NO! I think Title IX was a good thing. The obvious intent of the law was to achieve sports funding parity for the genders. If the money pie does not grow, then the money must be redistributed. The alternative was to grow the pie, which at the time was not a likely option. It is unfortunate that there is not the same consumer enthusiasm for all sports so that all sports would be self funding. (I should add that I do believe that the university DID kick in quite a bit of new money to fund women's sports. There was not enough savings from the wrestling program to fund women's sports by eliminating that one program. I also believe that wrestling was targeted because it was not that popular of a sport in the south.)
Even though my roommate was a wrestler, I never got to go to see a match. Perhaps some of you can comment on the size of the crowd there. I don't think they charged admission back then so I doubt that wrestling was a revenue sport. (I know at least students were not charged admission for anything but football back then. I remember walking into Alligator Alley by just flashing my ID.) It is ironic that where I teach now, wrestling is our only D1 sport and it is probably revenue neutral or may even turn a small profit to help subsidize the other sports. For many years the wrestlers would outdraw the basketball team and sometimes even the football team in attendance. Jerry From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Cecilia Sent: Sunday, July 10, 2011 4:06 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [gatortalk] GatorTalk Poll: First game of the year So... do you think requiring parity between men's and women's sports is unfair, Jerry? Cee ----- Original Message ----- From: Jerry Belloit <mailto:[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, July 09, 2011 5:13 PM Subject: RE: [gatortalk] GatorTalk Poll: First game of the year Helen, I rarely disagree with you on things, but I believe Title IX was the direct cause the elimination of men's wrestling. It is true that the Title IX did not REQUIRE the elimination of any men's sports, but it did required that the spending on men's and women's sports be equalized. At the time, I believe that the football team was the only team that made money. The "profit" from the football team then had to support the rest of the men's and women's sports. Since there were not enough surplus dollars to fund women's sports at the required level, spending on men's sports had to be curtailed. Thus the elimination of men's wrestling. Florida's endowments were not sufficiently large to be able to fund additional women's sports so the money had to come from the profit from the football team. If Florida would have had endowments like Stanford, we would have not needed to cut any sports and could have archery, rowing, etc. and would be the perennial winner of the All Sport's trophy formerly known as the Sear's Cup. Jerry From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Helen Huntley Sent: Saturday, July 09, 2011 4:05 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [gatortalk] GatorTalk Poll: First game of the year I agree with Rob. It's not about how much UAA "needs," it's about how much it can get. Title IX doesn't require the elimination of any men's teams. It requires parity. Instead of choosing to spend some additional money on women's teams to make spending fairer, some universities choose to transfer money from men's sports to women's sports. On Sat, Jul 9, 2011 at 11:52 AM, Ed Williamson <[email protected]> wrote: It wasn't money that killed the wrestling team, it was Title IX On 7/9/2011 9:33 AM, Rob Alexander wrote: That's a red herring. We have seven home games now. Before the NCAA added an extra game to the schedule, Foley always said we must have six home games a year to make a profit. Now we have added another game and he uses the same argument about needing seven home games a year. If we made a large profit with six home games, and we did, then we would make a larger profit with 6.5 home games a year. Of course, we make even more with seven, but the point is that we were already past the number of home games we 'needed' before. However many or few games we have, and no matter how financially sound we are, Foley is always going to put making another dollar above the fans' enjoyment of the sport itself. (See discussion of early home games at noon.) If the NCAA added two more games a year, Foley would rush out and schedule two more patsies, and he'd say we 'must' have nine home games a year. I know money is important to all our athletic programs (though it didn't save the wrestling team), but it begs the question... are the sports there to earn money, or is the money earned to support the sports? Rob Sent from my iPhone On Jul 9, 2011, at 7:13 AM, Jerry Belloit<[email protected]> wrote: I would too. The problem Foley has is that we have to find good teams that will not want a home-and-home. Good teams will demand that. Major teams need the six home games for revenue. Only teams that do not have a great revenue source from home games can afford to play away games without a return home game. That being said, I wonder why Miami doesn't play us here every year. They don't do that well with their home games, do they? Jerry -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Rob Alexander Sent: Friday, July 08, 2011 3:44 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [gatortalk] GatorTalk Poll: First game of the year I'd be much more interested in playing two-game home and home series with different well-respected teams that we rarely would play otherwise. Although I understand the reasons for the two warm-up games every year, as a fan of the sport, I'd rather see good games. Rob Sent from my iPhone On Jul 8, 2011, at 2:11 PM, John Vega<[email protected]> wrote: On Jul 8, 2011, at 2:02 PM, mail.bobparks.com wrote: One word: recruiting. they'll have trouble paying their recruiting coordinators if they can't sell any tickets soon UM football will be the functional equivalent of similarly sized private schools How is St. John's football team doing these days? -Zeb -- GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us -- GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us -- GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us -- GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us -- Helen Huntley (727) 823-3801 www.helenhuntley.com -- GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us -- GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us -- GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us -- GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us
