1.  Good point about football and "eating up scholarships"--and about cutting
the number of scholarships to 45 or so. Actually, there is precedent for
this, sort of, in that the allowable number of scholarships in men's ice
hockey was recently reduce to 18 from 20. This has impacted the sport in two
ways. First, hockey coaches have to be much more careful about recruiting.
Second, and more significant, is that this has leveled the playing field and
generally increased the top to bottom competitiveness of division 1 hockey.
The more high-powered programs are less able to stockpile talent, which means
that middle-level programs are more likely to recruit top-level players. It
would probably have the same effect in football.
 
2.  I'm glad "girl reporter" is honest enough to admit that she doesn't mind
seeing male athletes get screwed by Title IX. But surely that wasn't the
intent of Congress when it passed the legislation. The intent was to open
opportunities to women, not take them away from men. And is "girl reporter"
happy about seeing entire sports, like men's gymnastics or wrestling,
endangered because several schools have decided that its easier to cut those
non-revenue sports than to expand scholarship opportunties for women?
 
3.  I don't know how many scholarships UNH, et al., offer for women's ice
hockey, but at the University of Maine, the plan is to eventually offer a
full 18 scholarships. Still unanswered is where the money will come from.
I've pledged $500 a year for five years, but that leaves about $179,500 (per
year) to go. FWIW, my pledge assumes that UMaine takes this step on its own
and is not forced into it by a court order or civil "rights" complaint.
 
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