View topic - Arizona State University cuts wrestling: Title IX to blame

[thesteelhammer Profile]

ASU cuts mens wrestling, tennis & Swimming. Now has 12 women's sports, but just 8 mens. Thank you Title IX.

http://www.intermatwrestle.com/news/newsdisplay.aspx?ID=7262

Arizona State University Cites Economics in Reducing Number of Varsity Sports

DATE: 5/13/2008 1:07:00 PM
Tempe, AZ
By Alex Ryan
Arizona State Sports Information

In response to economic realities experienced over a long period of time, Arizona State University today announced the discontinuation of three varsity sports programs, effective immediately. The sport programs affected are men's swimming, men's tennis and wrestling. ASU President Michael Crow and Vice President for University Athletics Lisa Love made the announcement. With the budget cuts the University is facing, Intercollegiate Athletics cannot expect the University to make up the difference.

This move reduces the number of varsity sports sponsored by ASU to 20 from 22. The move will not affect men's diving. ASU will continue to fund football, men's and women's basketball, baseball, softball, men's and women's golf, men's and women's cross country, men's and women's indoor and outdoor track and field, women's tennis, women's swimming and diving, men's diving, women's volleyball, women's gymnastics and women's water polo.

"Our primary concern for the immediate future is the student-athletes and coaches that are affected," says Love.

The student-athletes in the discontinued sports who decide to transfer to another institution will be provided with full assistance from ASU regarding the transfer process. The student-athletes who chose to remain at ASU will receive the full benefits of their scholarship awards through their senior year.

"With a dedicated effort to a successful 20-sport varsity program in mind," says Love, "these three sports were selected with the following criteria: financial impact, potential competitive success, conference/regional support and gender equity. Our revenue trajectory has been positive, however, our ongoing financial challenges have been well documented by the media. The decision to discontinue sport programs is a last resort, yet necessary."

"These moves are extremely painful," says Love. "We have arrived at the realization that funding a 20 sport program is a better fit for our financial profile and will serve to secure and strengthen our future. It is our responsibility to operate a fiscally prudent varsity athletics program. The costs of doing business are escalating daily and the costs of maintaining excellence even more so."

At 20 varsity sports, ASU is in line with other major institutions around the country. In the Pacific-10 Conference, schools that compare favorably with ASU are UCLA and Washington 23 sports each, USC 21, Arizona 20, Oregon and Oregon State 18 each and Washington State 17. On a national scale, Florida, Georgia and Auburn sponsor 21 varsity sports, Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma and LSU 20 apiece, and Florida State 19.

"The profile of our operations budget and donation base does not lend itself to the sponsorship of 22 athletic teams," says Love. "While our revenue streams are achieving a positive trajectory they are simply not keeping pace with the current size and scope of the department.

"The decision to discontinue sports has been the most distressing and painful choice this administration has had to make. It is counter-intuitive to our administrative thinking. This decision impacts many people, both on and off our campus. The entire University, the Board of Regents, Sun Devil alumni and other universities will share in the loss of these sports and student-athletes and the contributions they have made to our University and to their sport.

"The action is in no way meant to diminish the dedication, effort or ability of these student-athletes, coaches and alumni. They have contributed greatly to Arizona State University athletics and to the vitality and history of the University," Love says.

As many as 70 student athletes will be affected by the elimination of these sports. Six full-time coaching positions will be eliminated. Head coaches will remain on contract through November, 2008.

The establishment of a 20-team varsity sport program will allow the department to realize a reduction in expenses that will total approximately of $1 million annually.

This is the second time in ASU's athletic history that programs have been eliminated. In 1993 ASU eliminated men's gymnastics, an NCAA-sponsored sport, and two club sports sponsored by ICA -- men's and women's and mixed archery and men's and women's and mixed badminton. Two sports have been added in recent program history, including women's varsity soccer in 1996 and women's water polo in 2002.

Check out how the coaches and athlete got the news:
http://intermat.wordpress.com/2008/05/13/the-asu-situation-digging-away/

Sad Day in Tempe: ASU wrestling dropped
Jump to Comments
A lot has happened over the last 18 hours regarding the news about the alleged dropping of wrestling at Arizona State University. A lot of rumors, message board posts, e-mails, IM’s, text messages and phone calls have been circulating.

The one thing I have been informed by Arizona State Sports Information Director Alex Ryan is “The rumblings are true.”

Update: 12:53 p.m. (Eastern)

The pending announcement from Arizona State’s sports information office is expected to come “shortly,” according to Ryan.

Sadly, this comes the same day Thom Ortiz had confirmed three additional signees to the Sun Devil program, including two talented Junior College transfers Joe Cornejo and Erik Nye along with High School All-American Jake Meredith of Temecula Valley, Calif.

One member of the Arizona State wrestling team, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said, “The athletes feel shut out by the administration.”

Earlier this morning, e-mail correspondence between Ortiz and InterMat seemed to indicate these rumors were unjustified.

At 8:14 a.m. Eastern, Ortiz confirmed he had five signed letters of intent, including two from prior verbal commitments Te Edwards of Virginia and Eric Starks of Washington.

Update 1:02 p.m.

It’s officially been released by the school: Click here for the release.

School citing finanical woes, despite the fact three teams are announced as being cut, men’s wrestling, men’s tennis and men’s swimming. The school is “financially” cutting two teams where the same facilities are used for women’s athletics, too.

Update: 2:05 p.m.

Brian Stith, two-time All-American and 2006 NCAA finalist for the Sun Devils and current ASU assistant coach finally replies to my text message.

“We done Twink. Can’t talk now. I’m a mess.”

Just got off the horn with Aaron Simpson, former assistant and ASU alum. He’s got some interesting things to say. A few more phone calls to make and we’ll see if we can start to push this in another direction, because there’s so much wrong with this decision.

Update: 4:43 p.m. — Some stats to think about
As you might think, the swimming and tennis communities are also pretty angry about this decision. SwimmingWorld.com posted this story, which included a form letter e-mailed to the student athletes.

One thing in the form letter, probably the most emotionless thing you can send to someone, a meeting is mentioned at 1 p.m. … I must ask this, WHERE are the students on May 13. When exactly did classes end at ASU for the spring semester.

Here are some numbers, courtesty of NCAA.org and the National Federation of High School State Associations (NFHS).

In Arizona, there were 5,474 high school wrestlers according to the 2006-07 participation numbers posted by the NFHS. There were 2,015 male high school swimmers and 2,086 male high school tennis players.

Wrestling-wise, if the ASU decision stands, there will not be a Division I wrestling opportunity in the state of Arizona. There will only be TWO four-year opportunities, one at Division II Grand Canyon University and one at NAIA Embry-Riddle Aeronautical. There are no Division III opportunities in Arizona.

Effectively, Arizona State has wiped out the option for in-state wrestlers with tax-paying parents to attend Arizona State, denying over 5,000 wrestlers the opportunity — the option even — of competing at the Division I level in their home state. They will also be denying a public school option, because Grand Canyon and Embry-Riddle are both private institutions.

The demise in swimming is just as bad, despite half the participation in Arizona. The loss of ASU men’s swimming would leave just the University of Arizona as the only Division I swim team in the state. Like wrestling, it would create only one public school option, rival U of A. Grand Canyon University, again in Division II, would be the only other four-year varsity opportunity for men’s swimmers within Arizona as the NAIA and NCAA Division III do not have teams within the state.

In men’s tennis, it’s again, similar. Three Division I programs would be cut to two, leaving Northern Arizona and Arizona. There is no Division II or III programs in the state. There are also no NAIA programs.

Arizona State isn’t honoring its duty to offer opportunities to its in-state tax-supporting residents.

While this isn’t an attack on any other particular sport, Arizona State does sponsor women’s water polo, a sport, according to the NFHS, fielded zero high school programs in Arizona. Not a single rostered athlete on the women’s water polo team is from Arizona. Not one.

NWCA official statement
National Wrestling Coaches Association Executive Director Mike Moyer has issued an official statement regarding the announced elimination of intercollegiate wrestling at Arizona State University.

[thesteelhammer Profile]

http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news;_ylt=An7KXSARaxROTNqQw4T2O8Y9Eo14?slug=mmajunkie-ASU_Wrestling&prov=mmajunkie&type=lgns

Current UFC Ultimate Fighter C.B. Dollaway on the death of ASU wrestling

Imagine devoting your life to a particular sport because you loved the sport. You know going into it that the Olympics is the highest level you can achieve. There are no million-dollar endorsement deals, no droves of fans seeking your autograph, and no chance for some multi-million-dollar signing bonus.

What would you say if I told you that the sport requires a year-round commitment, and the training is usually five to six days a week for technique and another 20-30 hours of cardio? Your uniforms aren’t cool; in fact, in some schools the men wear tights. The cheerleaders are not the same cheerleaders you see at the football games, and the stands are often filled with moms and dads rather then fans.

The sport is wrestling, and it’s a sport that dates back to our earliest of times. The earliest Olympians competed in this great sport, and that is why so many boys and girls across the globe still compete today. Not for the glitz or glamour of things to come—but for the love of the sport. The “love of the sport” is something that used to fill Little League fields with kids with dreams of meeting their biggest hero. It is this love that brings hundreds of thousands of kids across America out to wrestle.

For me wrestling was a choice I made. I started wrestling around the same time I started going to school. For me it has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. When I got to high school, I was a pretty good wrestler and earned a state championship title. From high school I was able to get a small scholarship to Colby Junior College. At Colby I was able to garner the attention of the Arizona State University wrestling team and earn a scholarship to one of the best Pac-10 colleges and a top-level D-1 powerhouse.

This week I was given some unfortunate news: the Arizona State wrestling team was being cut by ASU Athletic Director Lisa Love. While this may not rile many people up, I wanted to share with you why this will likely impact you and the youth of today and tomorrow.

The ASU wrestling team has created some Olympic medalists, Pan American Games champions and national team members, and it is almost always in contention for a national title. In recent years it has also started to push out some of the hottest young prospects in MMA. Just out of my class, I know five MMA fighters who are currently undefeated (20-0) in MMA, and three of them are in someway affiliated with the biggest promotion in the world, the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Aside from the great up-and-coming talent that was created from the halls of the ASU wrestling program, you have MMA legends such as Dan Henderson and Dan Severn that were a part of making the program the training destination for Olympians and world champions alike. These two world-class athletes have reached the highest levels of wrestling’s amateur level and transcended that into international notoriety in MMA.

It is actually the UFC’s and MMA’s growth that has helped bring the long overdue credit to amateur wrestlers. In a recent poll on MMAjunkie.com and HDNet’s “Inside MMA” program, wrestling was picked as the most important discipline in all of MMA. As a professional fighter who has three roommates and lives in Phoenix with no air conditioning in my car, I can assure you I do not do this sport for the money, but rather for the love of it.

Why should the cutting of the ASU wrestling team and with two other sports matter to you? Because this is the beginning of things to come and not a creation of our current economic situation.

ASU allowed wrestling boosters to financially support and build one of the most dominant athletic programs in all of ASU history. The team was able to recruit some of the best athletes in the country and build a state-of-the-art wrestling facility in recent years—all from the support of our booster groups such as The Sun Angles. These people give time and money to help support all of the sports at ASU. Wrestling is given about $200,000 a year from the university for scholarships, travel, supplies and the like. The rest comes from outside supporters—supporters that continually support ASU athletics for the passion and the love of the school and sports, not the return on investment.

This decision will send a message to all of the other universities that it is OK to cut off programs that are supported by loyal and supportive boosters. You can “take” these proceeds and direct them to your other programs without notice or discussion and increase your bottom-line performance while doing it. No need to care about the kids, their parents or the investment made by the support staff. Pull the plug after school is out, and make sure your customer (the students) are not around to protest the greed.

Here are things that a lot of people do not know about ASU: it is one of the largest institutions in the country. It is usually the “test” school for new concepts. It was the first in the country with a Starbucks on campus, and the school shares in the coffee revenues. It was the first university with a UPS Mail store on campus; they charged us students $1 for each package that would not fit in our mailboxes (they have more than 60,000 students). And the list goes on all the way down to a Cold Stone Creamery on campus.

So why would a university that has continually raised its tuition—one that has found unique ways to earn additional income from its student body—need to cut an annual expense of $200,000? The answer is simple: They want a return on investment, and they want the university to be profitable, and for that, they will cut programs that won’t make them rich. They will recruit you and entice you to choose them so you can spend money at all of their fine retail locations, but they wont guarantee you that they will keep what they used to get you there.

The thing is this will start happening across the country. More and more universities will begin cutting sports based on economic factors. That will trickle down to high schools and amateur programs being cut. This won’t stop with the wrestling programs, and pretty soon, the only sports that will be offered at places like ASU are football and men’s basketball, and the only music program will be “American Idol,” as it seems the university system is saying it only wants what is mainstream and profitable.

The problem is eventually these universities will become large corporations worried more about the profits it can generate by increasing its bottom line than they are about the education for the students that are paying the bills. They’ll focus on the profits rather than the student athletes that are there for the passion and love of the sport.

To save programs such as wrestling, music, swimming and the many other quality activities, we will need a grassroots effort. Those that have been the boosters at the collegiate level need to look further into community-level support at the younger ages. Don’t think these cuts are not coming to a town near you.

Without the boosters from ASU, my wrestling coaches, teammates and family support, I would not be on national TV living my dream. I want to personally thank them and offer my continued support of the great history of the ASU wrestling program.

[thesteelhammer Profile]

http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2008/05/15/sports.html

What Was Good
Mourning the imminent loss of a storied wrestling program
ESSAY BY MICHAEL COPPERMAN

Oregon wrestling is nearing its last days, and as the clock runs down, the efforts to save the sport are desperate and valiant. Former Oregon Coach Ron Finley fundraises millions from a room in the Athletic Department while Athletic Director Patrick Kilkenny hovers outside, waiting to close the door quietly.

Oregon wrestlers, present and past, don tie-dye and their lettermen jackets and ride the Kesey Pranksters' "Further" bus to the basketball game, wave their arms and whoop and whoop, imagining they might be heard. At the Civil War at Gill Coliseum, former UO and OSU wrestling greats stand to be recognized, all those broad-shouldered men there on the edge of the mats, ghosts of dual-meets past. Some are graying now at the temples and gone to fat while others still look fit enough to don a singlet, and all of them are there together to recall the rivalry that will be no more. Fans pack Mac Court for the Pac-10 Championship tournament and cheer Ryan Dunn's effort to bring home one last title. Yet the clock may finally be out.


UO wrestler Dan Chandler at the 1984 Olympics. coached by Ron Finley (standing) and Brad Rinaghaus

Duck wrestler Ryan Dunn in control
Coach Kearney says that in the Oregon wrestling room, you fight a takedown until the down-man concedes, the implication being that until you cry "uncle," there's still a chance for reversal. Yet this battle isn't being fought in an Oregon wrestling room. For years now, the team has had to practice wherever the mats can be put down, the warm, padded room in the Casanova Center inexplicably claimed for football. The values of the sport don't apply when there's no mat beneath you. Wrestlers don't give up, but when the takedown's to bare ground, the landing is unforgiving. Perhaps even final.

Former Oregon Coach Ron Finley, "Fin" to his friends, is the grand old man of Oregon wrestling. He long ago put on the padding that old wrestlers always do — goodbye scale, hello bacon — but he always wore it well, still had the squat, powerful frame of a Greco-Roman wrestler good enough for fourth at the Olympics. He'd done it all with the "Fin spin," a move better known as a flying mare, which he taught me and a couple dozen other young wrestlers at a summer training camp my eighth grade year. Here was an older man with elven, cauliflowered ears and a rounded belly, legs protruding white and spindly beneath sagging sweat shorts — uncompelling compared to the lean, muscled counselors who'd been instructing us before. We were told he'd been the Greco-Roman Olympic coach, but that meant little to us in the presence of more youthful celebrity.

His voice was curiously high and gentle, and he was too kind, too enthusiastic. "You get your opponent moving, make him push just a little," he said, demonstrating on his 184-pounder, who towered over him by half a head. "When he does — " there was a pause, a push and pull, and Fin was gone, bending back toward the mat, and his partner following in a long, clean arc, heels over head, slamming to the mat before us.

In a moment, wrestling had me hooked: I wanted to throw like that, to be ordinary one moment and suddenly something more.

Fin's Oregon program was like the man — hard-nosed but unassuming, free of the swagger and swank you might see on the football field or the basketball court or even at other Pac-10 wrestling programs like Arizona State or Cal State Bakersfield. He attracted the dedicated, scholarship athletes and walk-ons alike — the Kevin Roberts, Jeremy Ensruds and Chael Sonnens, but also the Ken Keseys and Kevin Lists, in it less for championships than for love of the sport. Oregon wrestling had its diehard fans, the familiar faces along the bleachers at Mac Court — often the same folks who ran the local prep tournaments and club practices. The sport never made much money (or cost much), and so three different times in Fin's 28 years as head coach the program was threatened as being too "small-time." Each time, Finley successfully rallied support.

This time Finely has come out of retirement for one last go, and he has already raised nearly half of the $6.5 million needed to permanently endow Oregon wrestling — enough to pay for a room to replace the one that was taken, and to ensure that the program costs the Athletic Department nothing in the future. His efforts meant little to Kilkenny, who expelled him from his office — he'd evidently been too successful in his work. When I asked Finley what the state of Oregon would lose, he choked up for a moment, then spoke quietly, firmly, in his soft voice: "We'd be losing tradition. All the guys who competed here. We'd be losing future teachers, coaches, doctors — wrestling is an individual sport that teaches discipline, teaches you to give something back … 33,000 young men and women wrestle in the Northwest. All those folks would have nothing to look to. It would damage the sport itself."

Given the stakes he perceives, Finley's efforts have been vigorous. In addition to his goal of making wrestling self-sustaining, he's had lawyers look into the Title IX compliance issue, has rallied the local wrestling community to the protest bus and has former Olympians putting on benefit clinics. He's even turned the competition up the road in Corvallis to the program's support. This fight is familiar to him, and he's won it before; yet this time his best hasn't seemed enough, not even when the national media (including The New York Times) widely reported the Kesey bus rally. What Finley failed to anticipate is the nature of the new UO Athletic Department and, indeed, the values of today's university.



Finley might have seen trouble coming: Here was a new AD who dropped out of college for the promise of the dollar, who was Oregon athletics' second-biggest donor and bought his job for $2 million from his own pocket. Kilkenny was hired with an unspoken understanding that his first responsibility was to keep deep-pocketed donors (like himself) happy — especially ones named Knight. Swoosh-stamped dollars have bought tremendous influence at the UO, and in the fever for prominence, some degree of autonomy — one might also argue integrity — has inevitably been lost. When Knight said the UO couldn't support an organization critical of Nike's overseas labor practices, President Frohnmayer couldn't move quickly enough to reverse the students' decision to the join the Worker Rights Consortium.

When Knight decided the track coach didn't focus enough on distance runners, a focus he needed to support Nike's mythic Bowerman-Prefontaine roots, the track coach was shortly shown the door, followed by Bill Moos, who hadn't jumped quickly enough to satisfy Knight. Kilkenny would have no such problems remembering what money could buy. In a highly publicized event in his first weeks, he met with Knight to show just how well he understood his role; days later, he announced that now, Knight had $100 million for the basketball arena.

It took Kilkenny only two weeks in his position to announce he was cutting wrestling in favor of baseball and cheerleading, and his justification was specious at best. Title IX compliance wasn't an issue at the UO until Kilkenny reinstated baseball — in other words, the justification came from a situation he'd created. That there was no wrestling room is similarly circular — the beautiful, dedicated facility the wrestlers had in the Casanova Center had been claimed for football game day under an explicit promise from the AD that they'd soon get a nice, new place.

That baseball was going to be really, really "fun" — well, there's the real argument, though baseball lust doesn't explain why wrestling was the only sport considered for the axe. In fact, such an argument is a logical fallacy, setting up a false dilemma between baseball and wrestling when the either should be or, and then a list of a dozen other sports. Baseball and cheerleading actually balance each other, so that the situation with wrestling is equal to before. Regardless, there's no immediate problem — Oregon must add another women's sport in three to seven years with or without wrestling to demonstrate to the NCAA that they're moving toward gender parity. That they cannot do so now is due the skew of an 85-scholarship football squad, not wrestling, with its eight scholarships.

Yet suppose we let go of the ethical argument for a moment, and consider the motivation behind the reinstatement of baseball. Recent national championships at OSU have boosters jealous, and in every interview since his hire Kilkenny has mentioned his deep affection for baseball. In other words, Eugene cannot let Corvallis have anything it doesn't, not if it brings publicity. The men with the moola, Kilkenny most prominent among them, want their share of that attention. Today's UO is about towering billboards in Times Square and Verizon-sponsored scoreboards, about an Autzen of metal arcs and back-lit O's and a new basketball arena sent from the future, about cherry-wood lockers and spiral staircases and winning at all costs. It will soon enough be about a 5,000-seat baseball stadium, or if we heed lobbying from Oregon booster Steve Sylwester, a stadium twice again as large, luxurious enough to draw a triple-A team. Everything is about becoming bigger, better, and brighter. What they say about all that glitters has been ignored. If it shines like gold, form it into an O. Ask questions later.



In the state of Oregon, wrestling has always been popular at the prep level, and some 6,000 boys and girls participate in the sport each winter. The level of in-state competition is so high that the UO's squad is some 70 percent Oregon-bred, in marked contrast to its other teams. Wrestling is not so much popular in the cities but in the backcountry, mountains and desert. It thrives in the Crook Counties and Newbergs, the blue-collar fishing towns of the Coast like North Bend and Marshfield, the snowy basin of Crater.

Wrestling is more Springfield than Eugene, more cowboy hats than rasta caps. It is weigh-ins in icy, echoic locker rooms, cold mats at morning meets in rural gyms with wooden bleachers. I remember well: I was a three-time state finalist, and with my coach, a blond bear of a man named John Scott, I sought out the competition where it was. We'd drive to Lowell to train with their team every afternoon in the off-season, Coach's meathook hand draped over the wheel as we wound the sharp curves of Hwy. 58. If there was a tough tournament over the mountains, or clear to Reno, we'd be in a van at midnight en route, Coach philosophizing in the dim van. "You take the fight where you can find it," he'd say, gesturing to the sliding dark, the tree-lined edge of road and sky. "To be the best, you challenge the best. You seek them out. That's how the brotherhood of wrestling works." Coach Scott knew: he was a former Oregon All-American, a Canadian Greco-Roman National Champion. I was a slim-shouldered, innocent 16 and believed whatever Coach Scott told me — you don't question a grizzly, however good-natured it seems. I came to believe there was no greater glory than the good fight, that win or lose, all that mattered was walking from the mat knowing you'd left nothing behind.

Of course, life finally wasn't a wrestling match. My college wrestling career at Stanford was marked by injury, and an ACL surgery and rotator-cuff injury later, I was done with formal competition. I was never the Olympian talent of Mr. Finley — too little latent ability. With words, on the other hand, I might do something, and so I took a degree in English, went to teach in the black public schools of the Mississippi Delta. I found there were greater causes than national championships, greater injustices and inequalities, greater need. I found I could battle for those children — and despite my best efforts, still watch the world take away a deserving kid's last chance. When I returned to this community seven years after leaving it, I found it changed — or else I had changed. Perhaps both. Gone was the Autzen I'd known, replaced with a behemoth, and at the UO all anyone cared about was football and new facilities. My students text-messaged during class on $600 iPhones bought with their parents' money and earnestly asserted that racism was gone from the world and the poor were poor because they were stupid and unwilling to work.

Three days a quarter I taught to an empty class, all my students in line for the football tickets the Athletic Department inexplicably released on weekday mornings. The classroom I taught in had broken moulding and flaking paint and was so small we couldn't circle the desks, but Knight was giving $100 million for a new basketball arena. Football players I taught told me how their coaches had made them change their majors to communication — sociology and English were taking too much of their time and attention.

Guys I'd wrestled with in high school came back broken from the war, threw themselves to the ground at loud noises, wept for no visible reason and picked fights in bars. I took the 11-year-old boy I mentored to an Oregon football game, where the drunken tailgaters beneath us chugged beer from cans in their coats and bellowed "Fuck that nigger!" when Dennis Dixon threw an interception. I began to wonder what sort of students chose a university for its football program. I began to wonder what had happened to the ideal of sport, that unequivocal striving for excellence. I found no answers.



Little wonder wrestling is on the chopping block at the UO: It has become hard to reconcile the sport with the excesses of today's Athletic Department. The slap in the face hurts — the addition of varsity women's cheerleading (we already have a recent national champion squad; we're only the second school in the nation to have varsity cheerleading; cheerleading isn't even an NCAA sport) cheapens everyone associated with UO athletics, so thin is the pretense that the UO thinks women's competition has importance.

What hurts more is knowing that future Oregon wrestlers won't have heroes to look to like I did, men who stood with straight backs and gave their all in front of a few hundred fans, not for the flashbulbs and fame and product placement, but because that devotion was its own glory. I used to live by that gospel, was naïve enough to believe that dedication and heart were all you needed. Many days of my adult life, I've wanted to be 16 again, driving through the dark with Coach Scott at the wheel and nothing ahead but a wrestling match, that pure, uncompromised good.

Just as that past is out of reach, Oregon wrestling may not be resurrected. When Kilkenny was asked by Coach Kearney if he felt the Athletic Department had any responsibility to supporters of the sport, especially in rural areas of the state, Kilkenny grew red in the face, gestured with a pointed finger: "I can do what I want," he said, and then, as if realizing the poor choice of pronoun, added, "We're privately funded."

Finally, the truth: Wrestling is stamped with no swooshes, offers few donors, and so is irrelevant to a university whose god is the dollar. The UO was never an unsullied ivory tower, free from the complications of the real world, but it has less integrity than ever before. It has become the Knight-Kilkenny nouveau-Vegas, a place of shiny surfaces and false heights, of short-skirted girls kicking bare legs high for the boys with the bucks.

Wrestling is too decent for today's UO. We should mourn its loss.

[baumblvd Profile]

I know that this will be an unpopular statement, but....

The real culprit is football. The squad sizes have gotten so big that in order to balance out the slots for men and women, athletic departments have cut minor men's sports like wrestling and gymnastics. I forgot what Pitt did a few years ago, but they gutted the men's program (I think they cut baseball?). If they just put a reasonable upper limit on the resources going into football, then all the other sports -- men's and women's could live.

College football has become the proverbial Upas Tree.

[thesteelhammer Profile]

I know that this will be an unpopular statement, but....

The real culprit is football. The squad sizes have gotten so big that in order to balance out the slots for men and women, athletic departments have cut minor men's sports like wrestling and gymnastics. I forgot what Pitt did a few years ago, but they gutted the men's program (I think they cut baseball?). If they just put a reasonable upper limit on the resources going into football, then all the other sports -- men's and women's could live.

College football has become the proverbial Upas Tree.

It may be "unpopular" but it is true. Many read title IX as requiring an equal number of athletic scholarships for men and women. Most NCAA division 1 football teams use 85 scholarships for football. It takes a lot of womens sports to equal 85 scholarships, which is why ASU has 12 womens sports, but only 8 mens.

[thesteelhammer Profile]

Great article on Title IX by John Irving from NY times.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E2DB1339F93BA15752C0A9659C8B63

Explains Title IX very well and also makes some strong arguments and why it is such a big deal to wrestling

Why are wrestlers so upset about this? The number of collegiate wrestling programs lost to Title IX compliance is staggering; this is especially alarming because, since 1993, wrestling has been a rapidly growing sport at the high-school level. Data compiled by Gary Abbott, director of special projects at USA Wrestling, indicates that in 2001, there were 244,984 athletes wrestling in high school; only 5,966 got to wrestle in the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Not to put too fine a point on it: there is only one N.C.A.A. spot for every 41 high-school wrestlers. The numbers have been going downhill for a while. In 1982, there were 363 N.C.A.A. wrestling teams with 7,914 wrestlers competing; in 2001, there were only 229 teams with fewer than 6,000 wrestlers. Yet, in that same period, the number of N.C.A.A. institutions has increased from 787 to 1,049. No wonder wrestlers are unhappy.

And the crazy measures schools consider to comply with title IX

While eliminating men's sports like wrestling, where the interest in participation is increasing, athletic programs go begging to find women athletes to fill the vacancies on an ever-expanding number of women's teams.

One of the most ludicrous examples of this was the attempt by Arizona State University in Tempe -- a cactus-studded campus in the middle of the Sonoran Desert -- to add a competitive women's rowing team. There's not a lot of water in Arizona. But the school asked the city to create a body of water (by flooding a dry gulch) on which the team could practice. Because of a lack of funds, the school had to drop the plan. This is probably just as well; taxpayer dollars would have financed scholarships either to rowers from out of state or to teach Arizona women (most of whom have never held an oar) how to row.

[thesteelhammer Profile]

Another interesting statistic

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-m...,7025848.story

Women outnumber men by more than 40,000 at Florida's public universities, where their 57 percent share of enrollment is up from 52 percent in 1990 -- and still growing....
The trend also is true at Florida's private nonprofit colleges, where women account for 59 percent of enrollment. Nationwide, women account for 58 percent of enrollment at public two- and four-year colleges and universities.

[baumblvd Profile]

Title IX regs (and I used to do this for a living, actually) are complex.

First, there are the various program components -- facilities, quality of coaching, recruiting budgets -- and in Div. I and II: scholarships. The basic rule is: if the men's side of the program has some sort of benefit, the school must provide that for the women's side. And it's usually calculated proportionally. So, if 20% of the men's program has access to a free recruiting car, then the school has to provide the same benefit to 20% of the athletes on the women's side.

The best way to think about is to imagine, say, two biology classes -- one for boys, one for girls. And imagine that some administrator thought that girls just aren't as interested in biology and therefore decided not to give them microscopes.

That's the sort of gender-biased thinking that has resulted in skewed athletics programs. Here's a real-life example from a school in the mid-Atlantic. The school provided laundry service to the men's programs -- ditty bags with practice gear and, after games, uniform. the staff would launder the stuff and return it all to the athlete's locker. The school did NOT provide the service to the female athletes. The AD told me, get this, that the girls wanted to do their own laundry -- for various reasons. The made the switch and the female athletes were thrilled.

The fact is that, since Title IX was passed, the participation rates of girls and women has risen every year. If you build it, they will come.

The other part of Title IX -- the three-prong test -- is where most of the confusion lies and is much harder to explain and understand.

[thesteelhammer Profile]

ASU REINSTATES WRESTLING!

Grass roots out cry and email and MONEY saves the program.

http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/m-wrestl/spec-rel/052308aaa.html

Ortiz and the Sun Devils will be back on the mats in 2008-09.
Financial Support From Local Civic Leadership Secures ASU Wrestling
ASU Reinstates Wrestling Program As 21st Varsity Sport The Sun Devils will compete fully in 2008-09


May 23, 2008



TEMPE, Ariz. - Arizona State University Vice President for Athletics Lisa Love announced Friday that the athletic department is fully reinstating the sport of varsity wrestling, effective immediately, due to financial support from local civic leadership. The reinstatement of wrestling gives ASU 21 sports in its varsity athletic program.

"It is with great pleasure that I announce the reinstatement of the varsity sport of wrestling at ASU," says Love. "The wrestling community, both locally and nationally, accepted this as a challenge to do something wonderful for the sport. ASU is forever grateful for that passion and unwavering support. Something special is happening on our campus thanks to civic leadership that cares deeply about ASU wrestling."

ASU had announced on May 13, 2008 that it was discontinuing the sport of wrestling due to the rising cost of operating a 22-sport varsity program. It was determined at that time that sponsoring a 20-sport program would better fit ASU¹s athletic financial profile. Love indicated at the time that if the wrestling community were able to raise enough financial support the sport could be reinstated. That commitment is there and the sport will continue at Arizona State.

Love said that fundraising for the sport of wrestling will be an ongoing process. The objective is not just to sponsor wrestling as a varsity sport, but to position the sport as one of the top programs in the country.

The Sun Devil wrestling team is a member of the Pacific-10 Conference.

For more information regarding giving to assist the Sun Devil varsity sports programs, visit www.sundevilclub.com.