So....same old issue then, but instead of now just being the forebearer for Men's Soccer in the Big XII they would have to do so for Women's Water Polo (and we all know how badly a school would want to do that).
Well, at least they have suitable facilities already for water polo -- you just need a swimming pool of a certain size, right? Ditto for field hockey, I guess.
I'm pretty sure field hockey is mandated to be played on an artificial surface. Could be wrong though.
Oh. Well, then maybe we don't already have the facilities for that, since I think only the baseball stadium is still artificial turf and even that will be changed to grass in the near future.
Here's the nationwide numbers (a little dated, but. . .): http://www.ncaa.org/library/research/participation_rates/1982-2000/1982-00_participation_report.pdf Men's Soccer went from 182 of 277 programs to 194 of 305 in Division I from 1981/82 to 1999/2000 (which proportionally is a slight decline). Over the same period, the high school participation rate had increased by 104%. (It's up 11 percent in the five years since.) And OT, but if you ever wanted to know the possibility your high school kid would someday make MLS, that info can be found here: http://www.ncaa.org/research/prob_of_competing/probability_of_competing2.html
Well, sure, that is a problem in the short-term, but what happens is that it will set off a chain of events in which other Texas schools would add women's waterpolo, b/c Title IX compliance is a daily nemesis for athletic departments. Also, it's not like you have to have 22+ full scholarships to start a program. I'm not sure about the numbers, but I know that in men's waterpolo they are few and far between. I've heard that in soccer it's not all that common to have a full squad on full scholarship.
You can have 11 scholarships max for a women's div 1 soccer program. What happens is the office for scholarships at a college finds other scholarships that each player can get. Minority, academic, etc etc. So if they can find the equal of 1/4 of 'other' scholarships and put that with 3/4 of an athletic scholarship, then a player has a full ride. Then they can use the 1/4 left for someone else. This is one reason why very highly qualified academic students are pretty popular in men's soccer. They won't take up a full athletic scholarship. Notice SMU has about 1/3 hispanics on their soccer team. They are good players and may bring some minority scholarship potential with them. Anyway, this is what Simon Sanchez told me he did when he was the head coach of the UNT men's soccer team.
Does gymnastics not stick out to others like soccer does? Texas has some of the best young women's gymnasts in the world. There is probably a parallel universe where some parents are posting on BigGymnast about why Texas colleges don't have gymnastics.
My question is "do we WANT colleges to develop soccer programs?" I personally would prefer a growing club system to make room for our up and coming talent. And this is not because "the rest of the world does it this way", but because I think it is honestly a better approach to developing players. I think the NCAA system stifles talent growth with their limitations on practice and number of games and college attendance diverts focus the "should" be on the pitch. We end up with players that have already realistically spent half of their potential careers in a classroom. If clubs offered scholarships usable any time after release of the player, in addition to whatever salary (obviously, they'd have to have the money to do this, which will take time), players could focus on the game with the knowledge that college is waiting for them if they choose it. The best thing about college and the careers to which it leads (as compared to a soccer career) is that you can go anytime.
No, that's not the question. That's a problem for US Soccer to figure out. This is an issue in which ppl who are supposed to be serving the public are basing decisions on their prejudices rather than serving the needs of the state.
So you are really trying to talk about politics and not soccer .... Close the thread, CLOSE THE THREAD!!!!
Well.What I want to know is how come some of these same AD's who are in universities without a football program, like my alma matter, UT-Pan American, have no soccer programs?! There is no football stadium, but we have a small soccer stadium. There is no football team, but there are two student fundend and organized soccer clubs. And to drive the point even further, the UT-Pan Am site makes no mention of our soccer clubs!
They're not mutually exclusive. The youth club game is probably rising even faster than the high school figures quoted above. But the college game does fit into the picture, if for no other reason than that the vast majority of soccer parents making the sacrifice of taking their U-12s to the travelling teams (which for now are quite expensive to boot) are much more likely to be thinking about future college scholarships than pro careers for their kids.
UT and A&M make a whole bunch more off their athletic programs than Vandy ever will. I'm telling you, even if college is distinctly 'Plan B' to develop the best pros, the idea of a college scholarship will remain a greater motivator for youths and their parents than a pro career will be for the foreseeable future.
strikes me that if the parents, instead of spending money on club teams,travel, tournaments etc put that money aside they wouldn't need to chase the small chance of getting a soccer scholarship.....I also find it comical that some parents who can easily afford to send their precious anywhere are some of the ones most desperatley chasing scholarships...
OK 2 questions...... 1. In Title IX are the numbers based on number of programs being equal or number of participants being relatively equal.......ASU has 10 men's programs and 12 women's programs. Is there no limit on womens programs? Theoretically there could be a school with.....say....2 mens programs and 20 womens programs and there would be no problem? 2. Why don't more schools just go around the whole NCAA restriction and set up a PDL squad ala BYU?
It's based on number of players, and it's designed to guarantee each change in the teams moves towards equal representation, at least, but not as a maximum, for women. So hypothetically, yes, there'd be no problem theoretically if there was a school with 2 men's programs and 20 players versus 20 women's programs and 400. But of course no such scenario is likely to actually occur any time soon. BYU is kind of unique in terms of the students it attracts. A great number of them are international students and Mormons who aren't as affected by scholarships (BYU for its club team has none). Also, because they have been on missions, many of them are older. The cougars played for many years in essentially the NCAA intramural league. They dominated it so thoroughly that they decided to move up a level. Chances are there aren't any other schools who could play at the PDL level without giving any scholarships.
Also, keep in mind most of the better college players play in the PDL in their offseason anyway, which is why the "they don't get enough games" thing is a bit of a canard. If you play a full college regular season + conference tourney + NCAA tourney + PDL, you're getting about as many games over the course of a year as an MLS pro does.