Mike_Edward
TMF Novice
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2002
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[Okay, just to lighten things up, I'm actually posting an article that has nothing to do with Iraq, US-European relations, or terrorism. 🙂]
Cutting Football Scholarships
Can Fix Some of Title IX Woes
By JOHN FEINSTEIN
AOL Exclusive
In the past month, millions of words have been spilled on the subject of Title IX, the Roe vs. Wade of the American sports landscape.
I make that analogy because the role of women in athletics seems to inspire the same sort of angry, no compromise positions that the subject of abortion produces -- although Title IX zealots, pro and con, have yet to cross the line from anger to violence.
Here's what most people who care deeply about Title IX seem unable to understand: this is not a black-and-white subject. No one is absolutely right or absolutely wrong. Those who scream that any changes in the law will destroy it are way over the line. Those who insist that the law is a pox that shouldn't exist are equally wrong.
Let's begin at the beginning.
Like most pieces of legislation, Title IX isn't perfect. It also happens to be one of the single most important laws ever passed, one that has changed the landscape of sports -- mostly for the good -- more than any single event of the last 100 years. It is The Emancipation Proclamation and the 19th amendment (women's voting rights) rolled into one. Without the law, there is absolutely no way that women's athletics would be anywhere close to where it is today.
The law's attackers have focused on the elimination of many men's sports, most notably wrestling and swimming, at numerous colleges and universities around the country. They point out that schools often create things like women's bowling or women's crew to meet Title IX quotas when, in fact, there is little evidence that the school needs those sports or that there are enough women seriously interested to create a competitive team.
Quotas are always dangerous and bound to lead to problems. But the real reason for the disappearance of so many men's teams has little to do with quotas and everything to do with money, which is always the root issue in any battle like this one. And, especially at the Division I and Division I-AA level, which is where most of the team attrition has taken place, the reason money is an issue has almost nothing to do with bowling or crew or badminton. It has everything to do with football.
This is where the screaming begins. Often it begins with morons like the state senator in Nebraska, who, in one of the great primal screams for attention, is proposing paying football players at Nebraska. I had the misfortune to hear this guy -- whose name I refuse to use because I won't give him the pleasure of seeing it here -- doing a radio interview a few days ago.
When the interviewer brought up the issue of scholarship costs and their value to a football player, Senator Moron replied that most big-time football players come from "disadvantaged" backgrounds and therefore didn't understand the value of an education. Therefore, he concluded, they should be paid in cash.
Oh my God. Who in the world pulled a lever for this person? Read between the lines just a little there and then give Trent Lott a call. If the day comes when athletes in the revenue-producing sports are paid, they should be paid out of a trust fund from which they collect on the day they graduate.
That money won't be an incentive to a first-round draft pick, but for the 99 percent of athletes who won't be instant millionaires, 10, 20 or 30 thousand dollars would be a nice graduation present.
I digress.
The point here is that far too much money is spent on football. One of the great myths in America today is that football carries the financial load at most big-time schools. Simply not true. There are probably between 30 and 40 schools that make money on football.
Most schools finance the majority of their athletic budgets with money from men's basketball. The reason for this is simple: the scholarship limit for men's basketball is 13; for football, 85. The difference in cost of 72 scholarships is mind-boggling.
And there's absolutely no reason for the difference to be that large. Football doesn't need 85 scholarships any more than basketball needs 25. Why so many? Two reasons: redshirting has now become an accepted part of big-time football and football coaches still wield huge power at most schools.
Virtually every football coach automatically redshirts his entire freshman class or, at the very least 90 percent of it. This is ludicrous. The term redshirt dates back to the days when the only way a player received a fifth year of eligibility was if he was injured and out for the season. When he did practice, he wore a redshirt to indicate that he shouldn't be subjected to contact.
Now, redshirting is considered as much a part of college football as the Notre Dame fight song, the coin toss and tailgating. (Basketball coaches, by the way, point out that one reason graduation rates are higher in football is that so many football players are around for a fifth year while very few basketball players are.)
The rules should be changed to allow redshirting only when there is a season-ending injury AND to allow players who have completed their four seasons of eligibility to stick around a fifth year on scholarship to graduate. The same rule should apply to basketball.
Then you cut the number of scholarships for football to 60. There's just no reason to have more than 60 players on scholarship, especially if you eliminate redshirts. Those in school for a fifth year who aren't playing would not count against the 60. Chances are, you would be talking no more than five players a year in that situation. So, you are paying for 65 scholarships instead of 60. The remainder of the team would be filled by walk-ons, many of whom would be good players who didn't qualify for scholarships because of the cutbacks.
At the same time, you eliminate those 60 scholarships from the current quota, which requires schools to fund as many women's scholarships as men's. With the money saved on those 20 to 25 football scholarships, most schools will have little trouble funding men's and women's non-revenue sports without adding bowling to meet a quota or allowing women to have 15 scholarship players in basketball while men have only 13. Thirteen is plenty -- actually 12 is plenty -- for both men and women.
There's no reason to go backward and have women "prove" interest in a sport as has been suggested. There's also no reason to continue to give in to football coaches, publicity-hound politicians or rich alumni who want all their money plowed into new football locker rooms with their names on them.
This is an area where the college presidents can actually make a difference if they choose to. All they have to do is get together as a group and say, "That's it, from now on none of us are funding more than 60 football scholarships and redshirting will go back to being what it was supposed to be in the first place."
Will that make Title IX perfect? Probably not.
Everything in the world needs tweaking and improving at times. But it would change the current landscape immeasurably and make it far more possible for schools to fund non-revenue teams for both men and women.
The football people would scream bloody murder for a while -- just as they did when the rules changed from unlimited scholarships to a limit of 105 once upon a time -- but eventually would make do with what they were given like the rest of the world does. Only having 60 scholarships would also cut way back on recruiting costs, which are sky-high at most football schools right now and make it more difficult for coaches to run off players who don't pan out -- a common practice.
The smart thing then, is to take this out of the hands of the Bush administration or of any commissions and do the sensible thing: step forward as Presidents, as alleged EDUCATORS and do the right thing for all students, not just for those who wear pads.
At the same time, they should also eliminate some of the politically correct silliness that goes on, especially in basketball where the notion that the women's programs -- 95 percent of them money losers -- should be treated exactly the same as the men's programs -- 95 percent of them the school's primary money MAKER -- is just plain silly.
Of course all of this would require common sense and cool heads. Thus far in the battle over Title IX there has been very little evidence that either exists.
John Feinstein's column appears every Tuesday, exclusively on AOL Sports.
John Feinstein's new book -- The Punch... One Moment, Two Men and The Night That Changed Basketball -- is in bookstores everywhere and also available online.
Cutting Football Scholarships
Can Fix Some of Title IX Woes
By JOHN FEINSTEIN
AOL Exclusive
In the past month, millions of words have been spilled on the subject of Title IX, the Roe vs. Wade of the American sports landscape.
I make that analogy because the role of women in athletics seems to inspire the same sort of angry, no compromise positions that the subject of abortion produces -- although Title IX zealots, pro and con, have yet to cross the line from anger to violence.
Here's what most people who care deeply about Title IX seem unable to understand: this is not a black-and-white subject. No one is absolutely right or absolutely wrong. Those who scream that any changes in the law will destroy it are way over the line. Those who insist that the law is a pox that shouldn't exist are equally wrong.
Let's begin at the beginning.
Like most pieces of legislation, Title IX isn't perfect. It also happens to be one of the single most important laws ever passed, one that has changed the landscape of sports -- mostly for the good -- more than any single event of the last 100 years. It is The Emancipation Proclamation and the 19th amendment (women's voting rights) rolled into one. Without the law, there is absolutely no way that women's athletics would be anywhere close to where it is today.
The law's attackers have focused on the elimination of many men's sports, most notably wrestling and swimming, at numerous colleges and universities around the country. They point out that schools often create things like women's bowling or women's crew to meet Title IX quotas when, in fact, there is little evidence that the school needs those sports or that there are enough women seriously interested to create a competitive team.
Quotas are always dangerous and bound to lead to problems. But the real reason for the disappearance of so many men's teams has little to do with quotas and everything to do with money, which is always the root issue in any battle like this one. And, especially at the Division I and Division I-AA level, which is where most of the team attrition has taken place, the reason money is an issue has almost nothing to do with bowling or crew or badminton. It has everything to do with football.
This is where the screaming begins. Often it begins with morons like the state senator in Nebraska, who, in one of the great primal screams for attention, is proposing paying football players at Nebraska. I had the misfortune to hear this guy -- whose name I refuse to use because I won't give him the pleasure of seeing it here -- doing a radio interview a few days ago.
When the interviewer brought up the issue of scholarship costs and their value to a football player, Senator Moron replied that most big-time football players come from "disadvantaged" backgrounds and therefore didn't understand the value of an education. Therefore, he concluded, they should be paid in cash.
Oh my God. Who in the world pulled a lever for this person? Read between the lines just a little there and then give Trent Lott a call. If the day comes when athletes in the revenue-producing sports are paid, they should be paid out of a trust fund from which they collect on the day they graduate.
That money won't be an incentive to a first-round draft pick, but for the 99 percent of athletes who won't be instant millionaires, 10, 20 or 30 thousand dollars would be a nice graduation present.
I digress.
The point here is that far too much money is spent on football. One of the great myths in America today is that football carries the financial load at most big-time schools. Simply not true. There are probably between 30 and 40 schools that make money on football.
Most schools finance the majority of their athletic budgets with money from men's basketball. The reason for this is simple: the scholarship limit for men's basketball is 13; for football, 85. The difference in cost of 72 scholarships is mind-boggling.
And there's absolutely no reason for the difference to be that large. Football doesn't need 85 scholarships any more than basketball needs 25. Why so many? Two reasons: redshirting has now become an accepted part of big-time football and football coaches still wield huge power at most schools.
Virtually every football coach automatically redshirts his entire freshman class or, at the very least 90 percent of it. This is ludicrous. The term redshirt dates back to the days when the only way a player received a fifth year of eligibility was if he was injured and out for the season. When he did practice, he wore a redshirt to indicate that he shouldn't be subjected to contact.
Now, redshirting is considered as much a part of college football as the Notre Dame fight song, the coin toss and tailgating. (Basketball coaches, by the way, point out that one reason graduation rates are higher in football is that so many football players are around for a fifth year while very few basketball players are.)
The rules should be changed to allow redshirting only when there is a season-ending injury AND to allow players who have completed their four seasons of eligibility to stick around a fifth year on scholarship to graduate. The same rule should apply to basketball.
Then you cut the number of scholarships for football to 60. There's just no reason to have more than 60 players on scholarship, especially if you eliminate redshirts. Those in school for a fifth year who aren't playing would not count against the 60. Chances are, you would be talking no more than five players a year in that situation. So, you are paying for 65 scholarships instead of 60. The remainder of the team would be filled by walk-ons, many of whom would be good players who didn't qualify for scholarships because of the cutbacks.
At the same time, you eliminate those 60 scholarships from the current quota, which requires schools to fund as many women's scholarships as men's. With the money saved on those 20 to 25 football scholarships, most schools will have little trouble funding men's and women's non-revenue sports without adding bowling to meet a quota or allowing women to have 15 scholarship players in basketball while men have only 13. Thirteen is plenty -- actually 12 is plenty -- for both men and women.
There's no reason to go backward and have women "prove" interest in a sport as has been suggested. There's also no reason to continue to give in to football coaches, publicity-hound politicians or rich alumni who want all their money plowed into new football locker rooms with their names on them.
This is an area where the college presidents can actually make a difference if they choose to. All they have to do is get together as a group and say, "That's it, from now on none of us are funding more than 60 football scholarships and redshirting will go back to being what it was supposed to be in the first place."
Will that make Title IX perfect? Probably not.
Everything in the world needs tweaking and improving at times. But it would change the current landscape immeasurably and make it far more possible for schools to fund non-revenue teams for both men and women.
The football people would scream bloody murder for a while -- just as they did when the rules changed from unlimited scholarships to a limit of 105 once upon a time -- but eventually would make do with what they were given like the rest of the world does. Only having 60 scholarships would also cut way back on recruiting costs, which are sky-high at most football schools right now and make it more difficult for coaches to run off players who don't pan out -- a common practice.
The smart thing then, is to take this out of the hands of the Bush administration or of any commissions and do the sensible thing: step forward as Presidents, as alleged EDUCATORS and do the right thing for all students, not just for those who wear pads.
At the same time, they should also eliminate some of the politically correct silliness that goes on, especially in basketball where the notion that the women's programs -- 95 percent of them money losers -- should be treated exactly the same as the men's programs -- 95 percent of them the school's primary money MAKER -- is just plain silly.
Of course all of this would require common sense and cool heads. Thus far in the battle over Title IX there has been very little evidence that either exists.
John Feinstein's column appears every Tuesday, exclusively on AOL Sports.
John Feinstein's new book -- The Punch... One Moment, Two Men and The Night That Changed Basketball -- is in bookstores everywhere and also available online.
