Women still lag in college sports
Cox News Service
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
ATLANTA — The number of women participating in college sports increased substantially in the late 1990s, but the growth slowed after 2000 and "still lags far behind men's participation levels," and the percentage of female athletes has not kept pace with female enrollment, according to a study released Tuesday by the Women's Sports Foundation.
The study, "Who's Playing College Sports? Trends in Participation," assigned grades to almost every college and university in the country based on the gender composition of athletes compared to enrollment. Georgia Tech was awarded an A, Georgia Southern a B-plus, and Georgia and Georgia State C-pluses. Oglethorpe, Mercer, Shorter and West Georgia all received an F.
"Women are still severely underrepresented," said Donna Lopiano, CEO of the foundation.
Examining 738 NCAA schools in the 10-year period from 1995-2005, the WSF found that female participation increased by almost 26,000 athletes, mostly due to the addition of sports, but only 15 percent of that increase occurred after the 2001-02 school year.
The reported number of men's participants in 2004-05 was 291,797; there were 205,492 women participants.
The study also found that although the number of men competing in sports such as tennis and wrestling decreased, large increases in baseball, lacrosse and soccer offset the decline.
Lopiano hopes the findings will be taken into account by government policy-makers who are considering legislation that would weaken Title IX. She blames football and men's basketball, which she calls "the arms race," for the "shift in revenue" that cut some men's sports.
"This study clearly shows that Title IX has not resulted in any negative effect on men's sports," Lopiano said.
She said the richest athletic programs have been the ones that tend to cut men's sports.
"Everybody's crying the blues, and they're blaming women's sports or Title IX," Lopiano said, "when they should be blaming the losses on the arms race. They shouldn't be blaming the other victims who are women who still aren't getting the chance to play."
Lopiano attributes the slowdown in female participation, which has also lagged behind male participation on the high school level recently, to the federal government "not enforcing the law."
"The institutions are saying ... 'Nothing bad's going to happen to me if I get caught,'" said Lopiano, who spent 17 years as director of women's athletics at Texas. "They'll wait as long as they can and not spend the money, and then they'll do it when they have to."
Most Georgia schools that were assessed lower grades have a female enrollment majority. Georgia's enrollment is 57.1 percent female, but its female participation in athletics is 47.1 percent. At Oglethorpe, the numbers are 64.8 percent enrollment and 41.9 percent participation.
Jack Bauerle, the men's and women's swimming coach at Georgia, called the grades "skewed" and said Georgia deserved better than a C-plus.
"Churchill said there are lies, damn lies and statistics, and I think that's what we're talking about here with the numbers of women on campus and women in sports," said Bauerle, who has won four NCAA women's titles. "I think it's just misleading. ... I think this athletic department couldn't be more even-keeled as far as how the athletes are treated."
Jay Gardiner, assistant dean and director of athletics at Oglethorpe, was dismayed to find out his program got such a poor grade.
"We have tried very, very hard to make sure that all of our athletes feel very important and feel that their treatment is equal," Gardiner said. "The study kind of sends a message that there's a tremendous unfairness. An F is a grade of failure, and I don't see us failing our athletes."
Oglethorpe, which competes in Division III and offers no athletic scholarships, has seven sports each for men and women, as well as equal budgets. The school is also trying to bring its male-female enrollment to 50-50.
"We've not had any complaints about adding sports," Gardiner said. "Our coaches are recruiting like crazy to fill the rosters for women."
Georgia Tech received its grade thanks to a predominantly male enrollment. The percentage of women at Tech is 27.7 percent, while its female athletic participation is 36.8 percent.
Said Lopiano, "They're discriminating against men."
Karen Rosen writes for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
