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.
|
