After Atalanta

Summer lovin', happened too fast. Christine Brennan has declared the Summer of Women (in sports) over. And, today, she and I are on the same page. Eternal pessimist that I am, I suspected--as it was happening--that the surge of interest in women's sports that was ignited primarily by the Olympics but also by the concurrent news and (mostly) praise of Title IX during its 40th anniversary year, would dissipate. It's a roller coaster ride. Luckily we only have to go down screeching down that big hill of disappointment once every 4 years (and down a smaller hill of disappointment after the winter Olympics end). Brennan was brought back to her reality after hearing UConn women's basketball coach, Geno Auriemma, discuss his stance on lowering the rim in women's basketball to make it a more popular sport that people (i.e. men) want to watch. People who don't like women's sports are not going to watch them. And inferiorizing the sport only provides the haters mo...

This month marks the 40th anniversary of Title IX. Each anniversary engenders a good deal of media attention about the equity in education legislation, but this year, of course, the attention is greater. The Title IX Blog has been covering some of the anniversary coverage. A trend that I have noticed is the focus on the everyday athlete . We are hearing testimonials and personal histories and reflections from women who are not elite athletes. ESPNW is collecting pictures and mini-stories from women of all ages and abilities that are entered into a collage/mosaic on their website . This opinion piece on an NBC website fits this trend of hearing from the everyday women and the way Title IX affected their lives. Jelisa Castrodale also discusses what she sees among the girls of today and their relationships to sports, the access (often unquestioned) they have to sports, and the ways sport is incorporated into their everyday lives. The title of the column is "Don't call us tom...

Because I said so. I know that is the mom response. But it is actually true. Last week's NYT piece about the ways in which schools not-so-subtly manipulate their roster numbers to make it appear that they are closer to providing equitable opportunities than they really are has generated a lot of response. One such response is the suggestion that we not count football in order to make things more equal. This is not in any way a novel "solution." It was proposed when Title IX was passed and football supporters feared for their sport when they realized supporters of women's athletics were going to use the new gender equity law to claim their fair share. Title IX will be the death of football, people claimed. But the fear was never realized. Football, however, has been the death of other sports and silently hides (a shocking ability given its massiveness: stadia, rosters, coaching staffs, etc.) while other male student-athletes lose their opportunities and everyone turns...

Have I used this title before? Probably. My little world was abuzz yesterday with the news that colleges manipulate their roster numbers to make it appear they are closer to gender equity than they really are. The NYT published a report on the issue noting that "many" (not a great figure) colleges use a variety of techniques when reporting their EADA numbers in order to look like they are at (or closer to) proportionality than they really are. The article gives several fairly egregious examples including the University of South Florida which has some very large rosters--specifically in the cross country and track and field teams. This is because USF added a football team not so very long ago and had to also add opportunities for women. Unfortunately it does not seem that these are real opportunities. Many of the members listed on the track team are not really on it. How this stuff has flown under the radar for so long is kind of amazing. When told about the 75-woman cross co...

I've probably mentioned one of my favorite quotations before. But I find this morning an appropriate time to say it again. So from one of my favorite radical feminist groups, the Guerrilla Girls, this question: Why the cynical attitude on this only the third day of the month I, an avowed feminist (see Dr. LaVoi's recent post about what a feminist is), is supposed to revel in? Well I found this on ESPN.com this morning. Why is ESPN doing a piece on Title IX?, I wondered. It isn't the anniversary. There has not been any outstanding Title IX news of late. It's in honor of women's history month, Suzy Kolber, who is hosting these videos (this was just the first of three), tells me as she sits next to a group of women ready to discuss all that Title IX has done--and of course mention the controversy it has engendered. Last week I wrote briefly about the perceived excitement level in women's sports and its supposed connection to viewership. Well, this piece wasn't...

Right, so what I ran out of energy to say yesterday and decided that I couldn't really fold so neatly into the context of that post... I noticed that the coaches of all four semifinalist teams in the NCAA DI women's volleyball championship are men. Before you scream "femi-nazi" let me note that I don't think men are inherently evil or malicious* and thus not qualified to coach women. I think that various systemic impediments, though, make it easier for men to coach women and these issues are not being well addressed. And really? All four of the best teams in the nation have male coaches? Volleyball, by the way, is the second most popular women's intercollegiate sport (behind basketball). Women currently comprise just under 56 percent of the head coaches of women's volleyball (across all divisions). This is almost the lowest percentage since the late 1970s. (All data is from Carpenter and Acosta's longitudinal study of women's intercollegiate athlet...

Carbs. Some funky spandex. And maybe a smidge of recognition. This article in WaPo did a great job describing the situation of many collegiate women's rugby teams. Most of them are club teams. That means they provide (or seek out through fundraising or non-athletic department institutional sources) most of the funding for participation. This is despite the fact that the NCAA has listed women's rugby as an emerging sport. That means that schools could elevate their women's rugby teams to varsity status and perhaps deal with some lingering Title IX issues by doing so. Rugby teams are large. Not as large as crew teams--but also not as expensive. And it's a growing sport, actually the fastest growing women's sport at American colleges. But only four schools have elevated women's rugby to varsity status. Because while it might help with Title IX numbers, there is some (legitimate) concern that NCAA and institutional oversight of rugby isn't really what the sport...

I have not been surprised by the renewed calls to abolish/reform Title IX in the wake of University of California Berkeley's announcement that it is cutting five intercollegiate sports. Yes, it's lousy that this happened. But California is not in good financial shape--as we all know. So it's not surprising that a department in one of its state schools--a department that has been running a $10-13 million annual deficit*--has been forced to tighten the belt. And some are saying that the men are paying for this financial mismanagement more than women because more male athletes are affected by the cuts than women--because of Title IX. True. And yes, I do think that it is fair that the gender that has more opportunities should bear more of the cuts. But The publisher of Forbes , Richard Karlgaard, does not . This is an attack of excellence, he says, because we are putting equality above excellence. I will just state right away that in intercollegiate athletics, I will always cho...

A friend and colleague sent me the link the You Tube video (below) promoting women's rugby at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. QU added women's rugby in an attempt to come into Title IX compliance, after it was told, by a federal judge, that it could not--at this time--count competitive cheerleading as a sport. It also added women's golf and kept--per the judge's order--women's volleyball. You may recall that QU tried to cut its women's volleyball team, but because it was not providing equitable opportunities to women, it elevated competitive cheer to varsity status to compensate for the cut. But it was also revealed that there had been some roster doctoring going on. So, as said friend noted, it was kind of interesting that the promo video stressed--repeatedly--opportunity. Seems to be a word they only recently learned. And you know how it goes. You learn a new word and you just want to use it over and over again. I also found it kind of amusing that the v...

Yes, I went for the cheap titillation with the not-so-accurate headline. But I am so very amused at the way this whole cheerleading; sport or not? thing has gone down since the ruling earlier in the summer in the Quinnipiac case. Every week since the ruling (that said only that the Quinnipiac competitive cheer team could not be counted as a sport for the purpose of Title IX) I have seen many, many stories, editorials, rants and tears about whether cheerleading is or is not a sport. Thankfully this week there are new headlines, like this one from the NYT: Group to Create Sport of Stunt . It's just a blurb about how USA Cheer is working in collaboration with 15 college cheer programs to create the sport of stunt. This announcement, the blurb notes, comes just a week after USA Gymnastics announced it was partnering with the 6 current varsity intercollegiate cheer teams to create team acrobatics and tumbling. Oh, but there has to be more to this than the blurb is letting on, I said to ...

Not too long ago, one of the Title IX bloggers (those women just rock, don't they?), wrote about the issue of double headers in intercollegiate sports. Not two games played back-to-back by the same team, but back-to-back games by a women's team and a men's team. This seems to happen most frequently in basketball. The home team hosts both the men's and women's teams from a particular institution in one night. The issue has been that often the women's games are played first making it seem like they are the opening act; the warm-up for the men's game. Title IX is involved because the law requires equity in the scheduling of games and promotion both of which are at issue when scheduling men's games in primetime slots and relegating women to opening act status. Some conferences have dealt with this already by switching the order of games either at some point during the season or every year. What got me thinking about this was roller derby. Not an intercolleg...

But I'm not going to like it. [Because I seem to be talking about this a lot lately and am truly tired of the virulent reactions to this issue.] So in case you missed it, a federal judge ruled last week that the competitive cheer team that Quinnipiac University attempted to elevate to varsity status after cutting its women's volleyball team was not a sport. Let's just be clear, overreacters, that this ruling only applies to QU. But, yes, it has implications for current and future competitive cheer teams. And it should. Because people--and not just me and a few select others--should be thinking about these things: what counts as a sport, who gets labelled an athlete, how are labels applied and what are their effects, how does an activity's history factor into these things, how do our paradigms change, what does equity look like going forward. I do hope the QU case engenders some discussion about these things, but what I have seen thus far in the media is not particularly...

This is my snarky Sunday post that comes after a week of hearing the debate (in person and in the media) whether cheerleading should be counted as a sport. I won't enter into the debate here. You can check out the Title IX Blog for some coverage of the Quinnipiac University trial that has thrust this issue into arguably the brightest spotlight it has ever felt. Debbie Yow, the newly appointed AD at North Carolina State, is largely responsible for introducing this debate into intercollegiate athletics and engendering the consternation over gender equity and Title IX. Competitive cheer was added to the list of varsity sports at Maryland while she was the AD there. UMD was the first school to do so. Maryland needed to add opportunities for women. It had several options including women's ice hockey (hence some of my bitterness), but the athletic department went with cheerleading which had previously been an athletic activity involving both sideline cheerleading and some competitiv...

So Joe Biden got up in front of some Girl Scouts and US Women's National Hockey team members yesterday--in addition to the usual crowd of reporters and assorted others--and announced that the Obama administration would be rescinding the 2005 "clarification" of prong three compliance. The clarification which came from George W. Bush's administration, stated that schools could exhibit compliance with prong three of the three-prong test that ensures the provision of equitable opportunities for athletic participation, by sending out email surveys to gauge female students' interest in sports not currently offered at the institution. Non responses would be interpreted as lack of interest. The clarification came to be known as the Title IX loophole because administering a survey over email to undergraduates--come on. Not to mention that it is unlikely that a student who was truly interested in playing a sport would attend a school where said sport did not exist. (There w...

See, I knew I would be back to critiquing someone this week. And how appropriate that is the anonymous columnist from my alma mater's student newspaper. (In my day, when I wrote for The New Hampshire , they didn't allow anonymous columnists.) Anyway, anonymous Joe (he admits to being male), has a holiday wish list for the University of new Hampshire that includes a few sport-related things. First he wishes for a new football stadium because the current one is "small" and "ugly." I never thought it was that bad. He said that because the team has done so well recently they deserve a less-embarrassing facility. Perhaps. But it clearly has not affected recruiting. After all if you can make it to the second round of the post-season, you must be getting quality players who come in spite of the allegedly crummy stadium. And, of course, it costs a lot of money to build a new stadium. Anonymous Joe said that a new stadium, though, would bring in more revenue. But a...

I so appreciate the growing number of voices in the blogosphere talking about sport and gender. It means that when I just cannot muster enough snark to address the latest issue, there are others who will. So I have indeed read about the latest investigation by the US Civil Rights Commission into discrimination against female applicants to liberal arts colleges which are trying to prevent an even larger skewing of the proportion of female and male undergraduates. That some colleges are trying to increase their male students is not news. It has been known for a little while now. The Civil Rights Commission is investigating. But as some of my colleagues have pointed out, one of the strategies for male recruitment entails adding sports teams for men. But adding men's teams would likely result in adding women's teams in order to retain or achieve Title IX compliance. So now we have to talk about--as if we ever really stop!--whether Title IX should be altered. All in order to get mor...

...goes to Barnard College senior Lisa Lewis for her lovely anti-Title IX diatribe . I was going to let this editorial slide because I have a few ethical qualms about calling out college students (who are not actually taking my classes anyway and even then I try to be didactic and tactful about it as it is a place of learning). But Lewis used the term femi-nazis and thus all bets are off. The problem started when I thought Lewis and I were on the same page. Since the passing of NCAA president Myles Brand, I have been more than a little concerned about who his replacement will be. So is Lewis. But for very different reasons. Lewis believes the next leader of the NCAA needs to be in touch with the world we live in-- a world in which women now exceed men in college admissions and so she comes to this conclusion: Legislation of the 20th century, like Title IX, needs to be reevaluated in the light of the world we live in. I don't what they are teaching young women at Barnard these days,...

Last month Florida Gulf Coast University released the findings from its external investigation of its athletic department. The short version of the FGCU saga is this: The very few female coaches in the department got together and complained about the state of the athletic department, specifically gender equity. All of them suffered some form of retaliation; some left the school entirely; some were suspended or fired. And then a few filed a lawsuit. There were settlements. For a more detailed recounting of the events head to the Title IX Blog . Part of the settlement included a mandatory external review of gender equity. Dr. Christine Grant was chosen for this task. A very good choice and one that would ensure that this review process (there had been several before) was legit. More good news is that her report revealed that things are in good shape at FGCU. Equitable scholarship dollars: check. Equitable opportunities: check. Equitable distribution of resources: pretty good. (There are ...

I don't know what my problem is with finding things to blog about lately. But I am headed to s different country later this week so hopefully that will provide some information. It's not as if there has not been things going on. After all, the women's college world series is nearly upon us. I went to a regional game this past weekend and had a very enjoyable time. WPS is in full-swing. Though I have been a little bitter since the Abby Wambach suspension decision. But I am building a bridge and trying to get over it. So here are just some tidbits to tide--well, mostly me, over--until I find my blog-jo again. Lots and lots of Title IX stuff happening these days. With the recession has come a lot of cuts in sports programs and when cutting programs schools must consider from whom they are taking away opportunities. Also making news is the case being brought by the axed volleyball team at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. The volleyball players and coach are alleging that ...

The NCAA's announcement that sand volleyball (we all know it as beach volleyball) will become the latest "emerging sport" has generated some news. Several schools are actively considering the addition which is being touted as cheap and fairly easy to implement, especially if schools already have an indoor team (the thought is that there could be player and even coaching overlap). But this dude in Utah thinks this is just another of the evil implementations of Title IX. Because sand volleyball is only being offered for women. He calls the move an attempt to "inflate" the numbers of women playing intercollegiate athletics (implying of course that their interest isn't real, or that the sport is somehow inferior) just like when those "silly NCAA-sponsored crew teams" were sanctioned. Mr. Robinson, I wouldn't mess with female rowers if I were you. They're fierce--in the best way! He bemoans the lack of scholarships for male athletes--well for no...