On Fri, 25 Apr 1997, Larry Winer wrote:
 
> I find it tedious that football is constantly bashed on this board. College
> football is the college game. Football will be the last to go. You would
> eliminate every minor sport (including hockey) before they would ever carve
> football. Let's get real. Why should anyone object to a 90 player football
> team? The idea of college athletics is to encourage participation- not
> reduce.
 
I think there are a couple of reasons football is "bashed" here,
particularly in the Title IX context.
 
1) Football gets what is seen to be a disproportionate amount of spending
from school athletic departments, and in the vast majority of cases loses
money. As long as there is no equivalent opportunity for women[1], this
will hurt men's teams and make it difficult for schools to add or keep
men's teams.
 
2) The 85 (or 90, whatever) scholarships is way out of whack when
compared to other sports. 90 scholarships is enough to have a varsity and
a JV team, all on full scholarship. Hockey has only 18 scholarships,
which is 2 or 3 short of a full game roster (18 skaters and 2 or 3
goalies). Even basketball only gets 14 scholarships, and while that's
more than enough for a varsity team, at least it doesn't fully fund the
JVs as well. If hockey got 23 or 24 scholarships (enough for a game and a
couple of spares), I think it would be more reasonable.
 
I think you're right about the idea that football will get cut last. In
Canada, we have seen three schools recently (Toronto, Alberta & St.F.X.)
threaten to drop football entirely. In all three cases, the alumni came
forward with promises to raise funds to save the team. By contrast, there
was no great alumni uproar when Carleton (my alma mater) talked of
cutting women's field hockey and men's rugby. If football were
threatened, however, I think we'd see something.
 
See you later,
John
 
[1] Women's football: why not? Women play rugby now, and in the youth
football leagues I ref, I see several girls playing. That may just be an
option to consider.
 
--
John Edwards, BA                  Minister of Chasing Wild Geese (DNRC)  O-
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               "He is SUCH a freak!" - Edie Edwards (Age 17)
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