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Title IX Winners and Losers
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 2011-05-20 14:57
Title IX has provided many athletic opportunities for women, often at the expense of mens' sports programs. The personal stories of the male athletes affected by these cuts are often marginalized.
I recently wrote a book about the plight of the 1999 Providence College baseball team. It was the last year the sport was played at the school. The program was eliminated due to Title IX concerns. The team had been having great success throughout 90's, and in their final season the team rallied to show the school that they were making a mistake. They won the Big East championship but lost the sport anyway.
STRIKE IX is the title of the book, and it tells the individual stories of the players who were affected by the Title IX decision at Providence College.
It's available in paperback, but is also available also electronically on Nook and Kindle.
An interview I did on a local sports show with Marc DesRoches, the team's star pitcher that year can be viewed here.
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Comments
Title IX
Think about this -- how about because football, baseball and basketball are the major funding operations of a school, women are over looked and their endeavors. As a member of the debate team at my college, I received $100 per term as a scholarship. The basketball team received full rides. I received $4 Per Diem, so I ate at McDonald's. We stayed at such wonderful hotels as the Wagon Wheel Motel, while the basketball team in 1977 got a $25.00 Per Diem and stayed at the 3 and 4 star hotels.Our debate team was rated 6th in the nation. The basketball team's record 8-22. Tell me how that is equitable. I spent 5 years paying off my school loans after school, while a basketball player sat behind me in a math class and couldn't divide fractions (no he wasn't black). Tell me where the equity is in that.
Tell me how professors who are dedicated to their work, receive a salary of $100,000 per year and a head football coach at a major school, receives over a million dollars a year.
What if, just imagine if women's sports were more of a draw than the football or basketball team, wouldn't the shoe be on the other foot.
Title IX was a step in the right direction but there needs to be more steps.
I always love the argument, well the football team makes the university more money, maybe because it's highly publicized. I don't understand how a learning institution can put such high regard on sports any how, it's a learning institute not a precursor to the NFL or NBA.
I'll bet in your book, you don't describe the effect on women's athletics at the school and how misappropriated they were. Did you happen to interview any of them.
Trust me, tonight I won't spend much time crying about a member of a male team because their hearts were broken because they weren't able to get their scholarships or play baseball because of Title IX. I played ball in college (I think it was called intermurals), joined the Coast Guard and traveled to various towns as a public relations part of the USCG, so again I had the opportunity to play ball.
BTW, I did tryout for the basketball team but was cut because I couldn't dribble with my left hand. That was my fault, not the school's fault.
More on Title IX
Title IX is not only for women but any person at any college, for any reason he or she has been discriminated against. People think it is mainly about athletics but it's not, it's about people not being treated fairly, regardless of sex. It's alright to have those things for blacks and hispanics but not for women. The arguments you are using are similar to the ones made about blacks playing sports (though they weren't called that). Title IX didn't come about to change sports, it came about because men were being promoted over women in colleges which were funded by the federal government.
It's been 12 years now, tell me how them not playing baseball effected their lives? Are they maimed because of it? Scarred for life? Failures in their communities? Terrible fathers for it? Spent thousands of dollars on therapy? Never played or watched sports ever again?
The reason the school closed down it's baseball program was because it was not in compliance with Title IX. Title IX doesn't prevent sports programs. What it does is make sure federally funded schools treat every one similarly, justly and fairly. Tell me what is wrong with that.
That 24 boys didn't have the scholarship or they won their conference title doesn't make them in compliance with the law. Also, your pleading a case that is 12 years old. The law has changed significantly for better since then and it continues to change. One of the changes expected in the next year is to find ways to not only keep the sport but to help the others thrive.