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  Posted By:
  hubman at 03/31/2008 10:59:11 AM
  Comment:
  As a High School Wrestling coach at a predominantly Black High school, that wrestled collegiately at an HBCU, I find it very disheartening today when I have talented and intelligent wrestlers looking at colleges, that I have only 1 HBCU in the country to reccomend (Delaware St). Coach Hughes, I definately see where your coming from. When you look at High school participation, wrestling as a sport has some of the highest numbers with some of the fewest scholarship oppurtunities.
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  Posted By:
  baywarrior707 at 03/14/2008 3:35:07 PM
  Comment:
  Although I do believe that the concern for getting black males into college is an important one I believe that using the fact that we (black men) are not in colleges at greater numbers should not take away from the fact that we need equal opportunities for male and female athletes. Secoundly, I do think it is important to get black men on campus by any means possible, but I believe that often when we focus on using sports as a way to get into college this takes away from the primary focus of college, producing well educated, and well rounded citizens.
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  Posted By:
  I.M. Wright at 03/13/2008 10:20:53 PM
  Comment:
  Equal Rights that have unequal results are shameful. Proportionality is the problem, with a lack of commom sense right behind.
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  Posted By:
  I.M. Wright at 03/13/2008 10:19:21 PM
  Comment:
  Equal rights that have unequal results are shameful. Proportionality is the problem and a lack of common sense is right behind.
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  Posted By:
  3tncaa.aa at 03/12/2008 3:34:34 PM
  Comment:
  I believe that the premise of this article is rather faulty. Rather than focusing on the sterotypical model of bringing in Black Men...ie...athletics, why not promote a new model, which focuses on scholarship.
  
  There are plenty of black football, basketball, track and field athletes out there.
  
  I believe the proportionality rule is a good thing. Are we expecting the 65% of women at Howard to now play cheerleader to the 35% of Black Men (who of course will be star athletes) in the hopes that by supporting their men they will bring more black men to Howard? Or do we expect those women to fully realize their own potential and have opportunities to play sports, participate in academic research, and become the future leaders of this world? I choose the latter.
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    Posted By:
    Wade.Hughes at 03/12/2008 7:11:37 PM
    Comment:
    As an ASIDE ??? ALL of my 2002 student-athletes have long since graduated from Howard University. In fact, half of them have since earned their Master and Doctorate degrees. What we are speaking about here is OPPORTUNITY not ability. Of course I don???t expect for woman to be ???cheerleaders??? but I don???t expect my fellow brethren to be either.
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  Posted By:
  ken at 03/12/2008 9:46:08 AM
  Comment:
  Coach,
  
  I hear your concerns, but I think that blaming Title IX for a reduction in men's athletic opportunities is misguided. Whenever I hear discussion of Title IX the focus is almost invariably on the proportionality requirement, but that is only one of three ways that schools can comply with Title IX. You say that the NCAA actively discourages schools from using the survey compliance component, but what about demonstrating a pattern of increasing opportunities for women to participate in athletics?
  
  Rather than depending on the fire and motivation of individual athletes to start club teams that would eventually become varsity sports, we need to come up with a structural, institutional solution that can deployed at any school. If a school created a "road map" for starting a new club and moving it to varsity status that could be something that would fulfill the requirement of increasing opportunities. You market that road map during freshman orientation, you create a club for frustrated high school athletes and get them in a room together with an administrator that show them the way to being competitive athletes again.
  
  In the US college rugby exists almost entirely outside of the NCAA structure, but if you go to their website they have every bit of information that an interested group of students needs to start a club at their school. THAT is the kind of institutional, structural solution we need to implement to work within the framework of Title IX. Rather than taking the lazy way out of adding up a few numbers and saying, "Oh well, wrestling has to go" wouldn't it be better if a coach whose sport was on the chopping block could go to the NCAA website and get information from their "club sport incubator" that would allow them to take steps to increase athletic opportunities for the women at their school?
  
  Finally, the real culprit when it comes to Title IX is football. D-1A schools get 85 football scholarships, if you just cut that number down to 60 there would be another 25 scholarships to give to other sports. Even if you gave 20 of those 25 to women's sports you could probably still save a wrestling or swimming program, maybe even both.
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    Posted By:
    hope at 03/12/2008 9:44:25 PM
    Comment:
    The premise of this article is dead on. Title IX is the problem, the enforcement of it "proportionality" that is all that is looked
    at. The other two prongs are given very little weight.Ladies should have all the opportunities afforded men in athletics, but
    it should not be at the expense of mens opportunities. Is that not discrimination, is that not what is suppose to be stopped.
    In our society today someone has to be made to pay for all the injustices of the past even those paying the bill did not write
    the check.
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    Posted By:
    Wade.Hughes at 03/12/2008 6:59:46 PM
    Comment:
    Ken;
    
    "Moving [teams] to varsity status" connotes TITLE IX compliance. Remember it is STILL a numbers game regardless of what structural and/or institutional solutions a school is able to deploy. In fact, in 2002 I offered with the backing of several business partners to FULLY FUND the wrestling program. Money and means were NOT the issue here. If the student-body mix is disproportionately female, the male athlete stands to bare the consequences.
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      Posted By:
      ken at 03/14/2008 9:57:06 AM
      Comment:
      Coach,
      
      Thanks for taking the time to respond to me, I really appreciate it. What's obvious to me in reading your initial piece and your replies is that the loss of Howard's wrestling program is something that has affected you deeply. Even if we have disagreements about who's to blame or what is to be done about this issue, it's important for people of good will to come together and work towards a solution.
      
      I'm still not convinced that football isn't the real culprit here, it takes up a disproportionate amount of resources and gets the most scholarships.
      
      Why is it so difficult to use either of the other prongs to comply with Title IX? It seems to me like Title IX compliance is only a numbers game if you allow it to become one.
      
      When you secured funding for the wrestling program, did you make any attempt to put together a position paper that showed how HU was increasing athletic opportunities for women? It doesn't take much in the way of funding to get a recent graduate or a grad student to put together twenty pages on any topic.
      
      Peace.
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    Posted By:
    Wade.Hughes at 03/12/2008 6:49:02 PM
    Comment:
    Ken;
    
    "Moving [teams] to varsity status" conotes TITLE IX compliance. It STILL a numbers game.