As colleges struggle to support non-revenue sports, U.S. Olympic future is threatened

[Bay]

notrichenough,
Maybe if you look at it this way, you will feel better: Before Title IX, colleges were discriminating against women, by either not funding womens' sports, or using money that lawfully should have been used to fund womens' sports, to fund mostly mens' sports, to the detriment of women. Title IX fixed that.

[hops_scout]

Out state school cut their men's team several years ago to balance the number of teams, however the total cost savings was <$1 million. I heard some alumni stepped up to fund it, but that it wasn't accepted. (Rutgers has a great pool and there is still a women's team so the cost savings were only coaching, travel and scholarships).

I always find it interesting when a school does something like this. In the Ohio Valley Conference, most of the schools have women's track. Only 5 (was 4 a couple years ago) had men's programs. Most of these schools really aren't gaining any money by having a women's team but not a men's team. They still need the same facilities, have the same number of coaches, and travel the same..

[notrichenough]

Maybe if you look at it this way, you will feel better:

I feel fine, I happen to think Title IX is a good thing. But I am not kidding myself about the negative consequences of it, either.

Most of these schools really aren't gaining any money by having a women's team but not a men's team. They still need the same facilities, have the same number of coaches, and travel the same..

Doing this accomplishes two things for the school - all the costs to maintain and run those facilities, hire those coaches and do the travel, now gets pushed to the women's side of the budget; and it betters the woman:man athlete ratio.

It's not just about saving money, it's about balancing the money.

[nj2011mom]

The scholarship issue is a bit of a joke. We have a family friend who received a nice package to play D3 football, which is the only reason he is heading to the school he is. Bit of surprise that supposedly D3 schools don't give athletic scholarships. Schools can make it work any way they want. Frankly, S1 wants to swim in college and it won't be scholarship money that attracts him to a school, it will be the academics.

Maybe everyone needs to get off the scholarship 'crack'. There was a great NY Times article a few years ago that featured D1 athletes and calculated they were 'paid' (ie their scholarship $) under $2/hour to play. Very few sports have the alure of FT employment following graduation and that only benefits a tiny minority. The only answer is we need to ensure the athletes are students first.

[goinganywhere]

that is a bit of a oversimplification to make it all about money. Because even if they can get the funds (eg, Marquette's wrestling team was funded entirely by boosters and alumni donations to the program ESPN.com: GEN - Title IX turns 30, and the debate goes on) they will still get cut simply for having athletes with XY chromosomes.

Also, you need to think of this as affirmative action on top of your discrimination mindframe, as without segrating and apportioning places in sports by sex, very few women would be competing in the majority of sports (equestrian events may be an exception).

[saintfan]

choatecolate:
I have no dog in the wrestling hunt, but still I know enough to say that it is a sport of incredible strategy. We are not talking large body sumo here - traditional wrestling can be more like physical chess.

Nobody cares about rowing? What up with the pay per view IRAs on Saturday, then? Do you think they charge to access a live race feed that nobody wants to see?

It is true that many traditional Olympic sports like weight lifting and archery are those that are not popular team spectator sports. They are also sports where athletes train on their own time and their own dime.

On this equestrial fixation that some seem to have: in addition to not being widely offered and being a true coed sport, in most cases the human athlete provides their own "equipment" in the form of an equine athlete which probably costs more than the tuition in many cases.

[MizzBee]

I wonder if we will continue to see more athletes going the Div III route. DS is going to a school with 10 teams and 2 club teams. While it is true that there are no athletic scholarships, they are generous with merit aid. They have golf, wrestling, track, swimming and diving and soccer in addition to the expected football, basketball and baseball. Lacrosse and rugby are getting to be so popular that they are pushing the athletic conference to add them. At least 2 athletes from the school were invited to the combine and they have produced a few nationally-ranked runners. As more schools cut the non-revenue programs, more high quality athletes will have options at these schools, and probably get a better education. The alumni at this school funded a major overhaul of all athletic facilities.

Sports continue to be a priority, and our Olympic athletes may very well come from these programs over the next 20 years.

[ahsmuoh]

I, too have a S that wants to swim in college - whoever said that swimmers are identified as "pre-teens" must have been talking about girls. There are men olympic swimmers that went to small schools to swim and really improved once they reached full growth and strength (which does not happen to most males until 21-22). Our mens olympic swim team would suffer greatly without college swimming. Female - not sure because a 16 year old girl can be just as fast as a 24 year old - not so (most of the time with Phelps being an exception) of men.

As far as gymnastics - I doubt highly that you will EVER find a female olympic gymnast that went to college on a gymnastics scholarship - most aren't even college age yet!!!

And I would certainly hope we would not go to a Chinese model of training our athletes - just google "chinese gymnastics training" and see if you would ever want your daughter to go through what those girls go through!!!!

[Lupy314]

Several other people have asked this, but it remains unanswered: Why does it matter if colleges, institutions of learning, cut sports in order to save money? Isn't that the responsible thing to do in a time of economic trouble?

[hops_scout]

Several other people have asked this, but it remains unanswered: Why does it matter if colleges, institutions of learning, cut sports in order to save money? Isn't that the responsible thing to do in a time of economic trouble?

I guess that depends on what you believe should be taught at these institutions of learning. That belief could lead you to eliminate a lot of things at a college..

[ordinarylives]

Olympic gymnast Alicia Sacramone - but she at Brown, so I don't think she was on athletic scholarship

[TomServo]

Just throwing in my two cents: get sports out of academics.............

[hops_scout]

Just throwing in my two cents: get sports out of academics.............

My two cents: get social life out of academics!

[Bay]

The best education would include academics, fine arts, athletics and social life. There is nothing wrong with aspiring to be the best in all of those areas. Those who do will maximize their time on Earth.

[TatinG]

I second the comment about getting sports out of academics. Recreational sports that benefit all students, keeping them fit and healthy, yes. Semi-pro sports for only a few, no.

The only sport I follow is professional tennis. 99% of professional tennis players do not go to college. They attend tennis academies like the Bolletieri Academy in Florida to learn the sport and see if they have what it takes to play professionally. The only current professional player who graduated college (AFAIK) is John Isner who was the top NCAA player and attended University of Georgia. The Olympic tennis players will be chosen from the top 56 professional players, no more than 4 from each country.

How many Olympic level athletes are trained in college? And the real question is why should they be? Especially if they are being subsidized by everyone else's tuition.