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Athletics director says OU is one of top
schools in country for meeting Title IX rules
By Quinn Bowman
Athens NEWS Campus Reporter
Thursday, March 10th, 2005
Ohio
University is doing a good job of abiding by Title IX gender-equity-in-sports
guidelines, and in general is working hard to boost women's athletics, the
university's athletics director said in a presentation on Tuesday.
In the PowerPoint presentation and question-and-answer session with a small
audience afterward, OU Director of Athletics Thomas Boeh outlined the athletic
program's strides toward spending the same amount of money on women's sports as
it does on men's. This is part of the Title IX legislation passed by Congress in
1972 that requires gender-neutral funding for public education institutions.
"One thing we are proud of here is that we have
created a gender-neutral environment," Boeh said in his presentation in the
Convocation Center.
The athletics director detailed the department's financial and structural
efforts toward gender equity.
A primary change in the program is the addition of women's golf in 1997, women's
soccer in 1998, and women's lacrosse in 1999, he said.
"We must show that we are advancing equity between men's and women's
sports," he said. "In today's Title IX compliance, we are at the
letter of the law as well as the philosophical sense of the law."
For 2003, Boeh said OU ranked third in Division I-A schools in the proportion of
the athletics' operating budget that went to women's sports. Athletic programs
for women took up 39.96 percent of the athletics' operating budget. (Reportedly,
OU ranked second for 2004 with a 41.7 percentage, according to the Chronicle of
Higher Education.) OU ranked behind only the University of Florida and
University of Nevada at Reno in 2003, Boeh said.
The difficulty in allocating an equal amount to both men and women's sports is
the cost of the football program, which also has the most potential for making a
profit for the university, Boeh said.
"Whether we like it or not, the money is in football and men's basketball.
Those are the only sports that generate revenue," he said. Boeh stressed
the need to strengthen the entire sports program, stay equitable under Title IX,
and to invest in sports that produce money for the university.
Boeh said OU's football program has the potential to make large profits for the
university, potential that bloom in the hiring of head football coach Frank
Solich, a man Boeh called one of the best football coaches in the country.
Boeh also discussed the management structure of his staff, which he said is team
based and allows for women to oversee men's sports and men to oversee women's
sports.
Another topic was scholarship money, which becomes more complicated under Title
IX regulation. To receive a Division I-A designation, OU must maintain 16 sports
programs. Right now, OU has seven men's sports and nine women's sports. All of
the women's programs have their full complement of scholarships, which vary for
each sport. Only men's basketball, football and baseball enjoy the maximum
scholarships allowed by the NCAA, Boeh said.
In keeping with Title IX, the number of scholarships given to male OU athletes
has been decreasing over the past decade, as the number of scholarships given to
women has increased fairly dramatically, according to a graphic presented by
Boeh. The amount given to each gender is now close to equal, with men still
getting slightly more than women, he said.
Contrary to what some other state of Ohio athletic programs are doing, Boeh said
OU is not considering dropping men's sports programs in order to make up for the
costs of football.
Instead, he said, OU hopes to add more women's teams in the future as the
university tries to grow the entire program, including the football program.
The money that Boeh and his staff receive from the university budget is another
concern, Boeh said.
OU's athletics budget from fiscal year 2003 was $11.7 million, which was 10th
out of the 12 schools in the Mid American Conference, according to Boeh's
presentation. In terms of spending per athlete in 2003, OU averaged $13,191,
while the average MAC athlete benefited to the tune of $17,906, he said.
Boeh's Title IX presentation was sponsored by the Women's Affairs Commission of
the OU Student Senate, the Athens Branch of American Association of University
Women, the Athens Area National Organization for Women, and the Feminist
Activism Training Network.
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DROPPED
TEAMS
2006
Women's Lacrosse Team
Swimming
and Diving
and
Track
and Field
|
