Don’t Blame Title IX for Cuts

Sam Bell’s argument (“Federal Sports Quotas Kill Young Men’s Dreams,” Commentary, Aug. 19) that, somehow, half-hearted compliance with Title IX is killing men’s (minor) sports is nonsense. The facts are undisputable: (1) the lion’s share of colleges and universities still are not complying with Title IX, even though it became the law of the land 30 years ago; (2) long before Title IX, university administrators and athletic directors were at their best and most creative when axing men’s minor sports--everything from crew and lacrosse to tennis, track and soccer--to funnel public resources to the revenue-generating sports; (3) this tired, pathetic, cynical, laughable excuse unfairly blames our daughters and our sisters for the simple bias, foot-dragging, folly, waste and ineptitude that permeates far too many of our public (and private) institutions of higher learning.

The gentlemen who are peddling this pablum are the same visionaries who were deathly slow to integrate sports, are responsible for shameful athlete graduation rates, put Astroturf (and money) ahead of student athlete safety--and now give us the Bowl Championship Series.

Marc Litchman

Sacramento

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As a male coach of a female intercollegiate club sport, I had to laugh at Bell’s commentary on the destructive nature of Title IX. Granted, I am a coach of a sport that is on the outside looking in, and am not fighting to keep my team at the trough of an athletic department’s largess, but gender is not the major issue with recent athletic program cuts.

The issue is money and the horrific job many Division I athletic departments have done budgeting for their various sports. Sane financial management would make it painless for universities to field women’s sports without eliminating men’s sports.

Instead, we have mega-conferences designed for TV audiences of football and basketball causing deficit-producing sports to be forced into long intra-conference journeys from Pullman, Wash., to Tucson, Ariz., and Ames, Iowa, to Austin, Texas.

Last year the University of Kansas dropped its men’s tennis and swimming teams, saving $400,000 and $250,000, respectively. Surely there is enough money in the current women’s rowing budget of $550,000 to put women on the water, men in it, and have money left over to let some guys use the women’s tennis courts. Athletic departments at the Division I level have only themselves to blame when expenses spiral out of control. Instead of listening to the likes of Bell and the outraged swim-mothers he mentions, maybe we should listen to the athletic directors at Division II and III schools that are not cutting sports and that boast participation rates as high as 50% of their campus populations. They must be doing something right.

David Wiley

Head Coach

University of Kansas

Women’s Lacrosse

Lawrence, Kan.

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Thank you for a well-reasoned opinion stressing the unfairness to male athletes that has been the byproduct of the current implementation of Title IX. If several universities are forced to abandon a men’s athletic program, such as swimming, the net effect is to deprive some qualified athletes of the ability to earn an athletic grant-in-aid, since it reduces the total number of scholarships among all National Collegiate Athletic Assn. schools in that sport.

The Bush administration could do more than merely announce the formation of a committee to study how the law is being enforced. No committees are needed, just some common sense.

The issue is driven at most schools by the large number of scholarships necessary to field a football team, since those necessarily reduce the number of men’s grants-in-aid available in other sports. If football was taken out of the equation, most of the Title IX pain, if not all, could be eliminated.

Arnold Lester

Brentwood