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Bless Bucknell Wrestling Donor - But...
By Leo Kocher
Many of you no doubt saw the Bucknell University
press release here on InterMat announcing that the school was going to bring
back wrestling (http://www.intermatwrestle.com/college/bucknell.asp).
The University decided to reinstate the program when 1962 wrestling alum Bill
Graham made a 5.6 million dollar donation to the Bucknell Athletic Department,
one half of which according to the press release will support women’s sports
programs. The school dropped wrestling a couple of years ago because of the
federal government’s misinterpretation of Title IX – a law originally passed to
prevent discrimination which has been morphed into a gender quota by a
radicalized Department of Education. Because of these quotas - instead of
preventing sex discrimination Title IX now virtually guarantees it.
The fact that Mr. Graham is willing to part with that kind of money says
something very good about Mr. Graham. He is motivated probably in large part by
a love and appreciation for the developmental aspects of wrestling and the fact
that the sport played a big role in his life.
But Bucknell wrestling should not have been in the position of needing to find a
multi-million dollar donation to survive in the first place. Was any other
sport asked to shoulder that burden? Given that Pennsylvania is the greatest
high school wrestling state in the US the last sports program any PA college
should drop is wrestling. In the US for every women’s NCAA soccer team there
are 10.6 high school girls soccer programs. For every NCAA wrestling team there
are 43 high school wrestling teams. In the sport of rowing, one of the sports
benefiting from the money extorted from – um, I mean donated by - Mr. Graham,
there are 141 NCAA women’s teams and 95 high school teams. In an age where
colleges receive massive amounts of tax-payer dollars (and wrestling parents pay
taxes like everyone else) how in the world is this fair? It truly defies common
sense.
One has to wonder:
1) How can Bucknell sponsor a dance program which appears to be 80%+ women
– and at the same time tell costless walk-on male athletes to clean out their
locker because of squad caps? Answer: Because there is a senseless gender quota
for sport but not for dance.
2) The Bucknell press release says part of Graham’s gift will go to
enhancing the women’s novice level crew team. Is Mr. Graham aware that
institutional members of the Big Ten and the Ivy League have been told
specifically that non-varsity levels of women’s teams (such as JV or novice) do
not count toward fulfilling the gender quota that is now Title IX? In other
words these JV teams do not figure into the all-important proportionality
standard – and do not mitigate the gender quota that caused Bucknell wrestling
to be dropped in the first place.
3) Is Mr. Graham aware that Notre Dame University also received a large
donation from an alum wrestler to endow the future of its wrestling team – and
that shortly after his death the money was shifted to another sports program and
wrestling was dropped?
Bless Mr. Graham. There is one more wrestling team than there would be without
his caring. But the fact of the matter is that quotas are ravaging the
collegiate athletics world and are poised to do the same in high schools. Mr.
Graham has constructed a bubble around Bucknell wrestling that may allow it to
survive – but now that males have dropped down to being only 44% of college
students (no call for quotas there) makes it likely the proportionality virus
will decimate most Olympic male sports before it runs its course.
Paying $200,000 per wrestler is not a viable solution to the strict body-count
quota that plagues all collegiate male sports teams. There are 6000 wrestlers
alone in the NCAA. No amount of money is going to buy fair treatment for
endangered male athletes.
The solution to all this is a matter of getting the simple truth out in the
court of public opinion. When they are presented with the accurate information
the vast majority of US citizens favor a more sane and fair interpretation of
Title IX. This fact is all that the endangered male athletes have – and all
that they need.
There is one organization which is incredibly well-positioned to get the facts
out to the general public. It is called the College Sports Council (http://www.savingsports.org)
and has the savviest, most dedicated, and experienced volunteers and
professionals that there are (full disclosure: I am Board President of the CSC).
For less than 10% of what Mr. Graham donated to Bucknell the CSC will be able
to launch a 5 year campaign –primarily legal, media, and public relations. This
will realistically save thousands of male teams from being dropped for quotas -
and stop those who are waging the “war against boys” from using the power of the
federal government to do it.
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