Title IX: Good, Good, but..., or Bad

[Jonny Utah]

Jonny,

I disagree with much of your previous post re: basketball, but even if that's all true, you can't generalize that to most of the other Olympic sports.  You can play basketball at any playground with a ball and a net - as you've alluded, kids can practically teach themselves the game from what they see on TV. 

Where are you going to learn to pole vault?  Swim the butterfly?  What about team sports like field hockey and volleyball?  Again - without continuation of these sports at the high school and collegiate level - who is ever going to play them?  Sure, not every high school field-hockey player makes the Olympic team, but if you got rid of high-school field hockey then you would dilute the available pool of talent so badly that we'd struggle to even field a team in a few decades.

Yes, in some sports the skills are developed at an early age, but high-school sports are a key part of the overall culture that even encourages children to pursue sports from their childhood.  This might be just me, but I really believe that in the absence of high school sports, you'd see a lot fewer children out there playing sports.  The reason that I started playing football as a little kid wasn't because I dreamed of NFL millions - it was because my dad took me to our high school's games and I thought the guys were just the coolest thing around (so big, so tough, so fast!).  Many kids play sports because of what they see on TV, but many more play because their parents want to get them involved in some activities or becuase their friends do, or because it's just a cool thing to do in high school.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying we should eliminate high school or college sports.  I coach high school football and it is one of the best things I have ever done in my life.  I love it.  But how did we start these systems in the first place?  Wasn't it because of the interest?

One of the guys I coach football with is also the girls freshman basketball coach at the same high school.  The level of athleticism is horrible this year.  These girls have put in 1/100th of the basketball hours that their male counterparts have (playground time).  And I'm not talking about a place where girls or womens sports aren't important.  The girls basketball program has been decent and has had 4 division one scholarship players in the last 10 years.  But those girls simply haven't put in the time they boys have in that sport, regardless of the leagues that have been set up for both, which is pretty equal.

Again, its hard for me to put these thoughts into words, but theres something there.

[smedindy]

Again, I think that's for your singular area, Jonny. Not the entire country as a whole.

Once again, playground time isn't there. It's not there for suburbia.

And some times, in high schools, without school choice, some classes just are horrible. Happens everywhere.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Again, I think that's for your singular area, Jonny. Not the entire country as a whole.

Once again, playground time isn't there. It's not there for suburbia.

And some times, in high schools, without school choice, some classes just are horrible. Happens everywhere.

Amen to that!  My older son coaches freshmen girls soccer at a local high school.  He has had freshman classes where 7-8 girls were grabbed away by the varsity coach; he has also had classes where less than 11 girls (the size of a soccer team) even knew the rules of soccer!

[Jonny Utah]

Again, I think that's for your singular area, Jonny. Not the entire country as a whole.

Once again, playground time isn't there. It's not there for suburbia.

And some times, in high schools, without school choice, some classes just are horrible. Happens everywhere.

It's not just playground time. Its also about spending time getting better at what you,like to do.  Weightrooms, backyards, open gym, after school gyms, golf cources, pond hockey, wallball for lacrosse, open swim at the local pool, any tennis court in the USA.

Did labron james become labron james because of organized leagues?  How about Andrew luck?  How many off field practices did luck have with friends growing up?  why are Canadians so good,at hockey? 

Again, I'm talking about the best of the best, which is what college sports should be.

[Knightstalker]

Side note, the stalkerettes basketball team lost 14-5, the stalkerette is the leading scorer on her team with 3 points, one field goal and a foul shot.  I love that they keep score at this level here, I have seen too many 3rd and 4th grade teams where they don't keep score.  Not bad for team where only about 3 of the ten players has ever played a game before.  They had fun and hustled and tried hard, can't ask for more at this level.  Yes I am a proud dad at the moment.

[smedindy]

Chicken and egg, Utes. Chicken and egg.

In order to get people interested, you have to have programs for them to be interested in. Remember, the boys have up to 100 years of a head start. Culture has changed. Even the pond hockey culture has changed.

And now there are camps, AAU teams, organized drills, etc. In most of the country, you don't get noticed playing in the playground - you get noticed at camps and on AAU teams and summer teams. So the girls do that, they don't GO to the playground. That's done.

Is college sports also 'the best of the best'? I've heard of plenty of kids that decided to play sports in college that didn't play in high school because of various reasons. Yes, a great number of kids, even at the most moribund D-3 programs, were pretty decent players in high school. But I've seen several players who average low digits in high school basketball shine in college.

[AO]

Chicken and egg, Utes. Chicken and egg.

In order to get people interested, you have to have programs for them to be interested in. Remember, the boys have up to 100 years of a head start. Culture has changed. Even the pond hockey culture has changed.

And now there are camps, AAU teams, organized drills, etc. In most of the country, you don't get noticed playing in the playground - you get noticed at camps and on AAU teams and summer teams. So the girls do that, they don't GO to the playground. That's done.

Is college sports also 'the best of the best'? I've heard of plenty of kids that decided to play sports in college that didn't play in high school because of various reasons. Yes, a great number of kids, even at the most moribund D-3 programs, were pretty decent players in high school. But I've seen several players who average low digits in high school basketball shine in college.

The boys have those camps and AAU teams as well as going to the playground.  Title IX didn't start those camps and it won't kill those camps.  Boys and girls are not equal in regards to interest in sports.  Maybe someday boys won't be as interested, I don't know....but advocating that we should just assume that the same level of interest exists between boys and girls at every school   is folly.  More local control leads to better experiences for each student.  Perhaps an intermediate goal would be a reform that mandates a minimum set of women's sports be provided while not restricting the maximum number of male or female athletes.

[Gregory Sager]

What was his point? That I have a certain bad attitude? What attitude might that be, and where have I expressed it?

I don't think that was his point either.  You are right in what you said, and Mr. Ypsi was just pointing out that politics isn't always a bad thing.

I don't want to put words in his mouth, but that is the way I understood it.

Thanks - you've gotten it.

Emma, no, I do not think society would NOW revert to slavery or child labor.  But it was politics, not the marketplace, which eliminated those disgraces.

As I expressed earlier, I am agnostic as to whether or not Title IX is STILL necessary.  But I am absolutely convinced that it was necessary to getting women's sports opportunities in the first place.

But Mr Ypsi, politics is supposed to represent the will of the people.
Perhaps politics pushed the agenda front and center at some point, but at the end of the day it's still the desire of the people. Greater collegiate sports offerings for women would continue without Title IX because the demand exists for it.
That's not to say that everything would be perfect and "equal" to everyone's liking, but it would work.

Full disclosure- I have two sons and a daughter. My daughter is far more involved in her sport and dreams of playing college volleyball. If the school of her choice didn't offer volleyball for whatever reason, we would find one that does- I surely wouldn't demand political action to force her first choice.

Emma politics is not always about the will of the people, not in the United States anyway.  We have a Constitution here, and the constitution has protections for various freedoms, groups of peoples, and ideas.  These protections should stand firm regardless of what the majority of the people want.

The U.S. Constitution has no protection for "groups of people" -- it protects everybody, individual by individual, and it does so in a manner that supersedes any specific group identities. That's what the Fifteenth Amendment is all about. The only discrete groups that are mentioned in the Constitution are the specific classes of citizens who are eligible for certain federal offices (e.g., only native-born citizens over the age of 35 who have had 14 years of residence in the U.S. can be elected president). Also, the Constitution does not protect ideas. It protects the right to hold ideas, and to express ideas, not the ideas themselves. As to whether those ideas live or die, that's up to your powers of persuasion.

[Ron Boerger]

What is your take on Title IX?

Good
    - 7 (30.4%)
Good, but ...
    - 13 (56.5%)
Bad
    - 3 (13%)
What is Title IX?
    - 0 (0%)

[Ralph Turner]

Ralph, were they sanctioned state tournaments for girls back in the 60's or were they loosely organized?

Also, was it actual hoops or the 6-player hybrid?

It was official,  by that I mean University Interscholastic League, but it was 3 & 3.

[Ralph Turner]

The olympics issue ...

Wilma Rudolph and Wyomia Tyus were winning Olympic gold long before Title IX!

[frank uible]

Don't forget Babe Didrikson.

[smedindy]

But they were atypical of the normal opportunities for girls and women of their time.

[AO]

But they were atypical of the normal opportunities for girls and women of their time.

Perhaps they were also atypical of girls' interest in sports at that time?

[smedindy]

Women (not girls) had much different societal norms to follow back then - and it took 'radical feminists' to change it. I'd contend it was society as a whole that curtailed opportunity, not interest. When you have TV shows, movies, radio, churches, newspapers, etc. contending that women stay home and cook, clean and host cotillions, then there will be no 'interest' in sports because they're weren't allowed to have any interests.

And yes I realize there were some girls sports teams around but they were looked at as curiosities or time-fillers. Only a brazen few had athletics careers.