrong on the second.

 

it’s about equality of opportunities, not sports, as you note. And no longer allowing men a disproportionate share isn’t negatively impacting.

 

Instead of one liners criticizing a poster's interpretation of the law, how about line by line explaining to us where these posters are wrong in their interpretation of the law. Something tells me personal feelings or bias will take over in the process. Just a hunch.

 

ya think?

 

Respectfully, I agree that actual equality of opportunity is a right and just thing. The question is how do you go about achieving that in a way that doesn't deprive one deserving student athlete of the chance to fulfill his or her aspirations - in order to promote the interests of another? And at what point does ignoring the realities of life in an academic meritocracy (as well as basic economics) stop being just and right and become just another example of "social engineering" that unfairly quashes the rights of one group in order to promote the interests of another. The "zero-sum game" that dictates that for every winner there must be a loser should not be applied to college life.

The problem doesn't lie in the theory of fairness or equality - it lies in devising reasonable and "fair" methods and assumptions that go toward achieving it. The underlying dictate that for every male scholarship there must be a female scholarship is simply wrong-headed - due to the numbers required to field a men's FB team and the relatively small numbers required to field any other collegiate sports team. Now if you insist that for every male team sport there be a female team sport, and that there must be similar amenities and resources allocated to those teams, I would be all for it. But the one-for-one scholarship approach is inherently defective because it automatically results in needlessly punishing male athletes in the so-called minor sports, in the effort to achieve numerical scholarship parity between the genders. And I just don't think that's right or just. JMHO.

 

Sorry, I was traveling from oversees, replying on a plane just before takeoff.

On the "it's not the number of sports" part, I think that's been fairly well rebutted.

On the funding part, here is the way I look at it. Foremost, I approach university athletics from an academic mission viewpoint, not a Massive TV Entertainment Complex perspective.

1) 25% (-ish) of university funding comes from state taxpayers. The taxes from a parent of a young man should get equal sports representation as a parent of a young woman.

2) Title IX provides federal funding, which also comes from tax payers. The university gets a big chunk from this, making Title IX a big stick. If a school wants disproportionate opportunities for men, then don't take any Title IX funding.

3) While TV contracts do float big-time school athletic departments (for nearly all men/women's sports), Forbes has shown, all but a handful of schools are solvent. They spend that money. Or deduct the allocation given from the school. For the majority of D-1 non-P5, and certainly all D-2/D-3, this is a non-argument.

4) Student fees as mandatory part of tuition have risen sharply over the years. These should also be gender-neutral.

So when it comes to the (fairly childish) part about "personal feelings or bias", my position is simply: equal opportunity under the law. Quite the opposite of bias.

 

Well-reasoned point. And you are right, football is what distorts the equation. But I don't accept that as a fait accompli. It still counts. There's a population of taxpayers providing "opportunities". Those should be equitably distributed. Pretty fair.

And for those decrying the cutting of a men's sport...that wasn't the only alternative to achieve parity. They could have increased women's opportunities. But the same people complaining about Title IX, also don't want to increase taxes, and so it was indeed a zero-sum game.

I don't think women's sports is "social engineering." In fact, I'd argue that 90% of female athletes adhere more to the academic mission than the average scholarship'd football player.

 

Who's pumped!...

 

Again, respectfully, the taxpayers aren't the only ones providing the big bucks required to run the machine of modern co-ed athletics. That money comes almost exclusively from revenues provided by CFB, with some relatively minor contributions from men's BB. And although women's athletics certainly aren't "social engineering," in and of themselves, the practice of imposing quotas and set asides to benefit one group at the expense of another, while ignoring the source of the revenues that make the whole thing possible in the first place, IMHO, most definitely is. And if you continue to apply the "scholarship for scholarship" dictum without exception, for every "minor" male sports scholarship you add you must automatically add yet another female scholarship to maintain the 1 to 1 ratio. It's a never-ending cycle that cannot be redressed within the current paradigm. I do genuinely respect your aspirations for gender equity in college athletics. But we clearly have a difference of opinion of just exactly what that is in practical terms - and how to get there.

 

I think I delineated the sources of income. And I doubt if even 10% of ALL universities in the country, get any notable amount of CFB funding. My local University of Mary Washington...doesn't even have football.

I also don't know if I buy the "almost exclusively", even for the P-5. If there are citations, that would be helpful. If you are correct, then I will concede your point -- all sports of both genders except basketball could be considered in a separate pile. Though that isn't "one group", isn't gender, and isn't "social engineering". It's a "revenue generating" vs. "non-revenue generating" in P5 conferences.

Should my local university, with no CFB, have gender equity in scholarships? If not, why not? If you think it's ok to be inequitable, would you accept in the other direction? Women are more academically oriented, nearing 60% of enrollees. P5 TV revenue aside, would you accept women getting 60% of non-P5 opportunities?

 

When twice as many men play sports as women yet force equal numbers by eliminating men’s sports, it’s a flawed system. I think most of us understand the rules and intentions.

 

I believe you, respectfully, pulled that number out of your butt. I've seen number from 30% gap to 8% gap. Given the imbalance of opportunities -- not to mention the message sent -- it seems in the neighborhood of "even". And I believe the rate of decrease vs. increase might favor girls, going forward.

Thought experiment: Men are going to college and completing at lower rates than women. Should admissions thus favor women? That seems counter-intuitive.

Here's a solution we could all get on board with: with the rise of girls wrestling as a legit sport, bring back wrestling in a Title IX neutral way.

As a note, thanks to you and @lizardbreath for civil discourse on this. Need more cases like this thread.

 

How bout if men want to wrestle, just let them wrestle. If girls want to also, make a womens wrestling team. There’s no good reason for men not to have soccer at every college in the nation except for the fact that it takes 85 schollys for the cash cow to field a team.

 

I don’t like soccer by the way.

 

Yes, that was my point, men's and women's wrestling teams. Sorry, I wasn't clear on that.

On the "cash cow" point...how many of the hundreds of public D-1/D-2/D-3 schools does that apply to? My guess is that, for the majority, football is not a cash cow. For most, athletics is indeed part of the academic experience, which is part of the NCAA mission statement.

As an aside, it wouldn't surprise me if FSU's football program was a cash-negative. Same for LSU. We should all learn to question King Football as "cash cow." Sometimes -- frequently? -- it isn't.

 

I see your point and agree with the spirit of your concerns. And frankly, I don't have the information readily at hand to prove or refute either set of assertions to a degree that would be satisfactory in a court of law. I have however seen apocryphal assertions to support my contention re the sources of many big school athletic budgets and I'd be shocked if the revenues that support co-ed athletics, among other things, weren't heavily dependent on FB & BB TV contracts, tickets sale. etc. - at least at major FB schools like UF. It's still my personal view that the 1 for 1 scholarship requirement is arbitrary and unreasonable in many instances and that it does a disservice to the young men who are left out in the cold as a result of the doctrinaire, one size fits all approach that is currently in place. That is just my opinion - and again, I do believe that part of your argument is well-founded - particularly at smaller institutions. But the apples to oranges comparison of division two schools to P5 institutions is tenuous at best and does not reflect the practical fallout for everyone, everywhere. At this point, I'm going to cordially and politely agree to disagree and return my attentions to the glories of major college FB.

 

Me too. But, this is a tough crowd if you expect them to really understand the history and outcomes of discrimination. There are some really fine people here with personal mythologies that are impossible to overcome. Not their fault.

 

nice use of the word apocryphal

 

Georgia and Alabama fans that come on this forum think Lizard is speaking a different language