Task Force Media Notes, November 5, 1998

WOMEN ATHLETES AT PROVIDENCE SAY TITLE IX MUST CHANGE

An interesting reaction to the recent decision of Providence College to eliminate their men's baseball, golf and tennis programs was expressed by the women athletes on campus. Although the controversial decision was made with the intention of helping women athletes, many of PC's women athletes were upset by the elimination of men's teams in their name.

Sports Illustrated, the most respected sports magazine in the nation, addressed the negative aspects of the Providence decision in its Scorecard section. At a student sit-in protesting the cuts, more than 100 of the 275 protesters were women. According to Sports Illustrated, Mirandi Balag, a senior co-captain of the PC field hockey team, said:

* "Somebody better do something soon to fix the law, because right now it hurts more athletes than it helps."

Balag also understood that the interpretation of the law was harmful. She said:

* "Women athletes want more opportunities, but Title IX wasn┤ designed to take away opportunities from others."

A number of other women athletes at PC came out in public against the decision of the athletic department. An article written by Elizabeth Rau of the Providence Journal, entitled "The price of equality," captured many of the student┬ feelings.

* "I can┤ even imagine what these students feel like," said Carla Clemente, 21, co-captain of the women┬ swim team. "Being an athlete, you come to this school and hope to participate in the sport you love, and now they┴e telling you you can┤."

* "I feel so bad," said Jami Servidone, 20, a junior who plays first base on the women┬ softball team. "If I was in that predicament, where I came to play a sport, and all of a sudden it was cut, it┬ like, what do you do?"

Providence College's decision to cut three men's sports, without adding any new women's sports, is a perfect example of proportionality in practice. A law, which was originally written to provide opportunity, has been misinterpreted into a quota law, which actually eliminates much more opportunity than it creates.

According to the 1997 NCAA Gender Equity Study, during a five-year period (1992-97), a total of 17,009 male athletes were eliminated, while only 5,009 female athletes were added in NCAA institutions. This works out to an average of 3.4 men cut for every new female athlete. The ugly scene at Providence College has been going on at many campuses for many years, and will continue until the interpretation of Title IX is changed.

PROVIDENCE COLLEGE CUTS HARM ACTUAL STUDENT-ATHLETES

Sports cutbacks caused by proportionality is much more than just statistics. Real people's lives are affected, and for many of the athletes, it is truly a traumatic experience. Elizabeth Rau of the Providence Journal, in her article entitled "The price of equality," talks to members of the soon-to-be eliminated baseball team.

Rau visited with a number of baseball players who were watching the 1998 World Series game between the Yankees and the Padres. While talking about the elimination of the program, two of the players, catcher Jeremy Sweet and shortstop Joe Rigabar, promised each other that they would not cry. Rau reported the thoughts of the baseball players on the tragic loss of their team.

* Mike O'Keefe, 20, first baseman: "What am I going to do? Keep my scholarship but not play baseball. No way. Everybody on the team loves the game too much - that┬ why we are here."

* Rich McGuire, 18, pitcher: "I'm all mixed up. I have to start all over looking for a place to go. It┬ horrible."

When Angelo Ciminiello, a senior third baseman, told his teammates that he was sorry that they could not play a full four years at PC in the sport they love, it proved too much for the players. The Rau article ends like this:

* "Then Ciminiello burst into tears. And so did Sween and Rigabar and O'Keefe and McGuire and freshman shortstop Jamie Athas and sophomore catcher John Nathans and junior outfielder Keith Reed and senior pitcher Josh Burnham and all the rest of the players. They cried for a good five minutes, then walked to the Baseball House together."

THE FACT IS THAT WOMEN HAVE MORE COLLEGE SPORTS OPPORTUNITIES THAN MEN

For many years, proponents of proportionality have demanded the use of gender quotas as the method to measure opportunity for athletes. The propaganda goes something like this: if the percentage of female athletes on a campus does not equal the number of female students on a campus, there must be discrimination and a lack of opportunity.

This reasoning does not take into account the other two prongs of the Title IX enforcement rules: interest and abilities, and a pattern of increased opportunities for women. When you take interest into account, and consider the amount of opportunities for high school athletes to participate in college, women athletes are getting many more chances to compete than men athletes. Simply said, your high school daughter student-athlete has a greater chance to compete in college than your high school son student-athlete.

The National Coalition for Athletics Equity (NCAE), a Washington D.C.-based organization that is dedicated to preserving athletic opportunities for all students, came up with some very important statistics. The NCAE developed a statistic called "opportunity percentage," which compares the number of high school athletes in each sport with the number of college opportunities in the same sport. By dividing the number of high school athletes by the number of college athletes, a percentage of opportunities is developed. This is a very powerful statistic that gives a true picture of opportunities.

The NCAE researched 39 men's and women┬ sports that have high school and NCAA college programs, using the 1995-96 statistics. Topping the ranking with the most opportunity is women's crew, which had 966 high school athletes and 3,528 NCAA college athletes - an opportunity percentage of 365.52 percent. The lowest ranked sport was men┬ basketball, with 545,596 high school athletes and 15,160 college athletes, for an opportunity percentage of 2.77 percent.

Six of the top 10 sports for opportunity percentage are women's sports. They are, in order:

Women's Crew 365.52%
Women's Squash 216.66%
Men's Crew 163.25%
Women's Fencing 109.10%
Men's Fencing 105.63%
Men's Squash 74.75%
Women's Synchronized Swimming 46.42%
Women's Ice Hockey 28.28%
Women's Lacrosse 24.72%
Men's Lacrosse 23.07%

If you compare apples with apples, the statistics also show that women have more opportunities than men in the same sport. In the study, 16 sports that have both men and women teams are evaluated. In 10 of these sports, the women's team has a higher opportunity percentage than the men's team, while only 6 men's teams have the higher percentage. In the top five ranked sports for opportunity, the women's team has a higher percentage - crew, squash, fencing, lacrosse and ice hockey.

It is understandable why the wrestling community has taken an active interest in the problems with proportionality. According to the participation percentage study, wrestling ranks 38th of the 39 sports evaluated in terms of opportunity. There were 221,162 high school wrestlers, but only 6,385 NCAA college wrestlers. This comes out to an opportunity percentage of 2.88%. In practical terms, for every 100 high school wrestlers, less than three have the opportunity to compete on an NCAA college wrestling team.

The scary part of this information is that it uses the 1996 statistics. In the last two years, many men┬ college teams have been dropped, while there has been an increase in women┬ teams in some sports. Therefore, the gap between opportunities for women and for men has increased even more today.

If you have questions on this study, contact the NCAE at 202-496-1298.

CONGRESSMAN HASTERT CONTINUES HIS BATTLE ON BEHALF OF ALL ATHLETES

Truly, the leading voice in the government for fairness in sports opportunities is Congressman J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, the deputy majority whip of the House of Representatives. Hastert has taken a strong public position against the destructive use of proportionality, and has worked with his fellow legislators to attempt to correct the misinterpretation of the original Title IX legislation.

Hastert has had the courage to stand up to the bureaucrats in the current administration that are forcing proportionality down the throats of college athletic administrators. In the October 11 issue of the Chicago Tribune, columnist James Warren tells the story about how Hastert confronted Norma Cantu of the Department of Education, about an effort by her agency to require cuts in a college sports program.

A few excepts from the Warren article follows:

* "The Chicago branch of the department┬ office for civil rights just informed Northern Illinois University that it must quickly remedy alleged violations of Title IX, which requires schools to allocate sports resources equally for men and women."

* "In 1993, the school dropped field hockey and was sued by an athlete. Her suit inspired a back-and-forth that has included dueling surveys on athletic interests by the 16,200-student university and the government. About 39 percent of athletes are female, about the national average, with the student body 53 percent female."

* "Now the government has given Northern Illinois 10 days to agree to start a women's track and field program or achieve greater proportionality by dropping men's sports, presumably low-revenue teams such as wrestling and swimming. If if doesn┤, it faces the loss of federal funds."

* "Hastert beckoned Norma Cantu, the civil rights chief at the Education Department. He learned that the government asked women on the cross-country team if they▃ be interested in track. 苦hich is like going to an interest group and asking them if there┬ an interest,' he said."

According to the Warren article, nothing was resolved between Hastert and Cantu. Hastert told Warren why the action against Northern Illinois by the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) is so wrong:

* "'This is the ultimate in government interference: telling them to drop the men's sports, then also saying you have to do the sport we tell you,' said Hastert."

WHY ARE SPORTS PROGRAMS BEING SINGLED OUT FOR PROPORTIONALITY PENALTIES???

This begs the question as to why sports have been selected by special interest groups and government bureaucracies for enforcement of Title IX, which was written for all federally-funded education programs.

Certainly, sports, one of the few areas of educational activity that men have more interest than women, has received more than its share of attention by the government watch-dogs. Why hasn┤ the OCR put an equal effort into eliminating discrimination in programs such as drama, nursing, cheerleading, dance and other areas of activity that women have a higher level of interest?

In the October 19-25 issue of Streets and Smith┬ Sportsbusiness Journal, Welch Suggs interviews Dan Fulks, who published a study that proves that more colleges are losing money on athletics. Said Fulks:

* "If we were spending more and more money on drama productions, we wouldn┤ have any whining about it, except maybe from the math department. The two largest expense items are grants-in-aid and salaries. In Division I-A, men┬ coaches salaries are down 14 percent and women┬ coaching salaries are up 16 percent - we┴e spending more and more money on women┬ sports. I see that as a positive. And grants in aid get more kids involved. We don┤ ask anyone else on campus to be self-sufficient."

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