This might've been discussed before, but what is the reason that Big 12 schools do not have soccer programs? Maybe they do and I have just never been aware of it, but I thought that they didnt and was wondering why. Anybody know?
title ix, my young friend, title ix. all big xii schools play football AND basketball AND baseball (except cu) AND wrestling AND men's track.... title ix won't allow them to have a men's soccer program. and only a couple of schools would actually want to have one anyway, but those that would already have serious in-state rivals with established, tradition-laden men's soccer programs: Nebraska -- Creighton (omaha) Missouri -- SLU (st louis) Texas -- SMU (dallas) Kansas -- Rockhurst (kc) if these schools somehow decided to start playing men's soccer: (1.) they wouldn't have a conference to play in and would have to piggy back into some inferior sports conference like the MVC and (2.) they'd have to compete with the other programs that have decades of tradition on their side.
You're wrong about wrestling. The Texas schools don't have wrestling teams. Big 12 is pure American football country, much like the SEC is. My cousing played for a HS team in Oklahoma where a rivalry game regularly draws 35-40K every year. LSU,Auburn, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Miss. St., etc don't have them either.
This would'nt be a problem with Texas schools at all. The amount of talent in Texas is incredible, and if any of the Big 12 schools began a men's team, I could see them being top 25 teams within 3 years of the program's inception. Hell at Texas A&M, our Mens Club team which represents the school had a friendly with TCU (a D1 program) turned down, because TCU's coach was very afraid that we'd beat them. The club team is chock full of players who could probably be playing collegiately, but the lack of scholarships and expense of going to out of state schools keep them at A&M. I don't know what programs the schools could drop to add a mens team, but the sooner they get on the ball, the better.
College club teams are over-rated. My D3 team played Arkansas, one of the better club teams in the country and beat them 5-0. Even if Title IX was changed, you would only see more money go to football programs and baseball programs. Soccer just dosen't stand much of a chance at Men's level at big schools in the South and Midwest.
Guys, you're being way too pessimistic here. Despite resistance from the major sports, boys' high school soccer has quickly swept the entire country. Title IX is the primary reason that colleges are different. (Before its passage, colleges were adding men's soccer left and right.) Let's consider the University of Michigan for a minute. It's a midwestern school and is completely obsessed with football. Nonetheless, it added men's soccer in spite of Title IX (at enormous expense). If you modify Title IX, you drastically reduce the cost of adding men's soccer. Other administrations will surely follow Michigan's lead.
I respectfully disagree. While I hope you are right, I just don't see it happening. Maybe they will create Men's soccer programs. But they aren't going to have many scholarships to work with. Baseball, on average, has eight scholarships. Scholarship money will go there, because Baseball has more interest.
Baseball teams are capped at 10 scholarships, and that's very unlikely to change. I also think that there is plenty of interest in soccer ... there is pretty good attendance for women's soccer teams at Tennessee, Nebraska, BYU, Hawaii, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Texas A&M and Texas. They all average from 975-1924 fans per game. That's not far behind the attendance for most of these schools' baseball teams (in some cases, it's better).
What's the enrollment at Michigan? Something around 55K or so? They've got lots of money to work with. Compare that to a school like OU that has 25-29K enrollment. I guess we can say that soccer will have truly reached the big time when the last remaining big state schools have added it as a sport.
Michigan is big, but I'm pretty sure it's closer to 35-40K. It's actually one of the smaller schools in the Big 10 ... IIRC, the biggest by far are OSU and Minnesota. But your point is valid, in that Michigan has a rich athletic department. Some schools would have a harder time paying for a team (not the likes of Texas, though).
An anecdote in support of this point: I remember a couple of decades ago some official from Mizzou (my aged memory forgets who, but it was either an AD (or asst.) or president/chancellor (or high-level asst.) talking about this in an informal forum. The questioner pointed out the rich tradition of soccer in St. Louis, the number of great HS programs in St. Louis, KC, Columbia, Springfield, etc. This individual responded along the lines that Mizzou would not want to have a program in any sport that would not be the best in the state, and that the likelihood of losing games and recruits to St. Louis U., UMSL (Div. II) and Washington U. (Div. III) was not appealling. (He may have mentioned Rockhurst--NAIA--but I'm not sure.) This was around the time that UMSL had Ted Hantak and Wash. U. had George (?) Chopin. He supported his argument by saying that U. of Illinois wouldn't start a program because it wouldn't want to play second fiddle to SIU-Edwardsville. (Don't know if he had any solid basis for the Illinois statement.) Another argument I've heard is that some of the big football schools may find it hard to attract top coaches and recruits because soccer will always be the poor stepchild in the athletic department. When I was at a Div II program, we always had to wait in the training room until the football players were taken care of. Showed up at the soccer field one day to find that the football team was running drills ON OUR GAME FIELD because they didn't want to mess up their fields. And our football team was terrible--soccer team made the tournament. You know that football will always be top dog at Nebraska, and many of the other schools named. At St. Louis U. and Creighton, soccer is the main men's sport in the fall semester.
Interesting point, although the next most recent big school to add soccer was Oregon State (IIRC, back in the late 80's). They did so in spite of being overshadowed by Portland. One other thing that's happened is that the talent pool has gotten much deeper. Given that SMSU is producing pro prospects nowadays, Missouri wouldn't have any trouble getting off the ground. Plus, the abundance of players gives public universities a big advantage over private ones. A school can offer at most 9.9 scholarships, forcing a dependence on walk-ons and partial awards. A 25% ride goes a lot further at a public school.
You're definitely right about UT(University of Texas). It has an enrollment of 50K. Texas A&M also has an enrollment of 50K. Texas Tech gets the most out of it's money at 25K, but I don't think that they could afford a men's soccer team right away. Interestingly enough, Tech and A&M have women's soccer teams, I'm not so sure about UT. I'm visiting my grandparents in Oklahoma this weekend and they had an article in the Tulsa World saying that several schools have filed lawsuits against the Title IX declaration. Let's hope that they win out, because that's basically what's keeping the big 12 (and probably SEC) as a whole from adding men's soccer.
What I don't understand is schools such as St. Johns and Bradley that only have a men's soccer team and no women's. Does anyone know what circumstances arrive to create a situation like this? I have no explanation for it!
blah blah blah blah .... this is all invalid. defenestration is an idiot and is incapable of making a coherent point. sincerely, the wanderer nice try, dc, but try again. the wanderer knoweth everything, don't try to support my point...
With all due respect, Arkansas is NOT one of the better club teams in the country. Try BYU, UMD, Texas A&M, etc.
Actually, scholarships are "normalized" based upon the costs at the school. State schools can give a full ride to an in-state resident and it will only "cost" them .3 to .4 of a scholarship depending upon the costs at the school.