Title IX Out Of Control
Let me start by tossing a big bucket of water on the fire that a title like that can create. I am all for gender equity in all areas of life, including sports. With a daughter on the way, I'm looking forward to watching her take part in sports in a way that wouldn't have been possible just one generation ago. I agree wholeheartedly with the idea and purpose of Title IX. But I disagree with the way it is sometimes carried out.
A year after I finished playing baseball at Iowa State University, the school announced its intention to cut the baseball program. The Big 12 Conference was ranked the second best baseball conference in the nation, and now it would only have 10 teams (Colorado also has no baseball team). Imagine the Big Ten with eight football teams. That's about what it's like.
The reason the program had to be cut was twofold. First, budget problems had prompted lawmakers to cut funding to state universities. It trickled down to athletics in the form of Title IX compliance. According to the law, ISU had too many male athletes and not enough female. The options were to add women's sports or cut men's. Partially because of the budget problem, the latter option was implemented.
Although I think the loss of the Cyclones baseball program is tragic, especially for Minnesota kids like me who had the rare opportunity to play in a southern conference, I can partially understand it. We didn't draw big crowds and, since we did play in a southern conference, travel expenses were high. We flew to all four Texas schools in the Big 12 as well as to Louisiana my junior year over spring break. It wasn't cheap for the athletic department.
Still, some things didn't make sense. One day I spoke to a young woman who was on a recruiting visit. It was an odd visit in that she was considering a crew scholarship. ISU had no women's crew team, but was looking at instating one to help comply with Title IX. The really odd thing was that she had never been in a boat before. She was being recruited for the sport not because of her athletic talent but because she was a woman. ISU never did get the crew team, but the incident always stuck in my mind as being ridiculous.
Local Implications
The ludicrous side of Title IX hit Rochester a few weeks ago when a Mayo baseball game was postponed because of darkness. It was being played at Mayo Field. For anyone who doesn't know, Mayo Field is one of the best lit fields around...When the lights are on. High schools have had night games there for many years, but not anymore.
Since softball fields at a couple of the schools in town don't have lights, the boys aren't allowed to use theirs either. The argument is as simple as that.
As I said before, I understand Title IX. I get why it was necessary before and why it remains so today. I'm glad, for my future daughter's sake, that it's still around. But can't we use a little common sense in its implementation?
Rather that taking the privilege of playing night games away from high school baseball teams, we should be working on making it possible for softball teams to have the same luxury. If we want to make change, why hold one group down rather than lifting another up? Why focus on vengeance rather than progressive thought?
What we need to do is quit being so trivial. As much as it pains me, I understand why Iowa State no longer has a baseball program. I might not agree with the allocation of resources that played a part in the cutting of the program, but at least I understand. The lights issue is on an entirely different scale. A scale measured by millimeters rather than miles and fueled by bureaucracy rather than common sense.
I say we should shoot for equality through different means. By making boys and girls sports even by lifting them both up rather than cutting one down just so we can use the word "equal."
A year after I finished playing baseball at Iowa State University, the school announced its intention to cut the baseball program. The Big 12 Conference was ranked the second best baseball conference in the nation, and now it would only have 10 teams (Colorado also has no baseball team). Imagine the Big Ten with eight football teams. That's about what it's like.
The reason the program had to be cut was twofold. First, budget problems had prompted lawmakers to cut funding to state universities. It trickled down to athletics in the form of Title IX compliance. According to the law, ISU had too many male athletes and not enough female. The options were to add women's sports or cut men's. Partially because of the budget problem, the latter option was implemented.
Although I think the loss of the Cyclones baseball program is tragic, especially for Minnesota kids like me who had the rare opportunity to play in a southern conference, I can partially understand it. We didn't draw big crowds and, since we did play in a southern conference, travel expenses were high. We flew to all four Texas schools in the Big 12 as well as to Louisiana my junior year over spring break. It wasn't cheap for the athletic department.
Still, some things didn't make sense. One day I spoke to a young woman who was on a recruiting visit. It was an odd visit in that she was considering a crew scholarship. ISU had no women's crew team, but was looking at instating one to help comply with Title IX. The really odd thing was that she had never been in a boat before. She was being recruited for the sport not because of her athletic talent but because she was a woman. ISU never did get the crew team, but the incident always stuck in my mind as being ridiculous.
Local Implications
The ludicrous side of Title IX hit Rochester a few weeks ago when a Mayo baseball game was postponed because of darkness. It was being played at Mayo Field. For anyone who doesn't know, Mayo Field is one of the best lit fields around...When the lights are on. High schools have had night games there for many years, but not anymore.
Since softball fields at a couple of the schools in town don't have lights, the boys aren't allowed to use theirs either. The argument is as simple as that.
As I said before, I understand Title IX. I get why it was necessary before and why it remains so today. I'm glad, for my future daughter's sake, that it's still around. But can't we use a little common sense in its implementation?
Rather that taking the privilege of playing night games away from high school baseball teams, we should be working on making it possible for softball teams to have the same luxury. If we want to make change, why hold one group down rather than lifting another up? Why focus on vengeance rather than progressive thought?
What we need to do is quit being so trivial. As much as it pains me, I understand why Iowa State no longer has a baseball program. I might not agree with the allocation of resources that played a part in the cutting of the program, but at least I understand. The lights issue is on an entirely different scale. A scale measured by millimeters rather than miles and fueled by bureaucracy rather than common sense.
I say we should shoot for equality through different means. By making boys and girls sports even by lifting them both up rather than cutting one down just so we can use the word "equal."
posted by Joe Siple | 10:09 AM
1 Comments:
The kicker is that all the Rochester high schools have access to lighted softball fields, owned by the city of Rochester. None of the high school baseball fields have lights, just the same as the high school softball fields.
Now it seems to a simple minded person such as myself that there is as least as much of an opportunity for high school softball games to be played under the lights as there is for high school baseball games. Whether or not that opportunity was ever presented to the softball programs as an option by the school district, I do not know. If not, it certainly should have been.
When a city has 10 lighted softball fields and only 2 lighted baseball fields, the argument that softball programs do not have the opportunity to play nite games is ridiculous.
Ernest
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