If soccer is so popular, why do they have such trouble selling tickets to MLS games? They have problems, but there are currently two women's pro leagues going on right now unless I'm mistaken. I love shopping., watching sitcoms and cooking shows. What's your point?
I agree and disagree with you. Some schools should not be pumping so much money into football because they get little return. I previously thought that about GVSU.. until they made the D2 championship last December, which included a Saturday afternoon appearance on ESPN. For a little school such as GVSU, that's a pretty big deal. For the super-hella-big schools, they can pump money into it because football is what brings in all that money in the first place. Michigan's addition of a seventh home game this fall is expected to generate approximately $4 million in additional income for the athletic department's budget. http://www.michigandaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/08/05/3d4e007e3cf8e?in_archive=1
I also enjoy talking about my children. So Tom, why do you have a child if you don't enjoy telling others about her??
Women's sports are entirely about segregation, are they not? If not, why not have simply one soccer team with the best 25 or so players? Why not have ONE basketball team? Should there be a tall and short person's team? Then why a women's and men's? Why not one track team with the fastest athletes? Why two, one men's, one women's? Why not one black and one white? Or a track team for thin people and one for fat people? Very curious stuff. My views on college athletics are as follows. The state should pay for all higher educational (both undergraduate and graduate) expenses, tuition, books, food and limited housing. Barring that, all scholarships should be based on academic or economic considerations. There should be no athletic scholarships. College sports should be run as professional organizations with players receiving salaries based on ticket and media revenues. I haven't decided if a player should actually attend the university to play for it. Perhaps looking good in the shirt should suffice. I have no opinion on sports that are unprofitable except to note that hobbies are not the first priority of universities.
I agree you need to "feed the beast" but the beast is bloated. And trimming the fat could help stem the tide in other sports. the problem is more at the mid-level schools who dream of being with the big boys. They spend beyond their means, most likely.
No, they are not a barometer for current college participation. But they do raise a critical question. With soccer being the US' #2 participation sport among youth, why are more doors not being opened for men in college soccer? Here is another interesting figure: Youth soccer continues to benefit from the burgeoning "echo baby-boomers." Youth soccer registration (under 19 years of age) in the U.S. was up 7% to 3.4 million players in 1997. Soccer registered the largest increase in participation of all high school athletic programs for both boys and girls. So, Monster, can you explain why boys playing high school soccer - and there are more of them every year - are not seeing a concurrent growth in their opportunities to keep playing soccer in college, especially at the D1 level? Again, SGMA has an opinion on this: At the college level, NCAA-affiliated schools sponsoring women's varsity soccer now outrank those sponsoring men's soccer 721 to 686. This reflects the influence of Title IX legislation and efforts to achieve gender equity. I don't exclusively blame women. Mismanagement of men's athletics and the ridiculous investment in college football hold just as much blame, if not more, for stunting the growth of Men's College Soccer. Having said that, Title IX is a joke. It hasn't always been, but it is now. And these all-powerful men who are pulling the purse strings are at the same time shackled with antiquated legislation that doesn't fit the needs of the current landscape. When any group suffers because of bad laws - whether it be women, racial minorities, or even MALE ATHLETES - steps should be taken to adjust those laws accordingly.
You are very good at taking a notion right over the deep end just for the fun of it. I watche dyour schtick in the Mathis and Pierce threads. That stuff was much better.
I believe monster agrees with your final points here and is only arguing with the posters who say Title IX along with the radical feminists are destroying college soccer in the US and keeping the USMNT from winning the World Cup when the facts show college soccer staying pretty consistent and the National Team improving.
But being interested in a sport as a fan is unquestionably distinct from being interested in a sport as a participant. Were this not the case, MLS would have far surpassed the NHL in spectator popularity by now. I don't know whether that's true or not. For what it's worth, I think the distinction between the amount of societal interest in athletic participation and the available opportunities for that participation is somewhat pointless, because the amount of opportunity influences the amount of interest, and vice versa. However, what I can say with confidence is that citing the demographics of the hardcore fan community as a justification for a certain gender distribution of opportunities for collegiate athletes is senseless. Fans aren't necessarily athletes, nor are athletes necessarily devoted fans.
Did you know that the rate of high school players graduating to play in college for soccer is one of the highest among major men's college sports? Maybe the youth numbers don't bear out because soccer is seen as a great way to integrate children into sports. They then branch off on their own. But soccer has a pretty good retention rate (more than 5 percent IIRC) going from high school to college. Forgive me if I don't think that the whole basis of college athletics should be built around catering to soccer players. I'm not accusing you of that, but a soccer-first mentality, while understandable to a degree, is absurd here. I agree. But in the absence of that law being changed - it won't happen anytime soon - the people managing the money have to be more creative. Going from 85 to 78 scholarships in football will fund anywhere form $70-120 grand a year. That could fund as many as two or three sports based on average Division I operating expenses. Realistically, it could probably fund one. All for seven football scholarships. The men have as much culpability as the women. they just don't want to change.
967 teams for Men's Hoops overall. 321 Hoops teams for Men in Division 1 schools. 99% sponsorship. 710 teams for Men's soccer, with well over half of those at D3 schools where College Football is less likey to exist. 195 teams for Men's soccer in D1. The disparity between the number of men's soccer programs in D1 and those in D3 point to what is killing the growth of soccer and just about every other sport outside of football and basketball - the ridiculous investments of money, scholarships, and personnel in Men's College Football, and the need to offset those investments by building Women's Sports instead of other Men's or risk being out of compliance with Title IX. Title IX and College Football are killing Division 1 Men's Soccer. I agree with Monster that this is not going to change anytime soon. If you want to build a case for why soccer development needs to get away from the college system and into a professional environment, this might be one of your strongest arguments.
You have acknowledged the evidence that men are more interested in sports. By implication, so does that study. Now, there is no disagreement. So now we must turn to whether 6 year olds have similar interests in sports? I tend to doubt the "research." Over the years, one hears many similar things to "prove" that there are no gender differences, always with the, ahem, misogynist/self-hating assumptions that whatever men are interested in are superior activities that women should be involved with in equal numbers. Even assuming they are correct about the 6 year olds (nevermind the weasel words included), the explanations for later changes are quite speculative and misleading. Perhaps women are discouraged because they can not compete with males as they get older? Or do you think they can? Could the best 11 women beat the World Cup winning Brazil team? Isn't it true that many things that interest 6 year olds do not interest 16 year olds. That might be true if you stuck someone on a desert island. AGAIN, why is this important one way or another? Whatever the reasons for men being more interested in sports (amd I'm sure there are many things at work), they are.
Curious that you and Monster can not even debate the points. To make it simple, why must we segregate teams based on gender? Please you or Monster answer that one simple little question.
How's it killing the growth of soccer? Do we need to rely on colleges to develop our best players? If anything, your last point demonstrates the relative insignificance of this argument quoted above. I mean, we've had to rely on colleges in the past, but... well, our last WC team was much better than our all-collegians team used to be, and a few players (no need to name names) have ZERO college experience. Guess which ones we tend to think represent the best hope for the future of American soccer. I'm all for college soccer, but the main purpose of it, or any other college sport, shouldn't be to produce professional athletes
A good article on how men have been affect by Title IX has been found. The author wrote this after he learned that his sport, wrestling, was being removed from his alma matter because of Title IX. The second link is responses from the readers. The third, from another writer, gives a solution to this. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/david_fleming/news/1999/04/22/flemfile/index.html http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/david_fleming/news/1999/04/29/flemfile/index.html http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/frank_deford/news/2002/06/19/viewpoint/index.html
Funny that you were incapable of addressing the point. Because you simply can't. Actually, you won't. Because it gets to the heart of the matter. As for Mathis, I'll stand by every word. He is the best American player be a huge margin. The Pierce stuff was just a lark, some of it designed to make fun of you a bit. I'll give you credit for the Carrieri stuff. His stats went under my radar.
Not correct. Here are the three standards: 1. Opportunities for males & females substantially proportionate to their respective enrollments 2. Where one sex has been underrepresented, a history and continuing practice of program expansion responsive to the developing interests & abilities of that sex 3. Where one sex is under-represented & cannot show a continuing practice of program expansion, whether it can be demonstrated that the interests and abilities of that sex have been fully and effectively accommodated by the present program This is where the lie is put to all those who say "women aren't as interested as men in sports" because if that were true, every school would comply with the 3rd test, by showing that women aren't interested in participating in sports. In fact, I think most schools with football programs rely on the 2nd test, which doesn't require proportionality, but is much more subjective. But, you can't have it both ways. Either the 3rd test can be met because the macho-theory is correct, or the macho-theory is wrong, so you have to go to test one or two. This is what anti-Title IX advocates don't want you to know. If their view was correct, they'd simply meet the 3rd test and not worry about proportionality. Why don't they just prove that "women aren't interested?" and comply that way? WHY????
I am sorry. I should have been more precise and said that the combination of Title IX and College Football are killing Men's College Soccer. I figured that since the scope of this debate has been restricted to Title IX's affect on Men's College Soccer, that would have been apparent. If you would have read the rest of my post, you would have seen that your need to rant about the folly of relying on college sports to develop professional soccer players didn't exist. I already agree with it.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/david_fleming/news/1999/04/22/flemfile/index.html I haven't gotten to the other links, but this is one of the best articles written on Title IX and its worthlessness, even harmfulness, in the current landscape of college athletics I have ever read.
As you're probably aware, this kind of data is tough to find. But check the Statistical Abstract of the US. You'll see that women's sports participation in general is heavily concentrated in the top 25% income group, even more so in the top 10%. This is why it's possible to publish such wonderful statistics about women who play sports -- they're mostly from privileged backgrounds. Another unfortunate side effect of Title IX is that it has added lots of women's sports that are economically exclusive. Does anyone really benefit when a college adds scholarships for women's horseback riding, golf, and tennis?
"Title IX was a noble idea that has been twisted and bastardized by lazy, visionless college administrators in a way that will ultimately hurt just as many athletes as it helps. When it was drafted, the spirit of this law called for colleges to ADD women's sports to come into compliance, not CUT men's sports. Instead, in the name of gender equity, an entire generation of male athletes has been denied the chance to earn college tuition money and participate at the highest level."
The problem with the 3rd test ("men are even more interested") is that there's no accepted gauge of interest. Brown University surveyed the interests of its incoming students each year, but the courts ruled against them anyway.
Here's the language from the 1st Circuit case: "Thus, at the heart of this litigation is the question whether Title IX permits Brown to deny its female students equal opportunity to participate in sports, based upon its unproven assertion that the district court's finding of a significant disparity in athletics opportunities for male and female students reflects, not discrimination in Brown's intercollegiate athletics program, but a lack of interest on the part of its female students that is unrelated to a lack of opportunities. We view Brown's argument that women are less interested than men in participating in intercollegiate athletics, as well as its conclusion that institutions should be required to accommodate the interests and abilities of its female students only to the extent that it accommodates the interests and abilities of its male students, with great suspicion. To assert that Title IX permits institutions to provide fewer athletics participation opportunities for women than for men, based upon the premise that women are less interested in sports than are men, is (among other things) to ignore the fact that Title IX was enacted in order to remedy discrimination that results from stereotyped notions of women's interests and abilities." Key focus here is on the "unproven" assertion. Later in the opinion there's some factors to consider for schools that want to avail themselves of the third prong. http://www.law.emory.edu/caselaw/1ca/nov96/95-2205.01a.html
I'm curious about the answer to that one myself, but it doesn't look like either of these guys will return and reply. This reminds me of a "debate" that took place during a women's tennis final. John McEnroe and Mary Carillo were among the commentators, and the issue of unequal pay at Wimbledon was brought up. No one -not one person- had the guts to say that 1) if the women simply agreed to play best 3/5 sets, there could be no reasonable opposition to equal pay, or 2) if they women's and men's draws were combined, the situation would represent truly equal opportunity. I once replied to a post by suggesting that helmetball be deemed a coed sport, but with scholarships going to the best athletes, period. That would cure the problem, but no one wants to try it. It's a perfect setup- there wouldn't be enough women who could make the cut to adversely affect the team, but the numbers would work out. The only snag is that the redneck mentality of helmetball would prevent coaches from trying it. Could Venus, Lindsay, Martina or Serena compete with the world's best players, regrdless of gender? Perhaps. But they're not asking for that truly equal opportunity. They are, in fact, asking for equal pay for what could arguably be considered players who might not win one match in a coed draw. I think this is Reilly's point.