Title IX

[GoBuffs08]

As a parent who benefitted from title IX (my oldest got most of her school paid for), it always struck me that Title IX went too far. The pool of prospective NCAA athletes that are women are much less than men. It's MUCH LESS competitive for a woman to land an athletic scholarship.

Using golf as a benchmark as I'm familiar with it:

Many High schools don't field a girls team. In Longmont until very recently, they fielded a "District Team" that played under the Skyline HS flag. They won several state championships a decade ago. Woot! When we'd host the local City Championship, we'd struggle to find 10-15 girls to compete (under 18 years old) whereas we'd sell out quickly on the boys side. 10:1 ratio I'd guess.

I've been told that there are lots of DI women's golf scholarships available across the nation that go unused due to lack of talent pool. Holy Family HS fielded a women's golf team this year for the first time in several years. The reason they did was they have the best women's junior golfer in the state.

 

[pcbuff]

Ummmm no. Grasping.

I don't think I'm grasping. There has even been speculation that efforts through ESPN to carry collegiate competitions was pushed by schools seeking title nine representation.

I also understand this is not popular with soccer, lacrosse and ski programs that see themselves as distinguishable from cheer and dance. Title nine is very well intentioned, but is having some weird nuances in application. For me, rowing isn't worthy of scholarship. Many of you may feel the same way about skiing, that I love. Certainly the merits of who and how you are attracting to fill the scholarship slots in any non revenue sports are open to conversation, and 99% of women's sports are not money makers.

 

[buffaholic]

I've been told that there are lots of DI women's golf scholarships available across the nation that go unused due to lack of talent pool. Holy Family HS fielded a women's golf team this year for the first time in several years. The reason they did was they have the best women's junior golfer in the state.

This is pretty much not true (or hasn't been true for at least 10 years).

One issue is that in women's golf (and mens) players can transfer without penalty and often do. A few years ago, 3 returning seniors at a D1 school decided it would be fun to transfer to a nearby D1 school for their Senior year, and told the head coach of this in May. They were not happy that there were 6am mandatory workouts for S&C training. In this case, head coach put several walk-ons on partial and boosted a few partials to full-ride for a semester or two. My daughter got boosted for that semester (and also had an academic scholarship, so we had to work that out carefully).

A few years later, when she decided she no longer wanted to compete at the D1 level and focus on getting into Med school, she told the coach she didn't have it in her anymore. The coach asked her to come to a few functions including the photo sessions and some donor events, in exchange, she would stay on scholarship for the rest of the year. Under NO CIRCUMSTANCE was the head coach willing to have a scholarship go unused.

But there is no shortage of players to fill the scholarships in normal situations. But by no means is it as competitive as mens golf. Men are at a severe disadvantage, made worse by Title IX, at least in golf. My suspicion is this is true for all sports and that the intended "Equality" went too far, and creates inequality in the other direction.