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as some have. Thank you and thanks to the Women's Lacrosse blog
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NATIONAL MEDIA ON SPORTS
CUTS
Read the
article below from the "Baltimore Sun's" March 10, 2007 issue.
OU's image is tarnished by this sorry episode.
Maryland is
America's epicenter for lacrosse. It is the official state sport.
Treating lacrosse players this way does not go down well with Marylanders and as
word gets out, it is not going down well with the rest of America's amateur
sports community.
OU - You
should have handled this openly and honestly with these student athletes.
You chose the course that violated your own polices, NCAA policies, and
minimized difficulties for the school's administrators; that course maximized
the difficulties for and wreaked havoc with youngsters and their
families.
"Signature 2295: Kirby Hocutt [Athletic Director], you just couldn't understand or
appreciate the sport of lacrosse. OU put more effort and research into
restarting the sport in 1999 than you did in terminating it.
The former athletics staff recruited some outstanding players that led the
NCAA stats, built a class lax field, and was a founding member of the most
competitive lax conference in the country -- with OU's own Peggy Pruitt as the
commissioner of the ALC [American Lacrosse Conference, the conference to which
OU Lacrosse belongs[ed].
OU was joined in the ALC by Ohio's other, better known sports school in
Columbus, and Johns Hopkins, as well as other lax schools that also play
football -- Penn State, Vanderbilt, Northwestern (NCAA lax champ last 2 years),
and newest member University of Florida.
Perhaps OU's spot can be taken by the newest lax school, South
Carolina?
Kirby, how does it feel to be on the other end of a trend? You've just
discarded a lot of positive momentum, awareness and goodwill, but then you will
most likely move on in a few years anyway."
The Death of a Program
Program shutdown spurs life upheaval
Ohio U. cancellation leaves 16 from Md. in lacrosse limbo
By Childs Walker
Sun Reporter
March 10, 2007
The 26 members of Ohio University's women's lacrosse team
didn't suspect a thing.
They had spent a busy four months practicing, scrimmaging and bonding. But with
their season opener just three weeks away, an e-mail summoned them to a team
meeting instead of practice.
Because of a $4 million budget deficit in the sports department, Ohio athletic
director Kirby Hocutt had told them, their program was being canceled.
"It was just the most shocking news I could ever imagine," said Katie
Hertsch, a freshman midfielder and one of 16 players from Maryland. "I felt
I had been lied to. I had been promised four years."
After the meeting, Hertsch did the same thing as most of her teammates. She
grabbed her cell phone and called home to Westminster.
"I couldn't even understand her, she was crying so hard," said
Hertsch's mother, Joyce.
Almost immediately, Hertsch and most of her teammates shifted from planning for
games to searching for a new place to play lacrosse and graduate.
Though it's not something high-profile basketball and football players have to
fear, the demise of college athletic programs is hardly unique to Ohio
University.
Since Title IX regulations went into effect in 1972, hundreds of wrestling
programs and dozens of men's tennis and gymnastics programs have disappeared.
Because Title IX requires schools to maintain a balance between men's and
women's scholarships, male athletes have been the most affected.
Morgan State dropped its once-proud wrestling program in 1996. Towson dropped
men's tennis, track and field and cross country programs in 2004. The University
of Maryland hasn't cut sports but allots little scholarship money to men's
sports such as track and field, swimming, wrestling and tennis.
The abrupt canceling of a program causes havoc in the lives of affected
athletes. The timing was unusual - few programs come that close to the season
only to be canceled.
"I sat in a room and watched 26 of my closest friends be devastated,"
junior captain Kari Fasick of Marriottsville said. "It's quite a
thing."
Committed athletes'
After a 4-12 record in 2006, the Ohio women's lacrosse
team members wouldn't be considered stars in their sport. But they are, in many
cases, no less committed to athletics. They've spent years practicing and
subjecting their parents to travel-team schedules. They've met many of their
closest friends through the sport.
Most chose Ohio because they liked the program. And even if they know they'll
never make money in lacrosse, they plan to play as long as they can.
"Sports have always been such a big part of my life," Katie Hertsch
said. "I knew I wanted to play in college. That's what brought me here.
These girls are some of the most committed athletes I know."
Hertsch was a three-sport star who made All-Carroll County three times in
lacrosse at Winters Mill. She had other options but liked the idea that she'd
start right away at Ohio and play with six other girls from Carroll County. She
accepted a scholarship that would cover two years of tuition, room and board.
Little did she know that the economic outlook for Ohio athletics had grown dire.
The department had run deficits for years and school administrators had begun a
program-by-program financial review. Hocutt declined an interview request but
reporters asked him at a Jan. 25 news conference if athletes should have been
consulted before programs were eliminated.
"Our accumulated operating deficit has built up over the past four
years," he answered. "We are focused on providing our student-athletes
with the academic and athletic opportunities that you came here to receive. The
finances and ultimate administration of this program is delegated to the
athletics administration. That's the appropriate place that it belongs. ...
"Simply put, our expenses exceed our financial resources. We have a
significant financial challenge and pretending it doesn't exist will sink the
entire program. We will have an accumulated operating deficit of over $4 million
this fiscal year. Had we not made this decision and things were to proceed on
this same course, we projected our deficit would expand to over $7 million by
2010."
Preseason work
Though the sports department was struggling financially,
the Bobcats prepared for their 2007 season. They became acquainted on the field
through practices and scrimmages. Off the field, they threw a Halloween party
featuring face painting and handed out programs at football games. The team's
eight freshmen gathered in New York for some fun over winter break.
Everything seemed to be going so well until they got that e-mail. They suspected
something was wrong because coach Allison Valentino had never canceled practice,
not even for the worst weather. Then they heard that the men's track, and men's
swimming and diving programs had been eliminated earlier in the day.
"Ladies," Hocutt began at the meeting, "I have sad news."
Many of the players bawled. They knew their lives, from daily routines to future
plans, had just been scrambled.
Fasick was angriest that the school had known its plans for weeks without
revealing them.
"I understand that they have to make difficult decisions sometimes,"
she said. "But I know they did not handle it properly."
On a mural wall generally reserved for pro-Ohio boosterism, athletes scrawled
messages such as "RIP Lacrosse" and "114 Athletes - Too
Expensive." Many turned their clothes inside out so they wouldn't flash the
name or emblem of a school that they said betrayed them. Hertsch's parents hope
to return the sweat shirts she bought them for Christmas.
"Look what they did to these kids," Joyce Hertsch said. "I don't
want to wear anything that says Ohio anymore."
Starting over
Players made plans to visit other schools on weekends
that should have been devoted to games.
Even though Fasick has put in almost three years at Ohio, she can't fathom
sacrificing two years of lacrosse to stay and graduate. She's considering
Loyola, Duquesne and William and Mary as transfer destinations.
"It's nuts thinking about starting over, but I can't imagine staying and
graduating without half of my best friends," she said.
Hertsch also knew quickly that she'd transfer. She could have kept her
scholarship at Ohio and moved to the soccer team.
"But after how we had been treated, to stay here and represent the school
wasn't an option," she said.
She checked out Towson and Hofstra, where she recently committed to transfer in
the fall. The process hasn't been as easy for some of her teammates. Many
coaches at other schools have finished recruiting for next season and don't have
space for transfers.
Despite such obstacles, the vast majority of Ohio players plan to play at other
schools even though they could stay and keep their scholarships. Under an NCAA
exception for athletes from canceled programs, they will be able to play
immediately next year and the players do not lose a year of eligibility.
They're attempting to stay sharp through informal practices and lifting
sessions. But with so many players jetting off for visits to other campuses,
it's hard to unite the whole squad. Even those recruiting trips can be painful.
"It's so hard to go to other schools and watch girls play," Hertsch
said, "when you know it's something you should be doing yourself."
Gender inequality
Title IX was necessary then, but now it's just unfair
Posted: Tuesday October 10, 2006 3:06PM; Updated:
Wednesday October 11, 2006 3:43PM
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of
sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subject
to discrimination under any educational programs or activity receiving federal
financial assistance.
-- From the preamble to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972
Thus is it clearly stated: You can't be excluded from
participating in a sport because of your sex. Yet this important law is flaunted
every year, every season. Only today, the victims are men, not the women that
Title IX was originally enacted to protect.
The most recent, egregious example of male sex
discrimination in intercollegiate sports occurred at James Madison University in
Harrisonburg, Va., where on Sept. 29 the visitor's board voted to eliminate 10
of the university's 28 sports teams in 2007: seven men's teams (archery,
cross-country, gymnastics, indoor track, outdoor track, swimming and wrestling)
and three women's teams (archery, fencing, gymnastics).
If you are a member of the James Madison men's
cross-country team, next year you will be "excluded from participation
in" your sport on the basis of your sex. It's as simple as that. You have
no team. I recommend that you file a lawsuit. Because the James Madison women's
cross-country team will continue to compete.
Why? In this instance, it isn't about money. The James
Madison Board enacted the cuts to comply with Title IX, at least as it is
interpreted by the Department of Education, which hews to the misguided concept
of "proportionality": that if 61 percent of a student population is
female, then 61 percent of the student athletes must be female, too.
Never mind if a majority of those women have no interest
in competing in intercollegiate sports, do not feel discriminated against, are
not discriminated against and stand to gain absolutely nothing from the
elimination of men's sports teams. Numbers are numbers.
"With so many teams, we faced an insurmountable
challenge coming into compliance with Title IX," said Joseph Damico,
rector of the JMU Board of Visitors. "Fundamentally, that is why the Board
voted today for this plan."
That is the evil of quotas -- and
"proportionality" is a quota by another name. JMU fielded 15 women's
sports and 13 men's sports before the vote to eliminate the 10 sports -- not
exactly the ratio one would expect of an institution out of compliance with
Title IX. A majority its student-athletes (50.7 percent) were women.
Problem was, the overall enrollment of the school is 61
percent female. By the standard of "proportionality" -- a word
that isn't used in the original Title IX amendment -- the James Madison sports
program was out of whack. Next year it'll be in whack: 61 percent of the
athletes will be female, 39 percent male.
That's whacked out and it needs to be stopped. Why not
racial proportionality in sports, too? Isn't that what civil rights is all
about? Sixty-seven percent white, 14 percent African-American, 13 percent
Hispanic, 6 percent Asian American -- let's count noses, colors and genders,
take to the field and fight, team, fight!
Look, Title IX was needed in 1972. And it worked brilliantly.
But the world has changed. I was a junior in college when it was passed. Now my
son is a senior in college. A generation has elapsed, and women's sports are
here to stay. Thank God and Title IX.
But because of Title IX's unintended consequences, in
2006 the law is causing more harm than good. Women's sports are no longer on
life support. They are vibrant, popular, well-funded and growing. They can be
taken off the endangered-species list.
Meanwhile, the percentage of women attending college
relative to men continues to increase -- enrollment nationally is approximately
57 percent women to 43 percent men today. If "proportionality"
continues to be adhered to by school administrators, the number of men's
collegiate sports programs will continue to shrink.
That wasn't the idea behind Title IX. It was designed to
create, not eliminate, opportunity. But since its enactment more than 170 men's
wrestling teams have disappeared. Eighty men's tennis teams, 45 track teams and
106 men's gymnastics teams have been axed.
UCLA's men's swimming team, which boasted 22 Olympic
medals, is gone, along with some 30 other men's swimming and diving programs.
Forty schools have dropped football. Walk-on male athletes in all sports are
routinely turned away to keep rosters at a minimum so the male/female ratios in
college sports programs don't get thrown off.
It's social engineering, and it's wrong. If you believe
that being on a team, practicing, learning discipline through sports is
beneficial to the development of the individual, as I do, then as a society we
are poorer every time a school eliminates any athletic program -- male or
female. School administrators don't enforce gender proportionality for
chemistry, economics or English-lit classes. Why should they try to engineer
gender ratios in sports?
There is a wealth of data that shows that young males, as
a whole, are more inclined toward athletic competition than young females. That
doesn't mean the female athletes are any less committed or driven than men. It
means that -- surprise! -- men and women are different, creatures of Mars and
Venus, and that a higher percentage of men like, and perhaps need, to compete.
They crave being on teams, even if they don't start. It
adds to their self-esteem and channels their energy in a constructive fashion.
While many women's collegiate teams must actively recruit participants in order
to fill their rosters, men's teams turn away walk-ons in droves.
Over a 15-year period between 1980 and '94, the National
Center for Educational Statistics polled high school seniors and found that 20
percent of males were more interested in participating in sports than females,
and more than twice as many exercised vigorously on a daily basis.
In collegiate intramural sports, whose numbers are
largely determined on the basis of interest, 78 percent of participants are
male, 22 percent female. Put another way, most guys have a more difficult time
adapting to life without sports than most girls do.
Yet there are some 580 more women's teams at NCAA schools
today than men's teams, a disparity that is likely to continue to grow. Faced
with budgetary cuts last summer, the board at Rutgers University elected to
eliminate six teams, five of which were men's: lightweight and heavyweight crew,
tennis, swimming and diving, and fencing.
"The minute you start cuts, you have to meet the
proportionality test," said athletic director Robert E. Mulcahy III.
Shame on the proportionality test. Shame on the budgetary
cuts. And shame on administrators at Rutgers and James Madison for allowing
Title IX to become a dirty word to advocates of men's sports such as wrestling,
cross-country and track. The law was never intended to be a zero-sum game, the
right hand welcoming a female athlete as the left hand shoves a male out the
door.
After word reached members of the James Madison
cross-country team that the men's team would be eliminated in '07 while the
women's team would continue, runners on both squads shared a tearful four-hour
bus ride home from a meet in Pennsylvania.
"Fourteen guys and 19 girls, all crying
together," Jennifer Chapman, a senior on the women's team, told The
New York Times. "How is that supposed to have been Title IX's
intent?"
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DROPPED
TEAMS
2006
Women's Lacrosse Team
Swimming
and Diving
and
Track
and Field
|
