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Title IX resurfaces in SMU athletics
Women athletes say they feel they face an uphill battle at the university

By Kerrie Smith
Contributing Writer
November 30, 2004

For Stacy, a student at SMU, rowing is one of the most important activities in her life. But she says that in the eyes of the school’s athletic administrators, it is little more than an afterthought.

“I know that my sport is not a spectator sport, it is not a revenue sport like basketball or football,” Stacy, a member of the school’s rowing team who asked not to be identified, said.

“At the same time we should be getting much more support from the athletic department like better equipment, uniforms, boathouse and regatta.”

Athletic administrators at SMU said Stacy is wrong. They said they do everything possible to promote all sports on campus from rowing to football.

“Our marketing staff is responsible for an SMU sports billboard in south Dallas that features men’s and women’s players,” Brad Sutton, assistant athletic director for media relations, said.

As for the athletics department’s position that it does everything possible to promote all SMU sports, Stacy said her own experience shows otherwise.SMU recruited Stacy in high school.

She was excited about the opportunity to be involved in college athletics. She knew that rowing would probably not be a primary sport, however, she was surprised at how little attention it got compared to men’s sports.

“I think the message being sent by the athletic department is that performance doesn’t matter,” Stacy said.

“More money keeps going into the losing football team while the rest of us get little attention.”

“This is absolutely not the case,” Sutton said.

SMU, like every other university in the country, is required to provide women with the same opportunities on the same playing field as men.A landmark law known as Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 bans sex discrimination in schools in academics or athletics. The NCAA is charged with enforcing the law with regards to college athletics.Tremendous progress is being made at SMU.

To maintain compliance with NCAA requirements, SMU plans to add a new women’s sport every two or three years. SMU added a women’s volleyball team in 1996, a female rowing team in 1999 and a women’s equestrian team in 2003.

But in the eyes of Stacy, SMU has a long way to go. Stacy said SMU should do more to promote her program, including helping the team with walk-on recruiting. Walk on recruiting allows women not recruited by the university, to try out for a spot on the team.

“Because we are a small school it is difficult for us to keep high numbers. We need help,” Stacy said.

“Our team struggles every year to recruit new members,” Stacy continued, “We put up flyers and hold meetings but we can only do so much.”

Women athletes face struggles off the field as well. In the spring, the athletic department cut the men’s track team that included several Olympic hopefuls and award-winning WAC athletes.

Several students and male athletes suggested that the team was eliminated because of SMU’s failure to meet Title IX regulations requiring more funding for women’s teams if the men’s track team were to remain.

It is very upsetting to Stacy and her teammates that some use Title IX as a scapegoat for cutting men’s programs like the track program that was eliminated last spring.

“It hurts us to know that people blame us for the elimination of men’s track,” Stacy said.

“We were as upset as the guys. It should be a slap in the face to Jim Copeland that some of these men went on to compete in the Olympics.”

She said the program was cut due to poor management by the athletic department.The athletic department declined to comment on this.

La Toya Greer, a sophomore corporate communications major, said Stacy’s larger concerns are valid.

“Equal rights are important for women, especially today,” Greer said.

“Female athletes deserve the same amount of respect as male athletes.”

“I think the rowers, equestrian and maybe even the volleyball teams are ignored, but not because they are a female team,” said Andrew Barnett, a senior engineering major.

“They are ignored because they are not big ticket events.”

Although Stacy believes there is more work to be done at SMU to improve women’s athletics, she and her teammates are proud to be members of SMU’s rowing team.

“On a whole the rowers are happy to be here,” Stacy said.

“We’re all here because we love it, not because of the money provided to our program or scholarships. Most of us are here on partial scholarships. Why else would we wake up at 5 a.m. to be on the lake to practice?”

“We train very hard, and we’re not asking for more support than other programs, just an equal amount.”

Sounds like "Stacey" needs to wander over to Starbucks and get a large double shot latte....get real, wake up..ROWING!!!...poor girls....SMU nedds to pump time / money / resources into fball and bball (which benefits the women hoopsters as well)..NOT rowing, for crying out loud...

Stacy needs to be grateful for what she has & be glad she's not a male discus thrower. Reading the article made it hard for one not to say, "geez..stop b*tching & go row."

I feel for the female athletes like "Stacy." She is basically just a warm body filling a government mandated quota. Without government mandated quotas, there would not be a women's rowing team at SMU. As to respect, Stacy, respect is earned, not "deserved." Stacy may have the largest inferiority complex on the campus and it is because her sport is nothing but a quota and not something that has truly been demanded by the student body,alumni, and spectators.

ponyte wrote:As to respect, Stacy, respect is earned, not "deserved." Stacy may have the largest inferiority complex on the campus and it is because her sport is nothing but a quota and not something that has truly been demanded by the student body,alumni, and spectators.

Ease up, "Stacy" did not say anything about respect--that was the other broad quoted in the story.

Cry me a river.

This b.s. is so far down the list it should not even be on it.

Next issue please.

This is typical of today's "journalism" - one malcontent makes a story.

ponyte wrote:I feel for the female athletes like "Stacy." ....

I do, too. On the other hand, I'd love to get more than $100,000 worth of education for free (if she's on a full ride), and if nobody came to see me do whatever it is that earned me that scholarship, I might wish I was a quarterback or a point guard or a midfielder, but I'd still be pretty thankful.

So the DC wrote that story based on the comments of one upset student-athlete who didn't want to be identified? When I worked at the DC, that story never would have been printed. If you can't get someone making claims to give their name(s), it greatly reduces the credibility of the charges being made.

1. Send friends to http://www.smu.edu/giving/search_fund_category.asp.

2. Tell them to click on the radio button under Athletics/Women's Sports/Rowing.

3. Get new stuff!

Stacy- Go away and take Title 9 with you. Why do you think it is blamed for the reduction in men's sports? Duh- Because it IS responsible!!!!!You are just another whiny girl. No one cares about girls sports. No one watches. No one pays to see them. No one watches on TV. The WNBA was a joke. Girls soccer on TV is a joke. Look at ratings and you will see that no one cares whether you win, lose or draw. Shut UP and Go Row.

Let me take the 'bleeding heart' position...With our unsuccessful FB & BB programs, it is tough to see so much money being dropped (although it is less than other colleges plow into their programs). I thought someone put it right however when you see that little funding is available to any of the other sports, not just women's programs. Interesting is the fact that SMU sponsors around 15 sports compared to Cal-Berkeley's 27 or Harvard's 37 sports. I also believe those programs are fully funded... We shouldn't blame women's sports nor the 'revenue' sports, but the inability to support athletics in general. How to do it; fundraising (sport specific),corporate sponsorships, and more school funding in general as is done by these other colleges.

Boston Pony wrote:Interesting is the fact that SMU sponsors around 15 sports compared to Cal-Berkeley's 27 or Harvard's 37 sports. I also believe those programs are fully funded...

Cal has state funding from a huge tax base. Harvard doesn't give athletic scholarships. If we removed scholarships from the athletic budget and all of our players were funding school through other means, we could afford a lot more sports and better fund the existing sports. But we can't compete without scholarships.

Let's give "Stacey" some slack. But, I disagree with the article because it was intellectually lazy. No facts, no research, no real insight. Weak journalism. The topic does deserve attention but not with antedotes.

The only tangible complaint in the article is the rowing team's difficulty in recruiting which is due to the rarity of the sport in Texas and a very large team roster, which is needed to fill all the boat and experience levels.

As a non-revenue sports guy, who has a daughter (equestrian) and son (lacrosse) competing in college, is it easy to blame and admire FB and BB, which do bring in the revenue, but require huge sums of money, resources and time.

At SMU and in Texas, FB is king and BB should be enhanced (e.g. rennovate Moody), but the loss of Men's Track should not have happened.

Title IX is a factor but not THE factor. FB has roster of 85+ men and an interpetation that equal participation must be honored means reducing men's numbers, adding female sports or, alternatively not computing FB in the numbers, due to its role as the primary revenue generator at most schools.

Women's sports deserve support, but it comes down to insufficient funds. The best of all worlds would be to add women sports to serve demand and needs while maintaining Men participanting in non-revenue sports. Any anger by FB fans is missplaced because FB doesn't lose in any scenario, but non-revenue men's sports do.

Funding can be reduced to WINNING in revenue sports of Men's FB and BB. Winning has always been just a secondary goal at SMU since 1989.