The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent
vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums
here.
We now return to our regularly scheduled PA Forums. Please let me (Hahnsoo1) know if something isn't working. The Holiday Forum will remain up until January 10, 2025.
35 Years Of Title IX, And We're Still Bickering Over It
Posts
Though some prefer to think of it as education interfering with sports.
But those people are scary.
if that's all you spend your time on in college, you're going to find yourself either very bored or about to snap and kill someone. or both.
at Ohio State especially, students are presented with an opportunity to do shit that they will never ever get to do at any other time in their lives. sitting in your ivory tower and calling things like sports or jumping into a pond "base" or "stupid" or "childish" while refusing to participate and experience something not only makes you a giant hypocrite, but it also prevents you from experiencing something pretty cool.
big time college sports aren't for everyone, but people who bitch about them without ever even trying to experience it really should have no say in the matter.
Wait, what can you do at college that you can't at any other time in your life?
Sports is just one of those things that, by and large, is a part of college life, much like drinking and living on your own and what have you.
Whether or not you choose to participate dosen't make you a tool either way. However acting like you're better than someone based on whether or not your participated in athletics (goes both ways) is a pretty tool thing to do.
i know, but you'd think people would get past their high school experiences and not let the mean ol' jock who dumped their lunch in their laps to influence their opinions of stuff they've got no experience with.
okay, are you insane?
follow up question: do you go to college?
This is coming from a guy who feels no sense of school spirit for his school, so still it may just be me.
Hey, I'm with you on the entire "lack of school spirit" thing, but I thought we'd have grown out of the jocks v nerds mindset by now, not saying that you're guilty of it, but it seems what this thread is becoming.
Me bonding with my fellow students and having a good time did not require massive amounts of cash and downright idolatry funneled toward one small group.
I played intra-mural sports with my friends, including football, I joined a campus martial arts club. We played games of Fugitive and Capture the Flag that ranged over the whole town. I got no problem if folks wanna go watch football, but why the hell it's nescassary for an entire university campus to revolve that little group is beyond me. There was so much else going on to be involved with in some capacity beyond just cheering.
My college had a football team, it just wasn't the be-all end-all of the institution.
Yes.
Graduated a year ago.
I can still go to clubs, make out with women (in theory), jump in lakes, get drunk, go clubbing, get STDs, read, write, rithmatic, fence, box, get charged for a late library book, watch sports events with thousands of other people, join factional club organizations, graded (by my supervisor)...
--
My only memory of student politics was that they let everyone vote for the color scheme for the graduation gowns, and then went with what they wanted to instead of listening to the overwhelming majority of students.
no, he doesn't. i can't even begin to list the amount of shit i'd never have had an opportunity to do had i not gone to Ohio State. i've shaken hands with mr. belding, screech, and james earl jones. i got to sit in the suites at the value city arena while being served chicken fingers and potato skins while i watched chris rock do stand up. i've seen alien ant farm, 311, ludacris, wanda sykes, lewis black, wyclef jean, twista, colin quinn, andy dick, tracy morgan, and dave chapelle FOR FREE.
and that was the first two years.
maybe add that getting together with several thousand screaming sports fans and acting as crazy as you want isn't exactly confined to college either.
re-read that sentence. if i were just some guy, it would've been incredibly difficult for me to have done all of those things. maybe one or two, but definately not all.
Do you like just live in a really phobic area when you're not going to college or something?
Heck, I have a cousin in Idaho whose on the neighborhood softball team. I don't know that he ever actually WENT to college.
well, I was pointing out to Pants Man that I did not need a "Big Game" experience at college to have fun and bond with my fellow students
edit: 'Lect, he gots my back
Do you live in an anti-social town?
I'm not sure you should be bragging about that, but, like, you know. Hollywood. My company gets first dibs on tickets for major concerts, and I myself have been in the company skybox for the local game.
LEATHER SEATS
Oh, wow.
You watched a movie for free.
Your friends make you pay for going to Blockbuster?
I'm so sorry.
Avatars need to be a requirement.
(:oops: )
I think he was referring to live performances
Throw some lime on that.
--
I'm still not sure how freebies are college-only.
I didn't pay for that skybox.
But I had to pay a cover.
Back to the title subject, Cat, I have no problem with Title IX. I have an issue with how it's enforced, as it honestly feels like the enforcement is one-sided, in a way that actually hides the problem. For example, take the policy of not counting unused women's slots - basically, the defense I've seen for that almost always ends up being "well, allowing the unused slots to be counted could be abused." But putting in safeguards can protect against that - make it so that those slots can be challenged in court. The result of not being able to count those slots, however, means that a college can be opening up opportunities across the board, but they're not being taken - so they don't count. Don't you think there's a problem with that?
As I've stated time and time again, this issue takes solving the problem not just from the top down (by adding the high level opportunities), but also from the bottom up (by encouraging girls to be athletic). But we've seen that there's been a "if you build it, they will come" attitude, where all you need is to create the slots and that will solve everything. In one of the articles talking about Title IX I read, they stated that the Girl Scouts had no sports program until 2000. That's just as much part of the problem.
To be honest, I don't see a big problem: there's no good reason that women should want to participate in sports at a lower rate than men. Yes, this is social engineering, but since it's being done to correct historical and ongoing discrimination, it's necessary.
The problem with not enforcing male/female parity is not just that it could lead to abuse, but that it will. I, personally, am not insisting that every school have perfect parity each year; there has to be a little wiggle room for random fluctuations. However, schools must be compelled to recruit women athletes as strongly as they do men, and holding to the participation quotas is a good way of holding their feet to the fire. Taking a relaxed view will encourage abuse---if all you need are openings for female athletes, what's to keep an athletics director from cutting funds used to publicize women's opportunities and applying them towards advertising the men's sports? Lawsuits require too much time, resources, and stress to be useful. Instead, we need to keep the severe sanctions of the existing law and crack the whip when necessary.
Exactly---we needed concerted efforts to promote women's athletics pre-college. Absolutely. That doesn't take away from the fact that we absolutely need a strong legal mandate on college athletics to eliminate ongoing gender discrimination as much as possible.
It is a garbage law. It has resulted in many men's teams having to disband. Profit-making sports shouldn't be covered in this law, and un-used women's spots should be able to be used by anyone.
<Sigh.>
No, and please see some of the posts above.
Yeah, I've read a few pages. Most of it is angry nerd talk about "lawl football is too huge".
Question- do you think there would be ANY women's sports today if football wasn't such a big moneymaker? I went to a MAC school that was mostly a doormat for a while, and it STILL made us money to provide for the other sports. With the way cuts are going in (Michigan) for college spending, there is no way that anyone could justify some sports if they weren't protected by football $$$.
You missed the posts where I showed that football and basketball--I called them "cash cows"--were not required for other sports teams to exist.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that a substantial majority of Division III colleges' athletics departments lose money each year, as in do not generate enough revenue to cover their costs. In fact, I bet most DIII schools don't even charge admission! (At least, mine didn't.)
So yes, I do believe women's sports would exist without football (or basketball, to a much lesser extent).
D3 football and basketball might as well be women's football and basketball. Using them as an example really isn't a great idea.
There is the truth. There is the reason that quota systems don't work. Track and field is next.