college athletics and equality of opportunity for women

  research paper by Michael Lancaster

The most storied athletic University in the United States, UCLA has also been affected by Title IX laws.  UCLA has won more NCAA national champions than any other University.  At UCLA, 85 student-athletes are offered scholarships in football; the nearest women's equivalent is rowing, a recently added program which offers 20 scholarships to be divided among team members (DeCrow 1988).

Today, if you compare women's programs to men's programs, the trend is clear: the women's basketball program is allotted 15 scholarships, men's, 13; women's tennis is allotted 8 scholarships, men's, 4.5; women's water polo offers 8 scholarships, while 4.5 are divided among the men.   Basically because UCLA supports a football program there other male sports must now suffer in order to keep the football program at athlete capacity.  The catch is that football also brings in the most revenue among college sports and actually provides funding for other University sports. (Hoornstra 2002)

Many other universities face a dilemma when economic reality and Title IX collide head-on.  A football program in order to be successful must have a large roster, a roster that is proportionately much larger than any other sport.  Under NCAA D1 laws a University must offer at least 65 full scholarships and no more than 85 scholarships for a team to be compliant with NCAA D1 rules.  There is no women’s sport that even comes close to the number of scholarships required for football.  As a result sports with little or no revenue are being cut (Bodnar 1985). 

There is no women's sport to balance the large numbers required for football, which allows a maximum of 85 scholarships at the Division I-A level. The women's sport with the largest scholarship allotment is ice hockey with 18, but only 23 Division I schools had that sport in 1999-2000 (Bodnar 1985).

At James Madison University, athletic director Jeff Bourne said football games bring alumni - and their wallets - back to campus more than any other event.  The football team, along with men's and women's basketball, also gives the school national coverage and exposure. This justifies spending more on travel, scholarships and facilities for these teams, he said. Low revenue sports will always be cut before anyone talks about cutting football or basketball. (Hannon 2003)