Title IX is Not Enough

Consider. Friday night, Fall, Appalachia. An expensive high school stadium is filled with local families and kids watching appallingly low quality football played by overly-glorified teenagers. Tuesday night, Spring, Appalachia. On a high school practice field in poor condition a couple of dozen family members watch a spirited girls’ soccer game, as bright and athletic kids try to learn while they play. Saturday afternoon, Fall, Appalachia. A very expensive college football stadium is filled with students and locals watching mediocre small-college football played by teams of C students earning combined athletic scholarships adding up to the hundreds of thousands. Saturday morning, Fall, Appalachia. A park with muddy trails, hills, and grassy fields. A few dozen spectators watch college students averaging A grades in majors such as sciences run hard in the brutal 3.1 mile women’s cross country race. Their athletic scholarships, per student, are only 1/5 of the level of the football team. The only reason the girls get to play any soccer, or the women run any cross country races is due to Title IX. Yet, it’s not enough. As long as we put a premium value on building expensive football stadiums for six low quality games a year, as long as we place a premium value on paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars for mediocre athletes and worse students, then other sports with better athletes and better students will always be shortchanged. Some of the other men’s sports coaches complain that their lack of resources is due to Title IX. I presume they feel we should sacrifice women’s sports before reducing football in order to spread resources around. This is the attitude: football is untouchable, while women’s sports are a necessary nuisance because of that annoying Title IX. Let me tell about some of these female nuisances. The ones draining resources from the mediocre football teams of mediocre students. The college student cross country runner. She’s a solid “A” student in sciences. She spends hours in the lab perfecting her skills, more hours - many hours - studying and pouring over textbooks trying to master her field. This young woman leads the team through their work outs in practice, setting an example by her work ethic. She sets an example at the races on Saturdays too. Always fiercely competitive, always determined, always battling the terrain and weather and other runners, and running FAST. However, virtually no one on campus knows. Instead, the attention goes to the football players and some other team sports, no matter how awful they are, no matter how much they get in trouble for partying, no matter how poor students they are. The high school soccer player. Again an outstanding student, and engaged in multiple extra-curricular activities. She never touched a soccer ball until she joined the high school varsity team. She works hard trying to learn in practice and learns surprisingly quickly. She learns while playing, whether it’s beating a similar team in a scrappy 2-1 game, or losing to an experienced team 0-5. By her second year she is learning to read the game, pass to space, position reasonably well, and beat opponents one on one. You realize that if she’d had the opportunity to start playing with the right coaching support just a couple of years earlier, then she would easily have become good college athlete material. But now it’s too little too late as she flies around beautifully, but still fumblingly, on a pitted, worn, and old field. Meanwhile the football players, and some other team sports, get all the resources and are the popular kids in school regardless of their mediocre grades, and lack of real athletic talent. Title IX is not enough. As long as we are addicted to glorifying mediocrity simply because it’s football (or basketball) we will always under-rate real talent. These girls, and yes boys too, need to be recognized for the great students and athletes that they are. We need to reward excellence, and reinforce success. That is the true spirit of Title IX. It’s the American way.