> To follow up on Mike Machnik's comments on new sports at Merrimack, Interim
> President Richard Santagati told the Alumni Council on 4/1/95 that 2 new
> sports will be added -- Football and Women's Lacrosse. Football will begin in
> the Fall of '96. As I understand it, this will be a Division III program with
> no recruiting, no assistant coaches & no scholarships. The lacrosse program
> which I assume will start at the same time will be a Division II program. It
> seems to me that by doing this the college is able to comply with Title IX
>  There will be 9 men's sports & 9 women's sports ( 1 in Div 1, 1 in Div 3 &
> the rest in Div 2). Obviously, the Div 3 Football will offset Div 1 Hockey to
> maintain equity.
 
But I believe it is not the number of *teams* which must be roughly equal, it
is the number of *participants*.  I'm no expert on Title IX, nor do I wish to
become one, but I believe the recent Brown suit was successful because even
though team numbers were equivalent, the number of participants were not.  This
was primarily because of the 120 players (if I remember correctly) on the
football team.
 
Now I'll be the first to admit that 120 players on a football team seems as
ripe for trimming as the average Congressional pork bill, but looking at the
number of participants is gonna be problematic with football.  Injuries are
such that large rosters are mandatory.  Yet football (along with hoop) is the
biggest sports revenue generator so dumping the football program is rarely
the most sensible proposition.
 
(Perhaps the 120 translated to 60 on the varsity and 60 on the JVs.  That would
be a bit more sensible.  But the 120 may have actually been a varsity figure.)
 
Although I doubt that a Div 2 or 3 football team would have such a bloated
roster, I would still expect it to be quite large, certainly larger than the
woman's lacrosse team.  Which would mean that adding the two would not be
considered equal in terms of gender equity.
 
DaveH