Why dont the hogs have a mens soccer team? I mean i live here in fayetteville and all of north west arkansas is big into soccer and yet they dont have a team. Its not like they have to build a whole new stadium, they can just use the womens field. I want to go to the U of A but i also want to get a soccer scholarship or at least play for a college. Hopefully things will change n 4 or 5 years.
I heard recently that Title IX is the reason that Florida will never start a men's soccer program. Imagine the teams they could have...with all the homegrown talent in the sunshine state. If Florida started a team, I think the other teams in the SEC like Georgia would follow suit. Title IX is nothing more than discrimination. People don't realize that most D1 schools have more women's golf scholarships available, than players willing to accept them. That's right....schools can't give away women's golf scholarships, while wrestling programs and soccer programs are being cut.
Title IX is all about funding equality, to the extreme, between Men's and Women's Athletics in College. Since Men's football and basketball want to be able to fund approximately 2 full scholarships per positon, there are some strange situations to compensate. Men's D1 soccer can give 9.9 equivalent full scholarships (very few individuals get a full one, particularly for all 4 years of their collegiate career). Women's D1 soccer can give 12 and as mentioned, there are plenty more on the golf and tennis teams. An SEC school like Florida or Georgia starting a men's soccer program has to come up with those 9.9 full rides on the women's side or drop another men's sport to stay in balance. An obviously well thought out approach designed for the benefit of all student athletes.......not!
I dunno... From a big-picture perspective, I don't see much of a problem with Title IX, and this is coming from a guy whose school cut men's soccer. The problem, as you say, is more in the execution. The "revenue sports" -- essentially football on the men's side, but of course there are other culprits -- command so many scholarships that other men's program's end up cut. Think about this: A soccer team needs 22 players just to scrimmage, and odds are that most programs (men's OR women's) don't have enough scholarships for even half that. (You could argue that this is actually good for the quality of life on campus, as it means more of the "regular student body" gets to be involved -- but once again this doesn't hold for the revenue sports. DI football can offer enough scolarships for EIGHT "full XIs.") DI basketball teams, meanwhile, usually have more than two full "squads" getting a full ride. And let's not even talk about football. OK, I already did. The "discrimination" has far more to do with money than gender. It's sad that the NCAA holds itself up as such a proud bastion of amateur sport when this disconnect is so glaringly obvious.
Money? The NCAA is interested in MONEY?? I am shocked, SHOCKED that you would say such a thing....!!!
I know, I know... Just trying to nip any "Title XI is sexist because my school doesn't have men's soccer" invective in the bud. Oh yeah -- Darth Vader is Luke's father.
To clarify, a school like Georgia is over 60% female; thus, over 60% of all scholarships and roster spots must go to females. In some cases, women's teams have been unable to fill their rosters; thus, men's teams have been forced to cut players to meet the quota. To add 9.9 men's soccer scholarships, they'd need to add 16-17 women's sports scholarships. (Goodness knows what they'll give them for ... after all, they're already funding horseback riding.) For the record, I support women's sports. However, Title IX is indefensible. There is no reason that universities should be obligated to spend tens of millions of dollars a year on elite-only sports such as women's field hockey.
George W had a chance to give Title IX the deep six, but he must have buckled to the pro Title IX lobbyists.
Title IX Talk about if a school could have a men's soccer program...Texas and Texas A&M would be in the top 25 every year with the talent in the state as well as the many other things both schools have to offer. Nothing against women but Title XI is definitely ruining men's college sports.
The executive branch of government doesn't make law, they are responsible for enforcing it. So, where Bush might relax enforcement he can't "deep six" Title IX. What he did do is what all good politicians do when faced with a contentious issue, he created the "Commission on Athletic Opportunity" to study the problem. The Commission was created back in June. It is scheduled to issue its report in January. Here in my state, North Carolina, we have seven D1 public universities that sponsor men's soccer. In Texas they don't have a single program at a publically funded university. Now, how can North Carolina offer men's soccer at close to 50% of its state institutions and Texas have zero? Title IX is a Federal law--both Texas and North Carolina are operating under the same rules. Something tells me that the lack of soccer programs in Texas has very little to do with Title IX. Hmmm, what could it be?
Texas (and most of the country) was behind the east coast in picking up soccer. In most places, by the time soccer took off, Title IX had already made it illegal in most cases to add men's soccer programs. Incidentally, turnaround's comment about Bush has merit. Eliminating Title IX in sports was actually part of Bush's campaign platform. Unfortunately, Title IX is the kind of insidious policy that sounds good on the surface ("anti-discrimination"). Despite its ridiculous heavy-handedness, politicians don't want to appear sexist by eliminating it.
Any school that chooses can add soccer. Since the inception of Title IX men's soccer programs have grown by 73%. There were 172 new men's programs added in the decade of the 90s. Texas can't manage a single men's soccer program? Source: http://www.sover.net/~spectrum/collegecount.html
What we need to know, is how many of those schools dropped men's programs, such as wrestling, and how many women's teams were added during that time. I would find it hard to believe that ANY D1 school would add men's soccer, without either dropping a sport, or at least adding a women's sport. It's obvious that the lack of men's college soccer in Texas and Florida is in direct correlation to the obsession with football (not futbol) in those states. However, as I stated previously, they can't give away women's golf scholarships, and I have a problem with that.
You do realize that your numbers are completely irrelevant to the discussion we're having of Division I athletics? In Division I, there has been essentially no growth since Title IX was implemented.
This claim doesn't make sense. *Every* major university spends gobs of money on its football team, regardless of what state it's in. Texas and Florida schools gain nothing football-related by not having men's soccer teams.
At what point did we restrict the conversation to D1? Title IX applies to all divisions. Where there has been limited growth at D1s at least we're not going backwards like wrestling and gymnastics (including women's). It costs in the neighborhood of $500,000 to offer a low profile sport at a major D1. When Michigan started its men's soccer program (and women's water polo) they funded them by raising the price of their football tickets. Where there's a will there's a way. I would think that the good folks in Texas (and Arkansas) would have no problem raising that kind of money. Neither Texas or Texas A&M have big problems with their gender equity numbers. (Texas has women's rowing--they are in particularly good shape--and A&M has an equestrian team). For these schools it's not about equity--it's all about money.
A friend of mine mentioned to me recently that the U. of Florida will never start a men's soccer program, because the AD there is all about football and more football. I was making an assumption that schools like UF, Texas, Texas Tech, etc., are football schools and they don't see any benefit in starting a men's soccer program. My assumption could very well be wrong of course. The whole Title IX thing really chaps my @ss.
The subject of the thread is "Arkansas Razorbacks," and there have been continual references to D1. Considering the enormous growth of soccer in this country, it is disgraceful that the sport hasn't grown at the big schools that most students want to attend. Incidentally, the Michigan men's soccer team didn't take the field until 22 years after it got official approval from the Board of Regents. Even then, they were only allocated one scholarship, and the school was obliged to begin two heavily funded women's sports (crew and water polo) at the same time. Michigan raised football ticket prices by something like $10 a game, but roughly $0.10 of that goes to men's soccer.
Women's crew at Michigan was started in 1996-1997, four years before they started men's soccer. BTW, women's rowing has been a savior to men's athletics. Crew has teams of 60-100 athletes--it goes a long ways towards balancing out the numbers in men's football. The NCAA allows up to 20 scholarships for rowing, but a lot of schools (like UNC for example) offer no scholarships. We can probably thank the existence of women's rowing at Michigan for allowing them to add men's soccer.