The Chronicle of Higher Education
Date: December 2, 1992

Donna A. Lopiano, Colleges Can Achieve Equity in Sports

Envision a cartoon: A flock of glistening geese with beer bellies and sporting football helmets is flying across the sky. One in their midst is diving toward earth with a smoking tail, apparently the victim of hunters on the ground. Staring up at the dying goose are two amazed women clad in basketball uniforms, shotguns raised to the sky. One player turns to the other and says, "How could that happen? We were only shooting blanks!"

Indeed, women coaches and athletes feel they have been "shooting blanks" thus far in their push to win a fairer share of college athletic budgets. Women today make up less than 33 per cent of all college athletes and receive 33 per cent of all scholarship dollars, 24 per cent of overall sports operating budgets, and 18 per cent of recruiting budgets. Yet male coaches, paranoid over the possibility of having to cut college football budgets to finance equal opportunity for women in sports, say accusingly: "If it weren't for them, we wouldn't need to cut back on football scholarships. If we weaken the golden goose of football, which supports all men's and women's non-revenue-producing sports, we'll end up with no athletic program!"

Rather than believe such inflammatory rhetoric, let's take a clear and rational look at the facts:

• Fact: At about 93 per cent of all institutions that belong to the National Collegiate Athletic Association, football does not pay for women's sports. It does not even pay for itself.
• Fact: Among the supposedly lucrative big-time football programs in the NCAA's Division I-A, 45 per cent are running deficits averaging around $638,000 annually.
• Fact: Ninety-four per cent of Division I-A football programs are running deficits averaging $535,000 per year.
• Fact: Thirty-four per cent of all Division I-A men's basketball programs run annual deficits averaging $250,000.
• Fact: Seventy-four per cent of all other Division I men's basketball programs run annual deficits of close to $200,000.

There are no golden geese. There are only fat geese eating the food that could nourish more athletic opportunities for women. Intercollegiate men's football and basketball programs have fallen victim to excess. They have engaged in a spending war that has resulted in country-club-style locker rooms, indoor football-practice facilities (for an outdoor sport whose athletes are allowed to practice only from August to December and for 15 days in the spring), expensive videotape production and editing facilities, first-class hotel accommodations on the night before home football games, and elaborate team-meeting facilities and training tables.

Football and basketball coaches and their athletics directors spend much of their off-season time playing golf in the very best clubs, doing "business" with alumni. Our best football and basketball coaches get double or triple the salaries of college presidents and Nobel Prize winners, and their assistant coaches receive more than a university's best teachers.

The newest chapter in this competition is ironic. When Congress adopted the Student Right-To-Know Act in 1990, a lot of big-time football and basketball programs were embarrassed over having to report graduation rates for their players far below those of other sports and of the general student body. Athletics departments began building "academic centers" for student athletes, which provide free tutors, magnificent computer facilities, and plush study quarters, while the libraries of the general university are cutting back on book purchases and basic services. Athletics directors and college presidents now boast of having the finest academic-support programs for their football teams, even though the players make up a small fraction of the total student body.

Recent pressure by women coaches and athletes for equal opportunity for female athletes has not created a financial catastrophe. Rather, it has been a catalyst that has focused public attention on the financial and other excesses of the men's athletics establishment. Despite the fact that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 mandated that all high schools and colleges provide equal opportunity for male and female athletes by 1978, our educational institutions clearly have ignored that law.

Tired of their institutions' non-compliance with Title IX, some female athletes are filing lawsuits demanding better treatment. Unless institutions want to give precious dollars to lawyers instead of using them to provide opportunities for young athletes, we must begin a more considered approach to creating gender equity -- equal numbers of men and women competing. Although Title IX does not require that equal amounts of money be spent on men's and women's teams, because some sports are more expensive than others, women make up more than 50 per cent of the student body at most institutions and they should make up half of a college's athletes and receive half of the scholarship dollars.

Unfortunately, especially in these difficult financial times, most institutions do not have the money to increase athletic participation by 33 per cent in order to give women equal competitive opportunities. Since that easy solution does not exist, we must begin with a philosophy of what is important. No one wants to eliminate opportunities for men to participate in sports so that more women may compete. We may have to, but it should be the last step. Thus, I believe that those involved in and interested in college sports should:

• * Work to maximize fund raising, commercial sponsorship, and gate receipts in all college sports. The failure to make women's sports revenue producing is no longer acceptable. Despite the persistent attitude among athletics directors (84 per cent of whom are male) that women's sports cannot produce revenue, a 1990 NCAA study found that at least 13 women's programs in Division I take in $1.3-million or more per year and twice that number earn $450,000 or more.
  
  Even if some sports have limited opportunities to draw spectators, all sports hold real possibilities for generating revenue. Alumni giving, booster groups, proceeds from summer camps, and other avenues must be explored. Often, it is much easier to endow a scholarship program for tennis or golf through major gifts than it is for those sports to earn gate receipts. Good business demands that we no longer depend just on football and basketball to raise money.
  
• Reduce administrative and other expenses that do not directly benefit student-athletes. Over the past 10 years, athletics budgets have grown at a pace double and triple that of inflation. Since personnel costs are the No. 1 expense in collegiate athletics, we must follow the example of private industry when faced with declining profits: We must pare down expensive staffs and create a lean and mean infrastructure. The NCAA has taken a first step by putting a cap on coaching positions.
  
  We must go further. Recruiting budgets of half a million dollars or more must be cut. Although some steps have been taken in recent years to reduce recruiting expenses, college presidents, with the help of the NCAA, must sign "disarmament treaties" to rein in expensive recruiting battles for high-school stars. If we eliminate the labor- and time-intensive off-campus recruiting system and institute a recruiting system based on student visits to campus, we will be able to avoid budget cuts in many sports.
  
  Presidents also must stop the race to build grander locker rooms, weight rooms, practice facilities, and academic centers for athletes. The NCAA cannot begin to de sign legislation to halt this game, but it can be done at the conference level.
  
• Reduce the unnecessarily posh standard of living of athletes and coaches in big-time sports programs. Do we really need to keep the football team in a hotel the night before a Saturday home game and provide each athlete with a $25 dinner and $15 breakfast? Do we really need magnificent computer centers and study facilities reserved just for athletes?
  
• Reduce the size of squads, rather than eliminating particular sports, if we have to eliminate some opportunities for men to compete. Will trimming football teams to 80 or 90 players kill the "golden goose"? No. The goose will be sleeker and quicker and make more money. Right now, most major athletic conferences limit squads for away games to 65 players, anyway.
  
• Avoid, if we must pare scholarship budgets, cutting the number of athletes we help. We should allow all sports to divide the maximum number of scholarships allowed among any number of players, instead of the current practice in many sports of providing "full ride" scholarships for a smaller number.
  
  Cutting football scholarships from 95 to 50 or 60 grants in Division I, spread among any number of athletes, would release enough scholarships to support two or three new women's teams. On each team, the best athletes would still receive full scholarships. Lesser-skilled athletes would receive partial grants. This is preferable to the current system, in which the 95th player on a football team (that plays no more than 50 players per game) receives a full grant. We simply cannot afford that luxury in this economic climate and when gender equity has not been realized.

Sports administrators have not embraced the solutions that I've outlined, and college presidents have been unwilling to tell them to comply with Title IX. Worse yet, the U.S. Office for Civil Rights has not actively enforced the law. It is possible, however, for parents, players, and coaches to find satisfaction through the courts. In every case that I know of that has been filed on behalf of female athletes, the players have won or the case has been settled out of court in favor of the players.

Few lawsuits have been filed in the past, though, because the coaches of women's teams -- the people who really understand how unfairly their programs are being treated -- have feared for their jobs and their futures if they took their bosses to court. Further, female athletes and their parents often have not understood their rights under the law. And even parents of players who do know the law have feared that their daughters would suffer retribution if they sued their institutions.

Athletics administrators have been very reluctant to provide equity for women athletes because they do not wish to take athletic opportunities away from young men and give them to young women. Apparently, they still believe that it is a "right" for males to play sports and a "privilege" for women.

Our aspirations for our youths should not be different based on their sex. The chance to participate and the valuable lessons that sports provide are equally important for men and women. It is time for higher education finally to demonstrate its commitment to gender equity in sports. We can overcome the financial obstacles if we are truly determined to do so.