Just my opinions

Re: What is the future of the WUSA?

Speaking of those women who go to college, and take all the scholarship money, that denies those wrestlers (and men soccer players-just to keep it within the thread) their opportunity to play their sport--they set a world record today in Greece:

 

I'm sure there will be an underachieving US team in some sport, and that will play into your delusions about Women Taking Over, but on the whole, you're still full of it.

 

We also used to have the best men's basketball team in the world. Now we cannot even beat Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, the women's team romps over all opposition. Is Title IX to blame to LeBron James did not get a scholarship?

Anyway Tom, kidding aside, I think there are 2 reasons (other than Title IX)for the drop in men's volleyball. First, there are professional volleyball leagues in Europe, and while some of the US team members play there, that gives an advantage to the Europeans. They have tried to start professional leagues here, but there is not enough interest.

Second, the growing interest in beach volleyball is hurting the traditional sport. There is a professional beach volleyball circuit here, and so good players who normally might go for the volleyball Olympic team are joining the circuit and trying to get onto the Olympic beach volley ball team.

On a broader note, apparently, the number of Moslem women competing in these games is the lowest in something like 40 years. And some t.v. stations in the middle east are not showing women's sports. That is a cause for concern.

 

This has been chewed to death on these boards. The problem with Title IX and the not necessarily connected rise in women's sports lies largely with the universities' response to enforcement. There are universities who have managed to keep their men's minor sports and still meet Title IX guidelines, but most have taken the cheap way out and eliminated men's sports. My own alma mater, Miami University ( Ohio ), took that route in eliminating men's tennis, track, soccer, and golf. The golf program managed to save itself - interesting at a college known primarily for a first rate business school! The stated reason was a $300,000 deficit in the athletic department. Seems that this equaled what football and basketball lost. Rather than staring down their alleged "money sports", the admin took the easy way out and blamed it on the women. Typical.

The other question raised is the question of supporting sports through educational institutions. Why not eliminate virtually all intercollegiate sports and support them through clubs. That's pretty much how it is done through high school for soccer. The high school season has become superflous for college recruiting. Of course that would eliminate some sinecures for college coaches - too bad. Why not increase federal support for the Olympic programs specifically by sport to kill the politics within the committee ( not Congress ) and develop the participants identified by the clubs. Then there is no problem with the proportionality rules. Students are paying for sports that they are not really not interested in and a college education is more costly than ever, so relieving that burden s/b welcomed by the colleges and certainly by the parents that are footing the bill. After all, no one else in the world does this the way we do.

Just my opinion.

 

Not everyone agrees ...

http://www.thechamplainchannel.com/wnne/3634535/detail.html

In addition, whether you think medals in a particular sport matter around the world to anyone doesn't matter. Any Olympian who medals in their sport has had to work just as hard as anyone else to get to that point. Someone who wins a gold medal in badminton isn't going to sit back one day and think, "Well, I won an Olympic gold medal, but it was in badminton so I guess I suck."

Currently (as of 10:30 a.m., anyway), the USA has 8 medals, only 2 off the lead. While they only have 1 gold, many events in which we will carry several golds - swimming (along with Australia), track, etc., are still in their early stages or haven't even started.

China leads with 6 golds - 3 in shooting events. I guess you can make the argument that Title IX has caused us to lag behind the Chinese in mid to long-range sniper ability.

Of the 8 US medals won as of the time of this writing, 4 have come in men's events, 4 in women's.

 

To add some facts to Thomas' discussion on volleyball, remember that the 84 Olympics were heavily boycotted.

We have only won the world championship (held every two years) one time and that was in 1986. In fact, since 1949 we have only placed in the top three one other time and that was in 1994.

In the Olympics, we were third in Atlanta and first in Seoul and LA. So, in the mid-1980s, we had one of the best team's in the world for a short period. Hardly means we should be dominating now.

As the former Soviet republics get stronger, we will decline in medals for the simple reason that our main competitor is now split into 10 parts.

 

We struggled in basketball? You mean when the US went 78-1 through 1984 and won 9 gold medals, we struggled?

And this "19-20 year old crowd" has an average age of 24. I agree it's not our "A" team, but it's not because they're young. And the rest of the world has caught up.

I got news for you - Indiana citizens' tax dollars also go to support academic scholarships for foreign students. But no one's b!tching about that on bigquadraticequations.com.

 

From The Miami Student, April 20, 1999:
"Balancing the ICA budget and working toward compliance with federal Title IX requirements without eliminating the four men's programs would cost an estimated $1.4 million annually."

Incidentally, women's sports at Miami have $4,300,000 a year in expenses, a completely different order of magnitude from football and basketball losses.

 

Why is this topic in the WUSA forum? XYZ your intial posts were right on...this has no place here and Flannigas's tired rants amount to trolling, at least in this forum. His obsession with Foudy is pathetic. Her play is worthy of criticism, but why here? The same old "men's sports are suffering because of title 9" arises every time we talk about Foudy, (thanks to Flannigas) merely because she has been a vocal supporter of it. Flannigas needs to take his crusade to the proper forum. Just my opinion.

 

Re: What is the future of the WUSA?

How many of these eight rowers were beneficiaries of the current quota system?

 

Nothing personal, but ...

Ball State was 22-9 this past spring. Many of the losses were to TOP competition (such as the 3 losses to beaten national semifinalist Lewis, and one loss to the other beaten national semifinalist - Penn State). Ball State is 64-26 the last 3 seasons.

The Cardinals have never appeared in the NCAA Final. A program is not a powerhouse if it "almost" wins something every year, with Ball State famous for being on the outside looking in come Championship Day. It's a solid program. And last year's performance does nothing to dispute that reputation or indicate it has been lessened by Title IX.

 

You're just Factmongering now.

 

Especially for Moslem men who want to watch women's beach volleyball.
And who can blame them?

 

Re: Just my opinions, Bozo

Here we go again. From the Dayton Daily News of April 17, 1999:
MIAMI DROPS 3 SPORTS
Gender-equity debate rages
BYLINE: Marty Williams Dayton Daily News
DATE: April 17, 1999
PUBLICATION: Dayton Daily News (OH)
EDITION: CITY
SECTION: NEWS
PAGE: 1A



OXFORD - Miami University's board of trustees voted Friday to eliminate the men's soccer, tennis and wrestling teams, but could face a lawsuit over their efforts to solve the school's athletic budget and gender-equity problems.

"We're not losing, we're just going to fight harder," said Chuck Angello, Miami's wrestling coach for the past 17 seasons. "The next round will be fought in the courts. Without a doubt, we will be filing discrimination charges against the university." Dr. James C. Garland had asked the board to drop four men's sports, but amended his recommendation to exclude the golf team after coach Roger Cromer raised more than $722,000 in cash and pledges, enough to set up an endowment fund to pay for his sport.

Angello said he had received money and pledges totalling more than $4 million to create a similar wrestling endowment, but the trustees said they could not consider the proposal because Angello didn't give them the figures until just before Friday's meeting.

However, school financial officers said they would be willing to examine the numbers and left open the possibility of reinstating wrestling.

Angello said he was under the impression he had until Friday to raise money.

Garland made his original recommendation at the February trustees' meeting, but the proposal was tabled.

At that time, the athletic department was asked to spearhead a fund drive to determine if enough money would be forthcoming from alumni and other sources to pay for the four men's teams and to provide additional money to allow Miami to move closer to compliance with Title IX, the 1972 federal legislation mandating equal opportunities for men and women.

School officials said 10,000 letters were sent out and 201 people were contacted personally. The efforts triggered about 500 positive responses and just over $3.4 million, including more than $1 million raised by the golf, soccer, tennis and wrestling teams.

Athletic director Joel Maturi said the low number of responses was not a fair representation of the level of support for Miami's athletic programs.

"I know those were the numbers you were given to work with," Maturi said, "but I think those other 9,500 people care and they will come forward. I had a number of people tell me they wanted to make sure their money goes to the sport of their choice."

Miami has a $10.5 million budget for athletics and fields 22 teams, 11 for men and 11 for women.

Women make up 55 percent of Miami's undergraduate enrollment, and 42 percent of the athletes are women. Eliminating approximately 70 wrestlers, golfers and soccer players would change the ratio to 53-47 in favor of the women and meet one of Title IX's compliance factors.

However, the school would still be far short of the additional requirements for a more equitable distribution of scholarship money and other financial issues such as recruiting budgets and coaches' salaries.

"Title IX was never intended to eliminate opportunities for men so that we could come into compliance, but that has become a financial reality," Maturi said.

According to soccer coach Bobby Kramig, that reality was forced because the school ignored Title IX for too long.

"I think what Miami did (Friday) was wrong, but I don't necessarily blame this president or this board for doing it. The most disappointing thing about this whole situation is that Miami has done virtually nothing to correct the situation despite the fact that Title IX is 28 years old."

Kramig said that even though the soccer, tennis and wrestling teams account for 4.7 percent of the athletic department's budget, they are being sacrificed because the school failed to react to Title IX.

"When problems are ignored, they very seldom go away," Kramig said. "They get bigger and bigger until they finally blow up in your faces."

The cost of the sports was under $500,000. A $722,000 endowment at 10% would raise less than $100K per year and yet paid for the sport. I'm glad that someone from the Miami SID has time to surf Big Soccer.

 

FWIW, I believe that a past Title IX thread documented how Ball State's men's volleyball had had its funding slashed. And for the sake of fairness, you should really point out that many of Ball State's wins were against utterly feeble competition. The Milwaukee School of Engineering?

 

Re: Just my opinions, Bozo

... only if you don't take Title IX into account. That's where the $1.4 million comes from, which is completely out of whack with your $300,000 lie.

 

Of course, Ball State got a win the same way every team in the country does in practically every other sport ... it's no different than Evansville basketball scheduling Walsh (NAIA at the time), or Kentucky basketball scheduling Southeast Missouri ... or Florida football scheduling Florida A&M.

Just because they beat that one team doesn't color the rest of the schedule (such as playing Florida State and Georgia, etc., in the case of Florida) as "easy."

While some of the other schools are on their schedule may not look familiar, many of them are in their conference, so they got no choice but to play them. The conference can't be THAT bad, if Lewis can come out of it and succeed on the national stage.

It looks like Ball State's women's volleyball teams plays in the Mid-American Conference. Does the MAC not sponsor men's volleyball? That would be a bigger issue worth discussing.

 

The MIVA is a mixed bag, half competitive teams, half walkovers. The conference champion automatically reaches the national semifinals. As I understand it, Lewis is a Division II school, and this opens loopholes that enable it to bring in some serious ringers. Sometimes, that enables it to field a nationally competitive team.

In past Title IX threads, we've gone over this kind of thing time and again. In the case of volleyball, though, it doesn't seem too unreasonable. Midwestern boys tend to play other sports instead ... I didn't pick up volleyball until I moved to California.

 

It wouldn't have been if they'd taken Razov.

Oh, he's hurt, anyway.

 

No worries. I wasn't implying anything with the question - I just really didn't know. Thanks for following up.