Women’s rugby forced to change schedule

The women’s rugby club at Utah State University is faced with a decision for the 2014-2015 season. It must either change its schedule to play on Sunday or use replacement referees.

“The biggest issue is there’s a limited number of referees,” said Alys Staten, the university’s club sport coordinator and athletic trainer. “A women’s collegiate game is probably pretty close to being the bottom of the totem pole. We’ve had to switch some games to Sundays to try and get certified qualified referees.”

Utah State men’s rugby club has been able to keep its same schedule this season. The team plays its games on Saturday afternoons.

“I always feel like the men’s teams always get the first choice,” said Madeline Jensen, a sophomore playing in her second season at Utah State. “They have a lot more boys than we have girls, so they probably just get the first pick.”

Utah State played its first rescheduled game versus Idaho State on Sept. 21. In the game 16 of USU’s 24 members of the roster played. With 15 people on the field, that meant only one substitute for the entire game.

“Some girls aren’t comfortable playing on Sundays,” said Hannah Wagner, the 2014 team president. “We do lose a few players when we have to play Sunday games. It does kind of suck being lowest priority and having to change our game schedule.”

In other games not on Sundays the women’s club rugby faces a different issue of second-team refs.

“Playing with refs that aren’t up to par is always a struggle,” said Brooke Lambert, three-year women’s rugby coach at Utah State. “Teams will go as far as the ref allows them to go. If they aren’t calling certain things, first of all it increases our risk of injury when you’re not playing the game to the rules and second, it’s hard because it’s cheating.”

United States Congress enacted Title IX with the Educational Amendments in1972, which prohibits gender discrimination in federally funded educational settings.

Title IX states: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

There is no specific mention of sports in the law itself. Letters of clarification after it went into effect explain that Title IX does apply equally to all levels of sports in federally funded schools. This includes club sports and intramural sports in colleges and high schools.

Stacy Louck Sturgeon, the Utah State University Title IX coordinator and affirmative action equal opportunity director declined to comment on the situation.

“Title IX does cover club sports here at the university, but the university isn’t the one who divvies out the refs,” Lambert said. “The refs are done through the Utah Rugby Union, which covers not only college teams but high school teams and club teams that aren’t affiliated with any school. We don’t have enough refs and we aren’t at the top of the list to get refs.”

Jensen and her teammates are tiring of the unequal treatment to their team.

“It kind of sucks always being second choice,” Jensen said. “I think we could just trade off. I don’t know how to make it fair, I just don’t think they should always get the better refs on Saturdays.”

Both Lambert and Staten agree that location and program size play a role in the situation.

“We get the shaft for a couple of reasons,” Lambert said. “One being that we are in Logan and the other that women’s teams aren’t at the top of their list of who they send refs to.”

“There’s just a higher demand and not as many referees is what it comes down to,” Staten said. “Money gets the most preference. The money goes with the men’s programs and the Division I programs.”