Two Wrongs Still Make Two Wrongs

What if UCLA dropped football? Basketball? Can you imagine the hue and cry? The indignation? The marching in the street?

Everyone from ESPN to the networks to politicians to mere fans would be protesting. Editorials would be written, noting that we were losing a part of Americana, the one that had given us Jackie Robinson, Bob Waterfield, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, John Wooden, Bill Walton, Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors, Eric Karros, Troy Aikman. You would think somebody wrote graffiti on the Taj Mahal. Trashing a heritage. Trampling a legacy.

What if they dropped men’s basketball and kept women’s? Would there be riots in Westwood?

But UCLA dropped an heirloom sport not too long ago and there were a lot of dry eyes in the house. Hardly anyone even looked up.

Men’s gymnastics does not inspire spectators to paint their skulls blue, light a bonfire on the eve of a meet, argue in bars. Its tickets are not scalped and the band does not parade at its meets. Nobody shrieks “We’re No. 1!” The public wouldn’t know a pommel horse from Man o’ War. Gymnastics is lucky if it makes agate type in the newspapers.

But it predates even the Westwood campus. No one pretends it is to UCLA what football is to Notre Dame, but it had its place. It had been part of the fabric of UCLA sports since 1924. It’s as clean as a surgical scrub-up, as wholesome as wheat toast. No scandal ever found its way into its program.

It brought renown to the university on its own terms. Coach Art Shurlock worked on its program for more than 30 years, tireless, dedicated, on no money, really, no shoe contract, no TV show, not much credit.

Football got 85 scholarships, gymnastics got four. But Shurlock persevered. In 1984, it paid off. The Olympic team that year, the one that won the only team gold medal the United States has ever won in the sport, was 50% UCLA, and Shurlock’s Bruins won two gold medals, two silver and two bronze in those Games.

His athletes regularly recorded perfect 10s in various events. Twice, they won the NCAA or national collegiate championship. He was the Rockne of the high bars. The famous names of the sport vaulted for him, Mitch Gaylord, Peter Vidmar, Tim Daggett. He had Dream Teams. For gymnastics, that is. He won the Pac-10 title eight times, four in a row once and eight out of 11 times in one stretch. In the last 15 years, a UCLA gymnast was the all-around national champion seven times. John Wooden numbers, almost.

Shurlock’s reward for all this? The school dropped the men’s end of the sport with a thud a little over a year and a half ago. It was a cost-cutting procedure, the athletic department said, observing sadly that no one there wanted to drop a sport. Any sport. But they had to. The task force decided that men’s gymnastics had to go. They also drowned the men’s swimming team.

Originally, women’s gymnastics were scheduled for execution too. But that program got a reprieve. Not because it sold more tickets than the men’s, or got on ESPN more often, but because it had better lawyers. At any rate, the school dreaded the pending litigation. It feared it would lose.

The men did sue. But, given the political climate, they not only lost, they were probably lucky they didn’t get one to 10.

Now, there are certain things you can’t win in this life: 1. a state lottery; 2. an argument with your wife; 3. a poker game on a boat, and 4. a disagreement with the women’s movement.

“Gender equity” is a principle dear to the hearts of women athletes and their activist champions. Their theme song should be the one from “Annie Get Your Gun”: “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better.” Their proposition is simple: Sports are no longer just a man’s prerogative. They can do anything men can do, up to and including shot-putting or javelin throwing.

But it begs the question. Do men’s sports have to be slain to make room for women’s of the same genre? The justification is that men’s sport still makes up 60% of the participatory total in terms of scholarships.

But this argument factors in the 85 scholarships the football program commands. As there is no women’s counterpart, no female football team challenging for these scholarships, should they then be counted?

To juggle the numbers to make them balance, would men’s basketball ever be discontinued at UCLA to make way for women’s basketball? Oh, sure! There are now 11 women’s sports at UCLA, and 10 men’s. Women’s volleyball rates 12 scholarships, men’s four.

How wonderfully American! To redress a wrong with a wrong.