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Title IX proving to be more fatal
By LORI NICKEL
of the Journal Sentinel staff
Nov. 30, 2001
This is not what women fought so hard for, this was never the intention of Title IX. What has happened in colleges across the country, and at Marquette University, is disturbing to a lot of supporters of men's non-revenue sports.
Another team, Marquette wrestling, has been eliminated because of budget cuts and equity laws.
How could this happen?
Women just wanted the same chances men have to compete. They didn't want to take away men's opportunities, thus setting men's athletics back 30 years to where women's athletics were. Title IX was supposed to make things fair for women in the classroom and on the field.
Instead, men's programs die out by the dozens in an ugly side effect to the federal law. NCAA wrestling alone has lost 56 teams in the last 20 years.
What can be done?
Maybe men's athletics suffer from quotas that aren't needed anymore. Weren't women thriving in sports?
Maybe people should pressure the Office of Civil Rights in Washington, D.C., and Congress to change Title IX. Maybe football should be excluded from Title IX's proportionality requirements until sixth-grade girls football teams become the rule rather than the exception. Maybe we could ease up a bit on the proportionality requirements. Maybe things don't have to be 50-50.
Realistically, it is just not that simple.
First of all, Marquette's wrestling program suffered its first major setback in 1992, when a campuswide financial budget crunch meant that every department had to limit its expenses. The athletic department picked wrestling and stopped funding the program.
Incredibly, the program survived another seven years without a dime from the school because of loyal alumni who raised scholarship money themselves. The coach made more money at his second job as a personal trainer. Two or three scholarships were shared among all 33 wrestlers on the roster, barely putting a dent in Marquette's $18,000 a year tuition.
But the problem with wrestling was that MU wasn't competitive, athletic director Bill Cords said.
Although a few individuals qualified for the NCAA championship tournament, as a team MU had just two winning seasons in the last 11 years. Filling the schedule was also a challenge, as Marquette was the only school in Conference USA with a wrestling team.
The final straw was when Marquette, like all schools, was forced to meet equity requirements by the NCAA in order to be certified by the organization and compete for its championships. MU tried everything to avoid dumping the program.
Cords said he did not want to add, as he called it, "a token sport," such as badminton or water polo, not major sports in this state.
Instead, MU put roster limits on it's men's track, soccer, tennis and golf teams. But that wasn't enough. It looked into adding a legitimate women's sport such as swimming or golf, then weighed the costs of equipment, getting a facility up to NCAA standards, a coaching staff and scholarships, and decided, ultimately, that it was too expensive.
It was an agonizing choice for the MU staff, but the only practical one.
So even though the wrestling team was privately funded, even though those wrestlers brought in money to the school by paying their own way, even though the team was also an academic success, the sport was dropped because it skewed the male-to-female proportionality requirement of Title IX.
"Obviously, it was a disappointment for all of us," said Mike End, a former Marquette wrestler and one of the key people in keeping the program afloat. "We were happy to keep it alive as long as we did."
End, a lawyer, and the other wrestling supporters have decided not to try to sue Marquette to reinstate the program. Several men's teams at universities across the nation have filed reverse-discrimination lawsuits. Not one has succeeded, according to Donna Lopiano, the former women's athletic director at Texas before she became the executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation in 1992.
Lopiano, a former college softball star and nine-time All-American at four different positions, agreed that Title IX did force schools to make tough decisions, but she strongly rejected the argument that starting a women's sports team costs too much.
"It's not OK to have an economic excuse for discrimination," Lopiano said. "When you remedy discrimination, you bring the disadvantaged gender or race up to the level of the advantaged gender or race.
"Say the women's faculty at Marquette brought a lawsuit against the school for salary discrimination. Marquette wouldn't say, OK, we're going to cut half of the men's faculty positions. Marquette wouldn't even say to the men's faculty, 'I'm going to reduce your salary by 30%.' "
Lopiano also said there wasn't a quota with Title IX. She said a recent study showed that most schools used two other methods to comply with Title IX, not the proportionality rule.
Marquette could, in theory, keep all of its men's programs if it dropped to Division II status, thus saving scholarship money, Lopiano said.
But you can imagine the uproar from the alumni, fans and the student-athletes if that happened.
When MU wrestling was dropped in June, there was barely a fuss beyond those closely tied to the program.
So on Saturday, instead of gearing up for a 53rd season, Marquette wrestling had an emotional final fund-raiser at the Alumni Memorial Union. Former Olympic wrestlers from all over the country made the trip, including some who wrestled in the 1960s. This time, the money went to USA Wrestling. Cords was there and said although he hoped wrestling would return one day, he would never forget the final farewell.
While some find it troublesome that a sport so popular at the high school level in Wisconsin will have one fewer college team, it was not the women's cross country or volleyball teams that killed Marquette wrestling.
Title IX forces schools to give its women as many opportunities as its men. College presidents and athletic directors make difficult decisions on how to prioritize the money they have.
Is it fair? What is fair? If you have a son and a daughter, shouldn't things be equal? Would you buy your boy hockey equipment and then tell your daughter there's no more money left for her softball pitching lessons?
Thirty years ago, before Title IX, we never had the dilemma, because girls were not given the opportunities to compete in the first place.
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Wrestling continues growth on the high school level according National Federation statistics
11/8/2001
Gary Abbott/USA Wrestling
Wrestling continues to grown on the high school level, according to statistics released for the 2000-2001 school year by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).
Wrestling grew in every category, with more boys competitors, girls competitors and teams than the previous season. It was the eighth straight year that the total number of wrestling competitors and teams has grown nationally, and the fifth straight year that the number of participants has grown. In addition, wrestling remains one of the most popular sports for boys, according to the survey.
Wrestling was ranked No. 6 in the number of boys participants with 244,984 total participants in the nation. Only football, basketball, outdoor track and field, baseball and soccer had more boys participants than wrestling.
The number of boys wrestlers on the high school level increased by 5,879 from the previous year, increase of 2.5 percent.
Wrestling was ranked No. 9 in the number of boys programs, with 9,404 wrestling teams in the United States. Wrestling was ranked behind basketball, outdoor track and field, baseball, football, golf, cross country, soccer and tennis in total number of programs.
The number of boys wrestling teams increased by 358 programs last year, an increase of 4.0 percent.
Girls wrestling continued its growth trend of recent years as well. According to the survey, the number of girls in high school wrestling grew to 3,032 participants, up from 2,474 during the 1999-2000 year. This increase of 558 girls participants represents an outstanding 23.0 percent increase.
In addition, the number of wrestling teams with girls participating showed an increase again. In 1999-2000, 734 high schools had girls involved in wrestling, but the 2000-2001 year, the total grew to 896 programs. This increase of 162 programs represented an increase of 22.0 percent.
In overall wrestling participants, both boys and girls, the grand total increased from 241,579 to 248,016 in 2000-2001. This increase of 6,437 athletes represents an increase of 2.7 percent.
Based on figures from the 51 state high school athletic/activity associations, participation in all high school athletics during 2000-2001 was 6,657,257, an increase of 100,345 athletes from the previous year. This sets the all-time record for high school sports participation, exceeding the previous high set last year. Total participation increased for both boys and girls during the year.
The NFHS has compiled the survey since 1971 based on figures from its 51 member state associations. With the exception of a slight decrease from 1987-88 to 1988-89, participation has risen each year since the 1983-84 year.
In the listing of total athletic participants by state, Texas remains No. 1 with 779,329, followed by California (633,572), New York (334,945), Illinois (302,354), Michigan (295,799), Ohio (294,848), Pennsylvania (226,419), New Jersey (218,982), Minnesota (217,270) and Florida (211,648).
The top 10 states for boys wrestling participation were California (24,326), Illinois (14,367), Ohio (13,468), Michigan (12,064), New York (11,980), New Jersey (8,853), Minnesota (8,547), Washington (8,517), Pennsylvania (8,338) and Indiana (8,194). All states, except Arkansas, reported boys wrestling participants.
A total of 31 states reported girls wrestlers to the NFHS. California had the highest total, with 752 girls wrestling on the high school level, followed by Texas with 485, Hawaii with 239, Washington with 256 and Michigan with 153.
2001 Athletics Participation Totals
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