Leigh Torbin ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
:         While much has been said lately about Title IX and the likely
: hood of many schools adding women's ice hockey at a Varsity
: Intercollegiate level, I thought I'd point this out.
:         The Boston Globe today published the second installment in a three
: part series on Title IX, and published a chart showing each New England
: D1 school, and how the male/female ratio of athletes compares to the
: male/female ratio of their student body. Some interesting numbers here
: for Hockey East and ECAC schools which responded to the Globe's inquiry.
 
:                 Students        Athletes       # of Sports  difference in # of
: School          %M    %F         %M   %F          M     F   male athletes/stu.
: Boston College  47.0  53.0      61.0  39.0       17    16       +14%
: Boston Univ.    48.0  52.0      60.0  40.0       13     9       +12%
: Maine           53.4  46.6      61.0  39.0       10     9       +6.6%
: Massachusetts   52.0  48.0      54.0  46.0       14    15       +2%
: New Hampshire   43.0  57.0      56.0  44.0       13    14       +13%
: Northeastern    57.0  43.0      65.5  34.5       12    10       +7.5%
: ECAC
: Brown           51.0  49.0      61.0  39.0       16    17       +10%
: Dartmouth       53.0  47.0      57.0  43.0       20*   20*      +4%
: Harvard         57.5  42.5      62.0  38.0       21    20       +4.5%
: Vermont         47.2  52.8      54.0  46.0       13    13       +6.8%
 
: * includes coeducational sports (can someone at Dartmouth please explain
: this!)
: ** Providence and Yale did not respond, UMass-Lowell and Merrimack
: apparently were not queried by the Globe.
 
:         As this data shows, at all the schools above, male athletes
: occupy a greater percentage in the athletic department than they do in the
: student body, a major Title IX no-no. Although exact equality is not
: required, the percentages should be reasonably close. Both UMass (2%) :-)
: and Harvard (4.5%) are within a comfortable five%, which shouldn't be a
: problem at all. The NCAA will also look at the school's efforts to better
: comply, and by adding five women's teams in two years, UMass is all set
: there. The numbers need not be exactly equal, because the school's student
: body sways greatly from year to year, as freshmen enter and seniors
: leave, so a few % points either way are permissible to account for this
: change.
:         What worries me are BC, BU and UNH. All three have greater than a
: 12% gap in their two percentages. BC and BU each have over sixty percent
: of their athletes male, while they are a minority overall in the student
: body. Somebody better keep this from the guys in Overland Park, Kansas,
: because this could be trouble.
:         Obviously, as a means of conforming, I'd support the addition of
: women's hockey. It requires a decent amount of both athletes and dollars,
: and is a great game. BC and BU both have club level teams, that could be
: elevated. UNH already has one of, if not the best women's program in the
: country. My advice to them is to add and/or boost other women's sports,
: preferably ones with large rosters such as track, swimming or crew. Why
: schools like BC or BU, who have to change something, and have first class
: facilities with great traditions, can't offer Varsity women's hockey is
: beyond me.
:         The other alternatives are of course cutting men's sports, which
: nobody wants to see. UMass axed hockey in 1979, and men's soccer in 1990,
: much to the dismay of many. Fortunately both have been reinstated. How
: much joy was there in Madison when Badger baseball was cut in 1990 after
: a proud 117 year history? How much happier would it have been if the team
: stayed, AND the athletic department also gave the badger faithful a
: women's hockey team to root for as well? (Having read "From Red Ink to
: Roses" by Rick Tellander--a MUST read for Wisconsinites with an interest
: in business--, I'm well aware of the finacial woes the school
: was suffering at the time, but this is interesting food for thought)
:         Adding women's teams makes more people happy, which is the point of
: ameteur athletics. This should be done instead.
:         The Boston Globe today offers up Brown as case No.1 of why this should
: be done. Schools had better wake up to the realities that Title IX press
: upon college athletics before it's too late, and they find themselves
: being sued by their female athletes.
 
: Leigh
: [log in to unmask]
: My opionions are not nesecarrily those of the UMass Athletic Department,
: its Media Relations office, the Massachusetts Daily Collegian or WMUA.