COLUMN: Title IX–Giving women chances and fueling debate
Having memories is nice.
Especially good memories.
But, as some people know, there is also no time like the present.
Mary Ellen Cloninger knows this to be true when discussing the topic of how far women’s athletics has come since Title IX, the federal law prohibiting gender discrimination at all institutions receiving federal funding, was created in 1972.
She remembers what it was like playing sports back in the 1960s, when the public view was that women weren’t supposed to be athletes.
Cloninger, associate Athletics director of Internal Operations at Utah State University, was one of a limited number of women nationwide given a chance in athletics.
She played softball and volleyball at Southwest Missouri State, where she graduated in 1969. Her team had to buy their own jerseys (T-shirts) and sew the numbers on before she said they “got smart” and used snap-on numbers so they wouldn’t have to resew after every wash. They traveled to road games in a station wagon.
“They gave us opportunities that a lot of other schools weren’t,” she said. “We were given the chance to play, and that was important.”
When Title IX came, that chance was boosted for thousands of girls and women.
It is a topic which generates a thriving debate, especially now because of U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige’s coming decision of whether or not to change parts of the law.
Title IX effects at Utah State
Those against Title IX say the law has cut too many men’s programs — particularly men’s wrestling, which has lost 65 Division I-A programs, arguably as a result of the law.
According to a March 2002 press release, women’s basketball and men’s cross country were dropped at Utah State in 1987 because of budget woes.
In 1989, men’s cross country was brought back and men’s wrestling was axed, though not only because of statewide budget problems, but also because of a lack of opponents in the region, said Rod Tueller, head men’s basketball coach at USU from 1979 to 1988 and Athletics director from 1985 to 1992.
“It was difficult for us to find competition without going a long ways,” he said. “Wrestling was a very, very successful program here. That was a difficult situation [to drop it].”
Men’s baseball was dropped in 1969, before Title IX, because of weather problems and a “lack of money,” said Norvel Hansen, who coached the team for one year before it was cut.
Women’s programs at USU started out as members of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) and won a national title in volleyball in 1978 and back-to-back championships in 1980 and 1981. Then the NCAA began to sponsor women’s championships in 1983, putting the AIAW to sleep.
Ladell Andersen, head men’s basketball coach at USU from 1962 to 1971 and Athletics director from 1973 to 1983, said the requirement to have an equal number of men’s and women’s sports (eight for each gender at the time) created a quick drain on the department’s budget.
“We had $500,000 saved up before women’s programs came in,” he said, calling it money for a rainy day.
He said that money was wiped out the first two years women’s programs began because of little to no revenue being produced.
“To put an arbitrary number [of sports to sponsor] without interest, what does that have to do with interest in the sport?” Andersen said.
“The only way you can calculate interest in a sport is how many people show up at the game to watch,” he said.
Andersen stressed that having any program in those days was a chore because of funding problems.
Tueller agrees that any sport, women’s or not, shouldn’t be given money if it doesn’t produce money and the school is pinching pennies. He cited how difficult it was opening the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum for the women’s basketball team.
“I remember it used to cost us an arm and a leg to open [the Spectrum] for 10 people to come and watch,” he said. “It’s a challenge to the university to say we’re going to treat men and women equally and revenue isn’t going to be a factor.”
Fern Gardner, the first coach of the USU women’s hoops team (1969-1975) used an ‘if you build it they will come’ analogy.
“If you provide a sport [for women], there will be interest in it,” Gardner said. “It shouldn’t be any different than a men’s sport.”
Reaction to Title IX
Cloninger was working in the athletic department at the University of Wyoming when Title IX was born and remembers a football coach’s reaction.
“It just hit the public,” she said. “I remember a football coach say, ‘this will be the ruin of football. It’s going to kill football'”– which, she cited, obviously has not happened.
“He was just having a fit,” she said.
Tueller is all for women having an opportunity to compete, but said a fan base should exist.
“I think it is too bad it has to be a law. I wish it would be more of an interest situation,” he said. “I’ve always believed [athletics are an] extracurricular activity. It’s not an inalienable right.”
Andersen said he is also not against women being able to compete in high school and collegiate athletics, but said if they don’t generate a profit, why put money into them and take away from the “bread winners” — football and basketball.
“Football and basketball, they beat to a different drum,” he said. “They have to win on Saturday.”
When asked if the ballooning salaries of basketball and football coaches have been a major factor in financial problems for athletic departments, Andersen strongly disagrees.
“I would never vote for anything like that [cutting a percentage of those coach’s salaries],” he said. “I would resign if they did something like that. That would be the dumbest thing you could possibly do. You wouldn’t have a very good program.”
Regardless of this, Cloninger said without Title IX, girls today wouldn’t have U.S. Women’s National Soccer team star Mia Hamm to be able to emulate, or have witnessed the Los Angeles Sparks’ Lisa Leslie become the first woman to dunk in a game last summer.
“There’s a lot of people that wanted to [play sports] in the worst way but they didn’t have a chance,” Cloninger said. “It was just an awesome, awesome thing.”
–samhis@cc.usu.edu