http://gobulldogs.ocsn.com/sports/m-soccer/fres-m-soccer-body.html Fresno State, who has been playing in the Pac-10 Conference, says they are dropping men's soccer. This will drop the number of teams in the league to 5, unless a replacement school can step in. With the season 4-5 months away, this may not happen. And what school on the W. Coast would be a candidate to do so? One of the UC campuses (Santa Barbara, Irvine), or Cal St. Fullerton? Santa Clara?
Let's not kid ourselves...a budget shortfall? This is all about Title IX garbage. By the way...the Duke media guide for women's rowing has a roster of 43. Yeah boy...I'm really psyched about watching all that exciting women's rowing in the ACC. 43 people on the roster...now that's a good use of scholarship money.
I'm going to go way out on a limb and guess that the number of women on the rowing team does not equal the number of scholarships offered. If Duke wants to split whatever money is available for women's crew between 43 women then more power to them.
Women's rowing is actualy a lot of schools choice to add as it is considered the nearest equivalent to football in regards to large roster sizes. I do not know the number of scholarships offered, but I know they tend to have very large rosters. As for the move at Fresno being gender related, that is not completely accurate. They also cut women's swimming and diving.
Yes, it is accurate. They cut 3 men's sports, and 1 women's sport...and...they announced they're adding women's golf as a varsity sport. This is Title IX crap.
Women's rowing can have up to 20 scholarships. Very few are fully funded. For example, UNC just added their first five scholarships this year even though they've had a program for six years. (Which probably explains why they are the doormat of the ACC.) It's not unusual to see rosters around 60. For example, Clemson's freshman class last year had 38. A varsity roster would have 25 (or so). LdB-- you should take in an ACC race sometime. Duke, Virginia, and Clemson all have good programs. You wouldn't have to go very far to see a good race. The ACC championships are in Charlottesville this weekend. I would also recommend the Head of the Hooch in the fall. Last year the Canadian NT was there racing against some of our best college teams. Good stuff! I'd also recommend that you visit the school down the street from you sometime to see a training session. They're brutal. My daughter will tell you that soccer training was a cake walk in comparison.
Well, rather than start another thread, I guess I'll stick this here since the title of the thread is not college specific. The Citadel announced today their's men's program is under the ax. http://www.charleston.net/stories/041603/spo_16_cidsoccer.shtml
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/other_sports/article/0,1406,KNS_304_1890834,00.html Huge arena to support basketball team not coming out of athletic budget. http://www.fresnobee.com/columnists/branch/story/6563992p-7505402c.html A Fresno State swimmer -- well, there is no such thing anymore, but some of them still wear the sweatshirts -- wondered Tuesday why a program boasting a 3.2 grade-point average and perfect graduation rate gets whacked, while a men's basketball program that recently admitted to academic fraud continues on. http://www.fresnobee.com/sports/story/6564014p-7505367c.html "The responsibility for all this financially clearly lays at Al Bohl's door, there's no question about that," Nick Dvorak said of the Fresno State athletic director whom Johnson succeeded in July 2001. A university audit showed Bohl covered $1.1 million in budget deficits from 1998-2000 by using reserve funds that, while legal, was done without permission from the Fresno State Athletic Corporation. Bohl, fired as Kansas athletic director last week, couldn't be reached for comment. Johnson, meanwhile, said cutting the four sports would represent $1.61 million in savings over the next three years while also correcting a gender equity compliance problem regarding proportionality. A two-year federal investigation found Fresno State out of compliance in 1994, but an aggressive school Corrective Action Plan led to a gender equity seal of approval from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights in San Francisco in 2001. Johnson, however, said -- with females having grown to 59% of the school's undergraduate enrolment -- the department has slipped out of compliance in proportionality. That's one of three Title IX areas that is achieved when the percentage of men and women athletes is "substantially proportionate" to the undergraduate gender rate on campus. Prior to the cuts, Bulldogs athletes were represented by 51.5% women and 48.5% men. After the cuts, they will be represented by 56.6% women and 43.4% men. "We want to continue our strong commitment to gender equity, and that played a significant role in this also," Johnson said. "An outside Title IX expert was consulted, and that person agreed that this decision would stand up to Title IX scrutiny and satisfy proportionality." The only reference in anything I saw to proportionality. Their numbers really aren't that bad when you compare them to other institutions. More creative ways probably could have been tried to address the proportionality problem, but when you're spending money hand over fist in basketball and football, economics rears its head. http://www.fresnobee.com/sports/bulldogs/story/6558963p-7500588c.html Johnson cited less-than-expected men's basketball revenue and soaring insurance costs as the primary reasons for this year's budget shortfall. So basically, they have screwed up financially in more way than one. At the same time, their female numbers grew. So instead of reallocating recources, they cut. Same old story. Title IX is blamed by people not willing to look at the whole issue. They have a criminal basketball program and a football program, while successful, still needs to depend on financial guarantees for playing big-name teams away. Title IX has a hand in budgetary problems at Fresno State. But if Al Buhl hadn't wasted the department's money, they could have expanded opportunities for women without having to eliminate men's sports. Blame the fatcats on this one, plain and simple. They took the easy way out.
Hogwash ... this is Fresno State, there are no fatcats. Men's soccer is being replaced by women's golf in order to drive women's participation up to 57%. It's criminal.
Look at the other D-1 conferences - The Big 12 plays women's soccer, but fields no men's teams. The Pac-10 is the Pac-5 in men's soccer. The SEC has two men's teams, the Big 10 has seven. The ACC is the only D-1 conference with a representative number of men's soccer teams. Result of Title IX? Probably.
How many SEC schools had men's soccer before Title IX? How many Big 10 Schools have added soccer SINCE Title IX? There are other factors here, obviously, Title IX being but one. Football being another.
This should make it clear where the money has sunk... Fresno State per-game attendance 2001 Football ~43,000/game 2001-02 Men's Basketball ~10,000/game 2001 Men's Soccer ~2,500/game 2001-02 Women's Basketball ~ 500/game
Six years ago, the department had $2.2 million in cash. Today, it's most recent financial statement shows $27,802. Yeah. It's all about women's sports participation.
We've been over this time and again. If Fresno State resembles other Division I-A athletic departments, men's sports make a net profit, while women's sports incur an enormous net loss. So yes, it's all about a quota requiring 57% females.
Some men's sports, at some schools, make some money. Most do not, and never have. Oh, and the department should be worrying about the 4,000 per game drop in attendance at football games, as their 2002 campaign netted an average of just over 39,000 per game.
Funny thing is, I read the federal statute and it said nothing about revenues. They had ways to avoiding or abating this problem, such as not paying a king's ransom for Jerry Tarkanian who did nothing but get them in trouble or not having an AD who allowed bdget problems to spiral out of control while raiding a fund he wasn't supposed to touch. Have you actually read the stories? Do you understand the fiscal crisis the school in general is in? Have you gotten up to speed on the mismanagement in the FSU athletic department? Head out of the sand time. The cooties won't kill ya.
Funny thing is, I've read the federal statute and it said nothing about "equity" requiring that over 57% of athletes must be female. Obviously, the school administrators didn't do a perfect job. They're human. At the same time, they're operating under an absurd constraint. Under a more reasonable constraint, the men's soccer team would still exist.
Same here. The interpretation is weak. But it's still the law. And they have more than one way to meet it. You know, you're right. It's all the fault of that damn Title IX law. Their economic mess has nothing to do with the fact that Jerry Tarkanian is still getting at least $100K a year as a "consultant" after he led them to nothing but the gates of Hell when the NCAA finishes their investigation. And it has nothing to do with the former AD robbing the facilities fund to pay for athletic expenses. And nothing to do with higher insurance and travel costs while they try torun with the big boys. At least they have the balls to admit that any Title IX issues were secondary.
Yup, I'm not equipped to argue numbers at Fresno State, so it's time to get out of here. I just know one simple thing - the high schools with which I am familiar have many more boys than girls who want to play soccer. But when it comes time to hand out the college scholarships, the girls are much more successful. Is it because they are better players or because they have more opportunities? Cutting sports in the name of gender equity is silly. Expecting a sports department to eliminate the only team which has a chance to turn a profit is equally silly.
I don't think anyone advocates eliminating any sports. But there's a way to rein in spending that university's generally ignore in lieu of cutting sports.