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W.I.N.’s Journalist of the Year - 2002: Abbott says promotion is crucial
10/7/2002
Tim Tushla/W.I.N. Staff Writer
When he graduated from Boston University in 1982, Gary Abbott wanted to be the world’s best political journalist. But in the midst of a recession, there weren’t many jobs open. So when his college coach, Carl Adams, had an idea to start a national wrestling publication and thought he could help, Abbott took up the challenge.
Twenty years later, Gary Abbott is still involved in wrestling journalism. As a result of his commitment and dedication to the sport, he has been named W.I.N. Magazine's Journalist of the Year for 2002.
“This award certainly means a lot to me,” said Abbott, currently Director of Special Projects for USA Wrestling. “It shows people have noticed some of the work I’ve done and that’s very positive. It is an honor to be recognized by the magazine.”
After five years with Wrestling Master magazine, Abbott accepted a communications position in Colorado Springs in 1988. He has been with the organization ever since.
“It’s been an honor and privilege to work for USA Wrestling. I’ve had great opportunities because I’ve worked here,” said Abbott, who grew up in a wrestling family on Long Island. “As long as I can continue to enjoy what I do and make a difference with my efforts, this is where I want to be. It is something I have really enjoyed doing.”
Although he also still serves as Director of Communications and Editor of USA Wrestler, Abbott has concentrated his recent attention on two fronts.
“Some of my more important activities have been in Title 9 and women’s wrestling,” said Abbott. “Being able to create all the national and North American rankings for women’s college wrestling is helping us get some momentum.”
“With the 30th anniversary of Title 9 and all of the different media initiatives we are involved in we are trying to educate the world on what is wrong with this interpretation of the law. That really pushed me a little bit. I had to use all the skills I had - and some I didn’t know I had - in that area.”
Abbott also takes a great deal of pride in the progress women’s wrestling has made in this country. In 2001, he founded TheMat.com/ASICS Girls High School All-American Team, now the most prestigious national award program for female high school wrestlers. Last year he also created the North American Women1s College Wrestling Poll, a monthly coaches’ poll for women’s college wrestling in North America, which ran in major media in the United States and Canada.
Even with those advances, Abbott knows women in the sport have a long way to go.
“One of our biggest challenges in the future is going to be women’s wrestling. We’ve got to convince people not only involved in wrestling right now, but women athletic leaders, that it is something they need to support and we are going to have to educate the media that this is for real.”
That is old hat for Abbott. Ever since he joined the organization in 1988, he has seen his position evolve into more of a public/media relations position than a news gathering organization.
“I spent a lot of time and a lot of years putting together a stronger communications program where we would provide and work with the media to cover the sport more. I’m not sure there was a lot of that done prior to when I arrived,” he said. “But it became a focus - to do more than just publication work. We’ve really worked hard to try to reach out to the media and build public knowledge and interest in wrestling.”
“I think back in 1988 there weren’t very many fans of international wrestling in the United States. Now we’ve built a pretty strong following for our Olympic-level programs. A big part of that were the 1995 World Championships and the 1996 Olympics being held in this country. That gave us two really big events to promote and get wrestling fans out to see what is going on.”
The reality is, according to Abbott, that very few people have had the opportunity to see the world’s best wrestling. Through USA Wrestling, he feels they’ve been able to bring international wrestling here a lot more than before. That has been pretty rewarding.
“Things like the Goodwill Games in 1990 where we set the international record for attendance when America beat the Soviet Union in front of a packed house,” said Abbott. “Even the Olympic Trials in Spokane with the great Cross versus Brands matches and record-setting attendance. Those are things that we have done which hadn’t reached that level of success prior to 1988.”
“We didn’t have a national teams program back then either. That has been important to help our athletes get support while they stay in the sport. Its made a big difference in our performance.”
Abbott feels the groundwork has now been laid to take advantage of the positives and continue to build wrestling’s future. A key to that is marketing and promotion.
You’ve got two different levels of wrestling - participation wrestling and entertainment wrestling. You can have people that haven’t watched wrestling enjoy a dual meet or the finals of a tournament. But you can’t expect a regular person to sit through three days of wrestling,” said Abbott, himself a four-time lettermen on the Division I level. “What you promote to them are the events that are easier to understand and if you give them an enjoyable experience, they want to learn more and want to come back.”
“But it’s almost like picking your punches. You don’t want to tell families and kids they can’t have these huge competitions because that is very important in wrestling. But what you present to the rest of the world has got to be your best stuff. There are a lot of people that are doing that at all levels of wrestling. You can’t expect everyone to be a wrestling nut but you can show them the good stuff.”
And Abbott thinks wrestling does have an advantage over other sports. The key, he says, is to realize what the sport has in place and build from there.
“We are in just about every community in the country with our youth wrestling programs. That’s one of the reasons we have to fight like crazy protecting our school programs from the challenges of Title 9 and other things. Wrestling is out there in our high schools, junior highs and club programs - and we have to fight for it so the kids that are involved in the early years of their lives have opportunities in college and beyond.”
As with most things, it will be the people deeply involved in the sport who will ultimately make the difference. Abbott deals with public relations people from a number of other sports - both amateur and professional - and knows that this sport has something special, something that has kept him involved for so long.
“We are blessed in wrestling, most of our Olympic athletes are really impressive people. They are all college-educated and very work-ethic oriented. They don’t have the huge egos like professional athletes so they will make appearances and give something back to their sport. I’m very proud that I work with wrestlers.
“People in wrestling are people I enjoy - they are my kind of people. I’m a wrestling guy.”
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Canadian stars Sissaouri, Huynh, Akuffo commit to competing at Kurt Angle Classic in New Orleans, Nov. 8-10
10/4/2002
Gary Abbott/USA Wrestling
Three international wrestling stars from Canada have accepted invitations to compete in the historic new Kurt Angle Classic, a challenge competition featuring U.S. wrestling stars and many of the best wrestling athletes from across the world.
The event will take place at the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, La., November 8-10, 2002.
The three new confirmed stars include 2001 World Champion Giuvi Sissaouri, 2001 World silver medalist Carol Huynh and 2001 World Team member Ohenewa Akuffo.
This brings the total to 12 World-class wrestling stars from foreign nations who have agreed to participate in this exciting new competition. These 12 international athletes have won a total of nine World Championships, one Olympic Games championship and 28 World-level medals.
USA Wrestling, in conjunction with event organizers and international wrestling federations, is helping firm up the final lineup at this time.
The Kurt Angle Classic features a “USA vs. The World” format, and will spotlight Olympic and World Champion athletes in the three Olympic styles of wrestling: men’s freestyle, men’s Greco-Roman and women’s freestyle.
All wrestlers will be paid to compete, with bonuses available to the winners. In all, the total purse for the event will exceed $75,000.
Sissaouri, 31, won the World Championships gold medal in 2001, but did not compete at the 2002 World Championships due to the birth of his child. Sissaouri is the most successful Canadian wrestler in history, the winner of five World-level medals. He won a silver medal at the 1996 Olympic Games, as well as a silver medal at the 1995 World Championships. He also won World bronze medals in 1997 and 1998. Among his other major titles were the 1999 Pan American Games and the 2002 World Cup.
Sissaouri will face three-time U.S. World team member Eric Guerrero (Stillwater, Okla./Gator WC) at the Kurt Angle Classic at 60 kg/132 lbs. Sissaouri and Guerrero have met a number of times, most recently at the 2002 World Cup, with Sissaouri winning the match, 7-1.
Huynh won a silver medal at the 2001 World Championships and a bronze medal at the 2000 World Championships. A three-time Canadian Senior National champion, Huynh has also competed for Canada at the Junior World Championships.
Huynh will battle 2000 World silver medalist Patricia Miranda (Colorado Springs, Colo./Dave Schultz WC) at the event at 48 kg/105.5 lbs. Miranda has dropped down to 105.5 pounds from 112.25 pounds, and has not battled Huynh to date.
Akuffo placed 10th at the 2001 World Championships, and also competed for Canada at the 1997 World Championships. She won a gold medal at the 2002 Pan American Championships, and has also won gold medals at the 2001 Dave Schultz Memorial International and the 2000 Sunkist Kids International.
Akuffo will compete against 2001 World silver medalist Toccara Montgomery (Cleveland, Ohio/Sunkist Kids) in the competition at 72 kg/158.5 lbs. Montgomery moved up to 158.5 pounds from 147.5 pounds this season, and is new to this weight class.
Two featured women’s matches were included in the Kurt Angle Classic, even though the competition is just one week after the 2002 Women’s World Championships. The United States and Canada are among the world’s top women’s wrestling nations, and they annually battle for supremacy among Pan American women’s teams. These two showdowns are expected to be competitive and entertaining.
As other international wrestling stars confirm their attendance at this spectacular wrestling showcase, their information will be posted on TheMat.com and shared with the international media.
The Kurt Angle Classic is part of the “Show of Strength”, a competition that will include body building, power lifting, arm wrestling and a strong man contest. Included will be a hall with over 300 exhibits of products, supplements and other resources useful in athletics.
“I am excited and honored to be hosting this event along with USA Wrestling,” stated Angle, who after capturing Olympic gold in 1996 went on to become a WWE superstar. “This is my way of giving back to the sport of wrestling. It should be an incredible atmosphere and putting the top wrestlers in the world against each other should help the sport of wrestling as well.”
There will be three sessions of competition. In session one, a team comprised of military wrestlers from the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy will face a team composed of wrestlers from the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force.
Sessions two and three will pit the top U.S. stars in all three Olympic styles (men’s freestyle, men’s Greco-Roman, women’s freestyle) fighting against some of the top international competitors in the world.
Wrestling will take place in an entertaining atmosphere. Matches will be enhanced with music, up-close interviews and cutting-edge production techniques that are certain to make this one of the most fan-friendly and stunning amateur wrestling events ever.
For more information on the Kurt Angle Classic, visit www.showofstrength.com.
KURT ANGLE CLASSIC
at New Orleans, La., Nov. 8-10
International Wrestling Stars confirmed as of 10/4/02
Men’s Freestyle competitors
60 kg/132 lbs. - Giuvi Sissaouri (Canada)
66 kg/145.5 lbs. - Elbrus Tedeev (Ukraine)
74 kg/163 lbs. - Magomed Isagadzhiev (Russia)
84 kg/185 lbs. - Khadjimurad Magomedov (Russia)
96 kg/211.5 lbs.- Eldar Kurtanidze (Georgia)
120 kg/264.5 lbs. -Artur Taymazov (Uzbekistan)
Men’s Greco-Roman competitors
55 kg/121 lbs.- Geider Mamadaliyev (Russia)
66/kg/145.5 lbs. -Jimmy Samuelsson (Sweden)
84 kg/185 lbs. - Alexandre Menshikov (Russia)
120 kg/264.5 lbs. - Eddy Bengsston (Sweden)
Women’s Freestyle competitors
48 kg/105.5 lbs. - Carol Huynh (Canada)
72 kg/158.5 lbs. - Ohenewa Akuffo (Canada)
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Student Bureau: Women Wrestlers
CNN NEWSROOM Guide
May 21, 2002
Who is Jill Remiticado? In what collegiate sport is she a competitor? Why was Assistant Coach Mike Clock first skeptical when Remiticado expressed her desire to wrestle? According to Remiticado, why has her attempt to enter the world of wrestling been a constant struggle?
What distinction does Pacific University enjoy among collegiate wrestling programs? Of the 755,000 amateur wrestlers nationwide, how many are women? When will women's wrestling become an Olympic sport?
Who is Desiree Lockhart? Who were the most vocal opponents to her wrestling when she first started? Why? Why did Lockhart get involved in wrestling? What does Coach Clock think of the women wrestlers now?
What do your students think of women's wrestling? Ask students to consider whether they agree or disagree with the International Olympic Committee's decision to host women's wrestling as an Olympic event. If they were members of the IOC, would they have voted to grant women's wrestling Olympic status? Why or why not?
LINKS:
http://www.themat.com/articles/showfaq.asp?fldAuto=18
http://www.themat.com/articles/showquestion.asp?faq=18&fldAuto=275
http://www.wrestlegirl.com/jlinks3.htm
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Title IX at 30
The best-known Education Amendment of 1972 withstands constant challenges to retain rights for women in the classroom and on the playing field
Sunday, October 06, 2002
By Lillian Thomas, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Title IX has turned a reviled, celebrated, torn and tattered 30 this year.
The law that mandates gender equity in educational programs that receive federal money has been criticized for ruining collegiate sports and hailed for saving them, blasted for going either too far or not far enough.
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The history of Title IX has been one of lurches, long pauses, flurries of progress and unending argument.
The elimination of men's teams at some universities has been labeled an "unintended consequence" of Title IX.
In fact, much of what has happened in the years since Title IX passed could be termed unintended consequences.
Those who shaped and lobbied for the legislation were focused on the classroom more than the playing field -- they believed it would give women professors and students a tool for fighting bias, not break open collegiate sports.
Nearly all women's teams were coached by women before Title IX; now the majority are coached by men. As women's sports became more visible and prestigious, they became more attractive to male coaches. Unintended.
Women involved in high school and collegiate athletics figured they might finally have a shot at better playing facilities and more scholarships. They didn't necessarily envision that they'd be creating new teams.
They also didn't anticipate that change would take so long.
The woman who filed the class-action complaint against universities that set the stage for Title IX thought it would take two years for the discrimination in academia to be eliminated.
Bernice Sandler, senior scholar at the Women's Research and Education Institution in Washington, D.C., was a newly minted Ph.D. at the University of Maryland in 1969. She wasn't considered for any of the seven faculty positions open, and when a professor told her that the reason was that she came on "too strong for a woman," she began to investigate discrimination in education. Ultimately, she filed discrimination complaints against more than 250 universities on behalf of women, then did research for the late Rep. Edith Green, D-Ore., one of the congresswomen who introduced the bill.
"I was totally naive. I really thought two years," said Sandler, who has done research on academic discrimination and remained a strong proponent of Title IX. "After two years passed, I thought, well, I'd better stick with this at least another year. Then I upped it to 10, then 20, then 50. I realize now it was just the first step of a very long journey."
Sandler also never anticipated that the law would be so important in sports. Though she knew it would affect the sports side of academia, she, like most of those who conceived and wrote the legislation, were much more focused on the classroom than the on playing field.
Though progress was much slower than she anticipated on the academic side, it generally came without the high-profile suits and bitter nationwide disputes that have characterized the sports side.
"The real way Title IX made changes was not through lawsuits," said Sandler.
"A lot of changes occurred when someone internally noticed a problem and pointed it out: 'Look, we have a bus that takes boys home, and the girls have to walk -- that's not right.' Or that girls would receive pink forms listing possible occupations that might include 'social worker,' while boys would get a blue form that would instead list psychologist." The school would recognize the inequity and change it.
Often the threat of legal action was enough.
Sandler gave as an example a juvenile justice course at the University of Michigan in the late '70s. Women weren't allowed because they would be working with male offenders. So, "women [students] go to university officials, who don't take them seriously. Then they go to a lawyer, who does take them seriously. The lawyer talks to the university. The university checks with its lawyer, who says yes, this is a problem. So the university changes."
There was plenty of opposition along the way, and there is still plenty of academic inequity at educational institutions, but progress has been made.
"I anticipated that most people would see it was right, that most people would follow the law. And, in fact, that's what happened," said Sander.
Though much changed in athletics, there was broader opposition.
A sporting chance
In the early years of Title IX, one of 13 amendments to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, there were questions about what the law required of college athletic departments and legal challenges that left many issues in limbo.
In 1979, the Department of Education said that a school must meet one of three criteria to comply with Title IX: fulfill the proportionality goal (percentage of men vs. women athletes equals percentage of men vs. women students); show it had recently expanded opportunities for women; or prove that women have been accommodated.
There was more movement in the next few years, until a Supreme Court decision in 1984 on a suit brought by Grove City College in Mercer County. Grove City argued that because it didn't receive federal funds, it didn't have to comply. The Supreme Court ruled that only departments that received federal money were required to comply, a narrow interpretation that gutted Title IX.
Progress snailed down until Congress restored the broader interpretation with the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which took effect in 1988. Since there was no enforcement mechanism, movement toward proportionality remained slow at most universities until 1992, when four women athletes filed a lawsuit claiming that Brown University had violated Title IX when it dropped two women's sports, even though it also had dropped two men's teams. The women said that Brown violated the criterion by allowing its percentage of female athletes to be too far below the percentage of female undergraduates. The case went to the Supreme Court, which in 1997 let stand lower court rulings in favor of the women.
New challenges
That put an end to the uncertainty over what compliance meant. But as colleges began to make budget decisions based on Title IX, some decided it was necessary to cut men's programs.
That led to another crucial lawsuit, one still in the works. The National Wrestling Coaches Association filed suit against the Department of Education challenging Title IX's p roportionality requirement. The Department of Justice has filed a motion to dismiss the suit on procedural grounds.
This latest round aimed at Title IX has some supporters concerned. U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige appointed the Secretary's Commission on Opportunity in Athletics in June and announced four town hall meetings to hear from experts and receive public comment on Title IX. The 15-member panel is to report its findings by Jan. 31.
Though the stated purpose of the town meetings is "to examine ways to strengthen enforcement and expand opportunities to ensure fairness for all high school and college athletes," some proponents believe the Bush administration is attempting to undermine the law.
The first hearing was held Aug. 27-28 in Atlanta. Those urging that Title IX be left intact slightly outnumbered those pushing for change.
The Women's Sports Foundation and the Coalition for Women and Girls in Education, both strong Title IX proponents, see the lawsuit and the hearings as serious threats.
Women's Sports Foundation Executive Director Donna Lopiano said that she believed the main purpose of the hearings was to weaken Title IX.
Though many women coaches and athletic directors share the concern, most don't see a crisis.
"Is it still under threat? You've got to be always alert," said Susan Hofacre, athletic director of Robert Morris University. She is one of 17 women athletic directors among 305 AD's at Division I schools.
"You've got to make sure gains aren't given back, make sure people understand that just because there have been advances made that it doesn't mean everything's OK. There is still improvement to be made, particularly in high school athletics.
"Do I see as crisis? I wouldn't define it as a crisis. I see it as another stage in the evolution of a movement."
Looking ahead
What will that evolution look like?
Some fear the elimination of men's sports will continue. Universities say that they don't have enough money to beef up women's sports to the degree necessary to comply with Title IX, and thus they have to continue to cut back men's sports.
Many in and out of collegiate sports say this is a disingenuous argument.
Marcia Greenberger, founder of the National Women's Law Center, argued at an NCAA seminar this year that Title IX is not responsible for widespread elimination of men's programs. Rather than looking for ways to cut excesses in men's football and basketball programs, she said, "colleges are cutting back on men's so-called low-profile sports. So these men's teams are feeling the squeeze."
Women's gymnastics teams have been cut at a faster rate than men's wrestling teams since passage of Title IX, said Debbie Yohman, head gymnastics coach at the University of Pittsburgh.
Those who want to make it work have generally found ways to do so, said several local officials.
"Universities that have cut teams have chosen the easy way out," said Yohman. "The hard way is to find a way to implement women's programs, to grow them, to bring them to level that they are competitive at the level of men's programs. The hard way is finding new sources of revenue, new promotions. It's tightening the belt everywhere."
Yohman said the Big 10 has been a leader in this regard. "I think they've attacked it from the point of 'How can we do this?' not 'How can we avoid this?' They've found a way to do it."
Brian Colleary, the athletic director at Duquesne University, said 58 percent of his school's scholarship dollars now go to women, 42 percent to men.
It's not easy to make it work because of the "two-headed monster called football," he said. "But there are ways to solve the problem. It's an institutional decision -- how you strategize to satisfy a federal law. Some have eliminated sports. Others have been a little more creative."
There are 90 football players at Duquesne, which plays in nonscholarship NCAA Division I-AA. To try to bring in equivalent numbers of women, Colleary has done what other schools have done: worked to support high-number participation sports such as rowing and track for women.
But some athletic directors say it's not so simple, and that many schools are facing more and more difficult financial challenges.
One of the proposals being floated by some to address the problem is to take football off the table and calculate proportionality without it. The argument is that because of the high numbers of students football involves, the high profile it can give a school as a recruiting tool and because it is a potential moneymaker for the college overall, it should be treated as a distinct entity.
That doesn't wash with most Title IX proponents.
"Football is sport. Football players are athletes. Football uses resources. I don't see any reason it should be exempt," said Hofacre of Robert Morris.
Another possibility being discussed is capping the numbers of athletes allowed to participate in given sports. Some schools have already done this, but again, in competitive leagues, few coaches are willing to take steps that would weaken them.
"I think the only thing we're left with is instead of having individual roster limits for men's sports, we consider adopting national limits, across all divisions," said Tim Weiser, athletic director at Kansas State University. There would be a limit of how many baseball, track, football players a school would be permitted to have.
"Philosophically, I resist that. I don't like telling young males they can't participate in sport," Weiser said. "But the reality is we've got a situation where schools can't afford to add women's sports, and to me it's preferable to limit rosters than to drop sports altogether."
Yohman said she didn't see roster limits as a complete or permanent solution, but she does view it as a defensible strategy in light of the fact that universities routinely limit the number of students allowed to sign up for particular classes.
Weiser said he doubts resources can be distributed to everyone's satisfaction, though, without radical change. That might involve eliminating athletic scholarships, except those based on need, and using the freed-up money to maximize participation for men and women. Some leagues have done that.
"If I were king for a day, I would totally throw out our model of how we give scholarships to student-athletes and go to need-based aid," he said. "As radical as that may sound, that's our best chance to deal with the Title IX issue."
Such a change would have to be made across the board, he said.
Weiser doesn't expect anyone to snap up his suggestion.
"Do I think it's going to happen anytime soon? No. I think it's going to take us getting to the edge of the cliff and realizing how far we have to fall before we decide to do something."
No going back
Those in the trenches believe that though things may bog down again, there's no going back.
Sandler characterizes the situation at most schools as having gone from "horrendous" to "very bad," but she does not believe that the drive toward equity will be reversed.
"We're not anywhere near where we ought to be, but unquestionably there's been a tremendous amount of progress."
According to the U.S. General Accounting Office, women's participation in college athletics since Title IX's passage grew from 32,000 before Title IX to 163,000 through 1999.
"We're probably two-thirds of the way along and still have one-third of the way to go," said Women's Sports Foundation's Lopiano, citing shortfalls in numbers of women athletes and their funding.
"In 20 more years, who knows what sports we might have?" said Hofacre, who had no school sports available to her in high school. "I do believe women's sports are going to continue to grow. I see a change in mindsets.
"Twenty years ago, when I taught these kinds of things, males in class didn't have a clue that women should have equal opportunity. Now, it never occurs to them that girls can't play sports and at a high level. For my male students, man, this is just ... it's unfathomable to them that women wouldn't have the opportunity to play sports. I talk to them about what happened to me in my school, and they look at me like I'm from another planet. Those young men, as they get older and have daughters, they expect that. It's happened in that one generation."
The movement has gone beyond the letter of the law, said Yohman.
"I foresee that athletic programs are going to continue to evolve without the help of Title IX," she said. "People realize that women's athletics can be successful and bring in spectators and fans."
Sandler said Title IX is what put that change in mindset in motion.
"What Title IX has done, is it gave it a name, it gave us a lens by which we could look at things and say, 'Is this fair? Are they treating women fairly?'" said Sandler. "Once you look at it that way, it's hard to ever go back."
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Sunday, October 06, 2002
Some key moments in the 30-year history of Title IX:
June 23 1972 - Title IX of the Education Amendments bans sex discrimination in schools. It states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."
1974 - The U.S. Senate passes, but the House fails to pass, an amendment that would exclude revenue-producing sports from Title IX.
1975 - Original date schools were given to comply.
1978 - Health, Education and Welfare Department provides final guidelines for schools.
1979 - The Northwest Women's Law Center is successful in a lawsuit against Washington State University, forcing the school to comply with Title IX.
1984 - In Grove City College vs. Bell, the Supreme Court rules that only the programs that receive federal funding and not the entire college fall under Title IX.
1988 - Civil Rights Restoration Act overturns the Grove City decision, saying Title IX applies to all operations of a college receiving federal funds.
1997 - Supreme Court upholds a lower court ruling that found Brown University in violation of Title IX. The suit that forced the ruling, Cohen vs. Brown University, came when Brown dropped women's gymnastics.
1997 - Stephen Neal, the 1996 NCAA heavyweight wrestling champion from Cal State-Bakersfield, sues the university for trying to eliminate wrestling to comply with Title IX. A federal judge blocks the school from disbanding wrestling; the case is pending.
1998 - U.S. District Court Judge Ernest Torres approves Brown University's plan for complying with Title IX, the final issue in the lawsuit that has become the standard for compliance. The university agrees to keep the percentage of female athletes within 3.5 percent of Brown's female student total.
2001 -- As a result of Title IX, enrollment of women in athletics programs and professional schools has increased dramatically. For example, before Title IX, 7.4 percent of high school athletes in the U.S. were female. In 2001, the number rose to 41.5 percent.
Jan. 16, 2002 - A federal lawsuit brought by the National Wrestling Coaches Association seeks to protect sports from being eliminated from schools for the purpose of complying with Title IX.
Aug. 27-28, 2002 - The first of four public forums on Title IX is held in Atlanta. On the 30th anniversary of Title IX, the Secretary of Education requested the forums and asks the Women's Sports Foundation to report back its findings by January 2003.
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Wrestling with consequences: Courts focus on proportionality
Sunday, October 06, 2002
By Lori Shontz, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Only once before had Tim Wittman felt as terrible as he did on a May day in 2001, when he gathered the members of the Bucknell wrestling team together and told them that the university was eliminating their sport from the athletic program.
"I compare it to my last match in wrestling," said Wittman, a former Penn State All-American who coached the Bucknell team from 2000-02. "It was this recurring dream that was like, 'Wrestling is really over.' You worked so hard and long to try to achieve what you wanted to do, and then it slipped out from underneath you and it's over."
Still, Wittman's last career wrestling match happened because he, personally, had decided it was time to move on. The Bucknell wrestlers' athletic careers -- and his coaching career -- ended because of a numbers game that he still can't quite understand.
When the Title IX Education Amendment was passed in 1972, it said only that institutions that receive federal funds cannot discriminate between men and women. How, exactly, to determine if men's and women's programs are being treated equally was not spelled out, and it wasn't until seven years later that the Office of Civil Rights spelled out criteria.
Since then, the courts have focused on one aspect of what became known as the three-pronged test -- proportionality. The number of female athletes at a university must be proportionate to the number of female undergraduate students.
At Bucknell in 2001, 41.9 percent of its athletes were women. Of its undergraduates, however, 48.7 percent were female. It didn't matter that the university sponsored 28 varsity sports, 14 each for men and women. It didn't matter that the university added women's golf and women's water polo in 1998. It mattered only that the percentages didn't match, and as a result, the school decided it needed to have fewer male athletes.
So it dropped wrestling and men's crew, although men's crew has remained as a "club varsity" program, which doesn't count against the percentages. Because there isn't any club competition for collegiate wrestlers, the wrestling team was eliminated.
"That's absurd," Wittman said. "It's so freaking absurd. They alienated so many people, and I mean alumni that were not wrestlers. So many people wrote in."
Bucknell is one of a growing number of schools that have decided to comply with Title IX by eliminating men's teams. Gary Abbott of USA Wrestling, the sport's national governing body, said more than 400 teams -- at the NCAA, junior college and NAIA levels -- have been dropped since Title IX was passed.
The phenomenon is so widespread that it has a name. The elimination of men's teams is universally known as the "unintended consequence" of Title IX.
After years of watching women's sports advocates win in the courts, the wrestling community decided to try its luck. In January, the National Wrestling Coaches Association filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education, seeking not to overturn Title IX but to overturn the proportionality requirement.
Bucknell is one of the plaintiffs. And the NWCA is receiving support from other targeted sports, such as swimming and track.
Women's sports advocates are unyielding. They say Title IX must be enforced.
But gradually, as compliance has taken its toll on men's non-revenue sports, more people are speaking out on the other side.
"Gender quotas do not belong in athletics," said Mike Moyer, executive director of the NWCA. "Actually, gender quotas do not belong anywhere in society. To our knowledge, gender quotas do not apply to our society anywhere to the degree they are being applied in athletics."
Such statements are having an effect, but solutions are still elusive.
For instance, Bucknell was unable to accept an offer from an alumnus who offered $500,000 to support women's sports so the wrestling team could continue to compete.
"The sad fact is that an endowment of $500,000 would not generate the amount of funds necessary to start up and maintain a new women's program that could provide the level of proportionality needed in our athletics program," the school's statement said.
Wittman, with support from the NWCA and other organizations, tried to save his team. He did everything from circulating petitions to devising his own proposal for bringing Bucknell into Title IX compliance. Everything went for naught.
Now living in New Jersey and employed by a stone, tile and masonry company, Wittman holds out hope that eventually things will turn around.
He hears more people asking why the number of men and women in the band, the newspaper staff or the history department aren't being counted and tracked as they are in athletics. Like many in his position, he believes the Bush administration is more sympathetic to the male athletes' plight than the Clinton administration was, and he thinks the current hearings on Title IX held by the Commission on Opportunities in Athletics are shedding more light on the subject.
That's why on the day Wittman had to tell his 19 wrestlers that they would no longer be a varsity team, he went beyond telling them the specifics of the situation.
"I said that this is one of the reasons you guys need to be leaders when you leave Bucknell," he said. "When you get into the work world, you need to take on these roles, be biggies on committees, be on the school board, get into the decision-making process and make sure that politics don't take over."