News Page
Friday, January 03, 2003
By RON FOX
Herald News
Dan Gable, a legend as a college wrestling coach, will visit the Bergen Catholic gym Sunday doing not only what he enjoys, but what he realizes is an essential part of being an icon.
Gable will be there first and foremost to promote the sport as he directs a clinic for youngsters of all ages.
"Wrestling is well entrenched at the entry levels, but I'm concerned about opportunities beyond high school," Gable said from his office at the University of Iowa on Thursday. "That's why I'm out beating the streets. I'm not coaching fulltime, so I have the time."
Currently assistant athletic director at Iowa, Gable is traveling at the behest of the National Wrestling Coaches Association, a nonprofit organization bent on popularizing wrestling and improving its status. The cost of the clinic is $20 for youngsters of any age and $25 for parents or coaches. Registration begins at 11:30 a.m. and the gym is expected to fill quickly for the event, which runs from 1-5 p.m. Gable will serve as clinician and guest speaker, and will sign autographs. All proceeds will be donated to the NWCA. "I'm in a position to draw people and I'll do whatever I can to help the sport," he said.
The announcement of a Gable siting is major event among the sport's enthusiasts, bigger than the announcement of a Bruce Springsteen concert.
A three-time national champion wrestler at Iowa State, he coached 15 years at Iowa, taking his teams to Big 10 championships every year and coaching 15 NCAA championship teams. He also was U.S. Olympic coach in 1972.
Gable is concerned about the elimination of wrestling programs from major colleges such as Syracuse in recent years. The implementation of new women's programs under the rules of Title IX dictated reductions of some men's programs, but while Gable says he is in favor of Title IX, he questions the way it is being translated.
"Being the father of four daughters (including one on a swim scholarship to Iowa) and no sons, I am happy to see opportunities expanded for women, but I don't like to see opportunities eliminated from another group," he said. "You can't tell me there wasn't enough interest in wrestling at Syracuse. In New York State, wrestling is a tradition, and not to have it on the college level is tragic."
Cutting programs such as wrestling to balance with Title IX additions "should not be automatic," Gable added. "The rules allow people with specific agendas to make those decisions and that's not right.
"Title IX isn't the only issue here. The money being spent on football and basketball to remain competitive is another factor (that takes away from wrestling)."
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Women’s sports face new scrutiny
Jan. 3, 2003
By Carole Carlson / Post-Tribune staff writer
Thirty years after Title IX became law, the struggle continues over the
federal law that shoved women’s sports out of the starting blocks.
Today, some men blame it for relegating them to the sidelines.
Title IX is facing new federal scrutiny even as it’s hailed as the
prime reason more girls than ever are playing sports in high school and
college.
Many Title IX supporters, including the Women’s Sports Foundation and
the National Women’s Law Center, fear the recent creation of a 15-member
federal commission could signal an erosion of gains made by women on the
athletic field in the past three decades.
In June, U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige authorized a blue-ribbon
panel of athletic directors, coaches, players and college officials to
re-examine Title IX’s enforcement methods.
Paige created the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics largely as a
result of a lawsuit filed a year ago by the National Wrestling Coaches
Association.
The lawsuit alleges the Department of Education’s interpretation of
Title IX has led to discrimination against men, triggering the elimination of
hundreds of men’s college programs.
The commission held public meetings across the country, hearing
testimony from parents, coaches, athletes, lawyers and other sports experts. It
had hoped to review the testimony and have a recommendation by the end of
2002 but ran out of time.
Former Indiana Sen. Birch Bayh, who wrote the Title IX legislation, was
one of the first to testify. He called Title IX the most important
contribution to the equality of women since the 19th Amendment.
But others seek change.
Leo Kocher, a Crown Point resident who’s the wrestling coach at the
University of Chicago, says the dispute is not about the concept of
Title IX and gender equity, but rather what he calls its “quota system,” or
proportionality standard.
Proportionality is one of the key criteria to determine if athletic
programs are in compliance. A 1995 landmark court decision involving Brown
University called for strict parity between men’s and women’s sports.
In essence, proportionality means that if half a college’s student body
is women, then half the athletes should be women.
To ensure parity, some schools began eliminating men’s teams.
Kocher has become one of the country’s leading advocates for Title IX
change.
He aired his views on a recent edition of the CBS news magazine show
“60 Minutes,” which examined the Title IX controversy.
“I think I am trying to enforce Title IX,” says Kocher. “What it says
is don’t discriminate on the basis of sex. When you are telling males to
clean out their lockers because they are male ... boy, if that’s not
discrimination on the basis of sex, I don’t know what is.”
“I see a toll being taken on boys,” says Kocher. “What the lawsuit has
done is raise the visibility of these issues. If the policy is adjusted,
maybe the lawsuit would get dropped.”
In his testimony before the commission in August, Kocher argued that
proportionality — one of the three ways colleges can comply with Title
IX — has triggered a reduction of men’s teams.
Supporters of Title IX disagree strongly.
“Proportionality has been a great thing in giving opportunities to
women,” said Muffett McGraw, women’s basketball coach at the University of
Notre Dame and a member of the federal commission reviewing the law.
“The bottom line is money,” says McGraw. “They’re cutting men’s sports
and that’s the institution’s decision. Universities have a limited amount
of resources and right now, women’s sports are not getting equality.”
Some, like Marcia Greenberger, president of the National Women’s Law
Center, say colleges are making their own choices and Title IX is the
scapegoat.
“In Division 1-A, over 70 percent of male budgets are going to football
and basketball. Why is the question posed that when women’s teams have 36
percent of the operating budgets, it’s Title IX’s fault when a cut to a
men’s team takes place?”
Said Bayh: “It’s not female athletes who are crowding out wrestlers,
it’s the more popular men’s programs that continue to dominate sports
budgets leaving women’s and other men’s teams with only a small share of the
pie.”
Last week, the U.S. Department of Education extended the deadline for
the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics to present its recommendations
because its members hadn’t had time to reach a consensus. No date has
been set.
“I think we just haven’t met enough,” said McGraw. “We’ve listened for
five straight meetings. There’s been no time for a report.”
Still, McGraw, who herself was a beneficiary of Title IX in the 1970s,
has concerns.
“I’m not optimistic at the outcome. I’m concerned about what our
recommendation will be and about the fact that we’re not trying to come
to a consensus.”
Many schools, including the University of Notre Dame and Indiana
University, received letters this summer from the National Women’s Law Center
telling the universities they weren’t in compliance with Title IX.
In IU’s case, the letter said the university awarded a total of $4.95
million in athletic scholarships, with women receiving $1.96 million of
the total. Male athletes received $2.98 million.
The letter stated that women made up 46 percent of the varsity athletes
and 53 percent of the student body but only received 40 percent of the
scholarship dollars.
In the past two years, IU and several other schools have established
women’s rowing programs to attract women in larger numbers. Some have even
advertised scholarships for crew members. Water polo has become another
popular women’s sport.
Kocher said more than 350 male teams in the NCAA have been dropped
since 1992. He said men make up 59 percent of college athletes but only 44
percent of college enrollment. Colleges often take the cheap course and instead
of adding more women’s sports, they cut men’s offerings.
“It’s been pointed out that there are 1.1 million more boys playing
high school athletics than there are girls. I see this as a curse rather
than being a privilege because they graduate from these high schools only to
find their opportunities destroyed by the proportionality problem.”
Portage High wrestling Coach Ed Pendowski said his wrestlers today have
fewer opportunities than he did a decade ago at Purdue University. He
made the Purdue team as a walk-on when it carried about 40 wrestlers.
“I wouldn’t be able to compete now,” he said because the team’s numbers
have been reduced to 26.
“I wasn’t a world-beater. I placed sixth in the state. I went on five
recruiting trips, but a kid now doesn’t get that anymore. They get very
little attention.
“Title IX is a great idea but proportionality is not a great idea.”
Reporter Carole Carlson
can be reached at 648-3085 or by e-mail at ccarlson@post-trib.com.
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Title IX : The law appears to be headed for an overhaul
By Susan C. Thomson Of the Post-Dispatch
01/04/2003 02:40 PM
In 1972, neither Washington University nor the University of Missouri at Columbia suited up any female intercollegiate athletes. Today 40 percent of varsity players at Mizzou are female, and Washington University can boast of national division championships in women's volleyball and basketball.
Title IX - the 1972 measure that mandated equal opportunity for men and women in education - helped make the difference. And not just at Mizzou and Washington U. The Title IX years have seen an explosion in women's intercollegiate athletics.
Now, after more than 30 years on the books, Title IX appears headed for an overhaul. And in a tug-of-war with those who like it as is, those who contend that Title IX has gone too far appear to have gotten the upper hand.
The debate has played out before the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics, appointed in July by U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, a former college football coach. The 15 commission members - 10 of them college coaches, administrators or athletic directors - were charged with seeking information and public input on Title IX, then deciding whether it should be changed and, if so, how.
They've held two days of "town hall" hearings in each of five U.S. cities - Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, San Diego and Colorado Springs, Colo. - and collected what amounts to more than 2,000 pages of testimony. So much for the first part of their job.
With the second and harder part ahead, they've lapsed into overtime. They've extended until sometime next month a Jan. 31 deadline for reporting back to Paige, who will decide about any changes in regulations.
All this over a law that began, simply enough, as just 35 words stating that schools getting federal aid may not discriminate on the basis of gender. It doesn't even mention sports.
The Title IX years have seen a gradual increase in the number of women in higher education, including graduate, law and medical schools. It has been in undergraduate intercollegiate athletics, though, that the law had its greatest impact and stirred the greatest controversy.
No one complained to the commissioners about women's athletic progress or Title IX's basic principle of fairness. But they got an earful about what you might call the fine print - the regulations and policies issued by the Education Department's Office of Civil Rights, which is responsible for enforcing Title IX. The focus of the complaints is the OCR's ruling that a school can be in compliance by:
Having the same percentages of male and female athletes as male and female students.
Or, making progress in increasing athletic opportunities for women.
Or, offering sports that reflect women students' interests.
The stickiest of those is the first and only quantifiable option. Some schools adopt it as the surest way to comply with Title IX. Critics decry it as a "quota" requirement. They contend that the only way to meet this "proportionality" test, as it has become known in the Title IX world, is to cut back athletic opportunities for men, especially now that women make up the majority of U.S. undergraduates.
The commission has seemed sympathetic, with members floating several ideas for relaxing the proportionality test.
Mike Moyer, executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association, said he'd prefer to see the test eliminated. "But certainly a loosening of it is moving in the right direction," he said.
Contrarily, Jocelyn Samuels, a vice president of the National Women's Law Center, says every proposal before the commission would result in "substantial losses to women's opportunities in athletics and also in the undermining of basic civil rights principles."
The wrestling association has taken especially vocal umbrage at the elimination of 171 wrestling teams, 40 percent of the national total, over the past two decades. Early last year, the association sued the Department of Education, alleging that the wrestling programs have been victims of Title IX.
Those on the other side of the argument cry foul at any notion of Title IX as a zero-sum game where women can only gain at the expense of men. Even if it were, they say, colleges could just as easily even things up for women by cutting back on football, with its large, all-male rosters. From this point of view, football is the proverbial elephant in Title IX's living room, a hulking obstruction that everybody pretends not to see and nobody wants to touch.
Yet St. John's University in Jamaica, N.Y., tackled it last month in a "strategic reformulation" of its varsity sports programs. Football, men's swimming, men's track and field and women's swimming will be eliminated, while men's lacrosse will be added. When all is done, the university will be left with 10 women's and seven men's varsity sports.
The university explained that it was acting in order to reflect the changing interests of students and the changing makeup of its student body, now 58 percent female. Was that another way of saying that Title IX figured into the decision? The university denied it.
Closer to home, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville decided late last year that it would drop wrestling at the end of this season. The only reason given was the program's cost - $108,000 a year out of an athletic department budget facing a $110,000 deficit.
At Mizzou, athletic director Mike Alden says cost and lack of student interest were largely behind a decision to eliminate the men's tennis team several years ago, before his time at the university. He recalls scrapping men's tennis himself in his previous job as athletic director at Southwest Texas University, strictly for reasons of budget and lack of player interest. "It didn't have to do with Title IX," he said.
Alden says he's "always had an argument with proportionality." It's impossible, he says, to make up to women for the large numbers of football players at a school like Mizzou.
So Mizzou has chosen instead the option of complying with Title IX by satisfying male and female students' athletic interests. To assess them, the athletic department follows statewide trends in high school sports participation. In addition, Alden says, the department works to make sure that women's teams get nothing less than men's teams in uniforms, locker rooms, scholarships and travel arrangements.
Unlike those who focus on what they must do because of Title IX, "we choose to say these are things we want to do because they're the right things to do," Alden says.
He hopes for a "brutally honest" assessment of Title IX from the commission and a relaxing of the proportionality option in favor of more emphasis on the student-interest one.
And then, he said, "What we need to do is move this thing forward for the next 30 years."