Men's sports feel pinch of compliance, budgets

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- For all that Title IX gender equality rules have given to women, there are hundreds of male athletes like swimmers Erik Wiken and Dustin Chalfant.

Wiken was competing for Nebraska and Chalfant for Kansas when they were told in the spring of 2001 that their programs were being cut to help balance budgets and to comply with Title IX, which prohibits any school or college that receives federal funding from discriminating based on sex in sports or academics.

The pair, who transferred to the University of Minnesota, remember tears and frustration and former teammates who weren't able to find new teams.

"It's kind of scary in a way because it could happen to anyone," said Chalfant of St. Louis.

Critics of the cuts say athletic directors are eliminating men's sports to come up with the money needed to run increasingly costly football and basketball programs. Women's sports often can't be touched because of Title IX, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this weekend.

Most universities honor the scholarships and students can transfer and continue competing.

Feeling the pinch

Three Big 12 schools cut a total of five men's sports in the 2000-01 school year. Kansas cut tennis and swimming and diving, Nebraska eliminated swimming and diving, and Iowa State dropped baseball and swimming and diving. Missouri cut men's tennis in 1998.

The cuts left only three men's swimming and diving programs in the conference.

The Big 12 follows a national trend. Since it formed in 1996, it has added 23 women's sports but only dropped men's sports.

The Independent Women's Forum, a think tank based in Arlington, Va., says 350 men's teams have been eliminated between 1993 and 1999.

"It's distressing any time we lose sports opportunities," said Big 12 Commissioner Kevin Weiberg. "We like to see our universities have as many varsity sports as anyone in the country, but we realize practical financial concerns in doing so."

Weiberg said the conference will distribute a record $80 million to its members in the 2001-02 school year, up from the $25 million in the last year of the Big Eight Conference.

But he said all the revenue is being reinvested into athletic programs, either in facility improvements or to pay salaries for successful coaches.

A healthy marketplace

"The marketplace environment is alive and well as it relates to head coaches, and I don't see it likely to change."

Federal regulations say schools can comply with Title IX by showing that opportunities for women are "substantially proportionate" to their enrollment, that opportunities correspond to the level of students' interest, or that new teams are being added. A 1996 clarification of the rules said, in part, that actual athletes would be counted rather than simply spots allotted to teams.

Organizations representing men's non-revenue producing sports have banded together to lobby Congress and educate coaches.

And in January, the National Wrestling Coaches Association sued the U.S. Education Department, asking a federal court in Washington D.C. to force the department to write new rules defining compliance with Title IX as providing opportunities for female athletes based on interest instead of enrollment.

But Title IX shouldn't take the blame for the men's sports cuts, said Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation in East Meadow, N.Y.

Blame lies with a financial "arms race" among large football and basketball programs, she said.

"It's a shame swimming and diving is being dropped, but they're pointing their finger in the wrong direction when they point at women's sports," Lopiano said. "If it weren't for Title IX, women's sports would be dropped as quickly as men's to fuel the arms race."