2B
Wednesday, August 19, 1992
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Inequity in sports: A matter of funding
By Anne Grego Special to the Kansan
Bob Frederick, KU athletic director,
turns his palms up helplessly when
asked about Kansas' compliance with
Title IX, the federal law that attempts
to put men's and women's sports on a
level playing field.
"I know what is right," Frederick said. "I've just got to find a way to do it. If funding were not an issue, I think we could get into compliance immediately."
If that sounds vaguely familiar, listen to what Clyde Walker, former Kansas athletic director, said in 1974 when Title IX first became a law: "My opposition is practical and not philosophical. I don't oppose the idea of a women's athletic program, and I would support it, as much as I can, as long as it doesn't cost us anything."
Now, 20 years after Title IX was signed, the University of Kansas still says it cannot afford to comply with the law.
Since Title IX's enactment, salaries for women's teams have risen, facilities have been improved and women athletes have more opportunities to compete with other teams.
How far is Kansas from complying? Last year, operating expenses for men's sports accounted for 82 percent of total operating expenses. Kansas also spends 85 percent of its recruitment budget for men's sports.
In 1912, Kansas women competed in 10 sports, mainly through a club. Now, 80 years later and two decades after the federal mandate to equalize sports, Kansas women compete in seven sports through the Athletic Department. Men also have seven sports.
College athletic departments across the country are saying that in these lean economic times they must either limit the size of men's squads and eliminate men's non-revenue sports or add women's sports and increase the size of the current squads to comply with Title IX's participation rate requirement.
Yet, Kansas has no plans to do any of these, Frederick said. And even strong supporters of women's athletics seem resigned to the status quo.
Title IX requires that the percentage of women athletes at a school equal the percentage of women students enrolled. At Kansas, 49.3 percent of the students are women, but only 31 percent of the athletes are women.
But evening out the numbers in big
time college athletics may hurt the very women whom the cuts are suppose to help.
Cutting the football squad would help Kansas lower the percentage of male athletes, thereby raising the percentage of women. Football has more than 100 players; no women's sport needs that many athletes.
But athletic administrators are not eager to cut the football squad or tinker with men's basketball. These sports bring in the dollars - dollars that are needed for women's sports as well as men's sports.
Football games alone are expected to bring in $1,594,000 this season. Football and basketball, along with related revenue like broadcasting rights, will generate more than 50 percent of the this year's projected revenues of about $10 million, according to the Kansas University Athletic Corporation budget.
Football and basketball support just about everything from the spirit squad to maintenance, said Susan Wachter, assistant athletic director in charge of business.
Support for capping the number of players on men's squads is building among athletic directors, but one group is not going to move without the others.
In football, Kansas is only going to do what everyone else in the conference is doing because it is so important to be competitive, Frederick said.
Before Kansas or any of the other Big Eight Conference schools make any changes, they are awaiting the results of a conference committee report on gender equity, Frederick said.
"My sense is that there will be some changes as a result of the Big Eight committee," he said.
Possible changes might be either to add existing women's club sports like crew and soccer into the department or to increase the squad sizes of the current department sports like track, said Frederick. Adding sports, he said, makes the most sense.
It would raise the number of women athletes.
But again, who would pay?
"We have to figure a way of how we're going to fund them," Frederick said.
If the department added sports, it would still have to maintain a line on costs to continue to operate in the black, he said.
Athletic Department is a private corporation. It receives no state funding. If it spends too much, the state will not bail it out.
Last year, the department made money, close to $625,000, although it lost $475,000 in fiscal year 1990. Wachter said. It made up the 1990 deficit through borrowing, repaying the money with last year's revenues, she said.
Unlike the rest of the University, the
To keep the department operating in the black, it has asked all the teams except football and men's and women's basketball to take 5 percent cuts in operating expenses for this year. Football and women's basketball will remain at last year's level, and the men's basketball team was the only one to see an increase in its operating budget.
That leaves cutting men's non-revenue sports, like golf, swimming, tennis and track, as the way Kansas may go.
With these numbers, it doesn't look like the department will be adding women's sports, women athletes or any other new program.
With no law such as Tide IX to protect these sports, their demise would solve two problems: It would reduce the number of male athletes, especially in sports that do not affect the bottom line, and it would cut the budget.
Frederick said he did not want to cut men's sports at Kansas, but the athletic board has discussed reducing or eliminating junior varsity basketball. No decision has been made at this time. Frederick said.
"The Kansas University Athletic Corporation is generally opposed to cutting programs," he said.
Wachter said that with Title IX, women's sports would not be cut. More likely, it will be men's non-revenue sports such as golf, track, tennis and swimming that could be cut, she said.
When California State University-Fullerton tried to eliminate women's volleyball and men's gymnastics because of budget problems, the volleyball coach took the school to court. This year the school will offer women's volleyball and soccer, said Mel Franks, California State University-Fullerton's assistant athletic director.
The Fullerton men still lost gymnastics and will not get another sport.
Gary Kempf, the men's and women's swim team coach, does not see anything positive coming out of cutting men's sports.
No one at Kansas has ever claimed women athletes are treated the same as male athletes, especially football and basketball players.
"If you start cutting men's sports, then the question is, 'Are the opportunities really equal?' " he said.
When recruiting players to Kansas for football and basketball teams, Kansas has to compete with other schools such as Michigan and UCLA, said R.D. Helt, recruiting coordinator for the football team.
Volleyball coach Frankie Abitz, one of Kansas two female head coaches, says she will only complain to the Athletic Department on unreasonable things.
"We want to be able to offer student athletes opportunities other institu-
"They've always adjusted," Albiz and of the department's reaction to change.
Frederick said that there had been few complaints filed with him recently. One of the more recent complaints was from women athletes that had to walk through a men's locker room to get to the training room this summer.
And why should anyone complain?
The coach who filed the lawsuit at California State-Fullerton was fired shortly after the lawsuit was settled
A complaint could lead to cuts in the football and basketball programs that could cost competitiveness. And winning teams bring in more money.
Washington State is considered by college administrators to have one of the best records of gender equity. This year, 47 percent of the athletes will be women, matching the student population.
Money should not be an excuse for not complying with Title IX, said Rod Commons, sports information director at Washington State University.
In 1987 the Washington Supreme Court ordered the school to provide women equal opportunities after a lawsuit was filed by women athletes. The state increased its financing of women's programs to help Washington meet the court order.
The university also increased support by paying for facility maintenance and student support services. Commons said.
Joan Cronan, women's athletic director at the University of Tennessee. Knoxville, said fund raising helped her program thrive. Tennessee has a separate women's athletic program with a separate staff to work only on women's athletics.
Kansas forward Angela Aycock drives in a NCAA tournament game.
Justin Knudd / KANSAN
Tennessee expects recruitment,
travel, supply and equipment budgets
for women's sports to equal their peer
men's sports this year, Cronan said.
Football does not have a peer.
In order to fund women's athletics, Tennessee sought donations specifically for women's teams. Last year the school raised close to $1 million dollars for women's programs. Tennessee is currently adding women's golf, and Cronan is approaching donors to endow the sport.
But Kansas relies on its donors to support football and basketball. Most of Kansas's $2.4 million in contributions in 1990-91 were the result of football and basketball support, Wachter said.
When Campaign Kansas solicited donations for the athletic program, it focused on raising funds specifically for the Williams Fund, which provides money for scholarships and for facilities like the Anschutz Sports
Pavilion construction, but not for specific sports, said John Scarfe, communications director for the Endowment Association.
But Cronan says she understands the difficulty of financial problems and gender equity.
We're looking at gender equity at the toughest of economic times, she said.
But even without economic problems, some supporters of women's athletics will not see many improvements. Elizabeth Banks, a professor of classics, who filed a complaint against the athletic department in the late 70's because of the inequalities in women's sports, said she does not expect changes in women's athletics soon.
"There's not going to be equity in intercollegiate athletics across the country or at this university in my lifetime," she said.
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