12-03-2021, 12:30 PM
Isn't the elephant in the room here football? Basically every other NCAA sport (except wrestling) has men's and women's equivalents. If you subtract football and its 70-90 scholarships, you could save a men's tennis team, wrestling team, gymnastics team, and swimming team right there, probably with many athletes to spare.
So alternatively, I guess the question is: if you want to save football instead of all those other sports, what's a sport that requires a lot of personnel that would be of interest to women? The closest I can think of is crew, since you can (wo)man a lot of boats. Indeed, during my time on the Farm, I was of the impression that the women's crew team was one of the few teams you could walk onto as a frosh and end up with a scholarship by the end of your senior year, because it was one of the offset sports for football, and it didn't require a whole lot of intrinsic skill or years of training. (Maybe that's changed?)
One other thing to note, too: until roughly my generation (late Gen X, early millennial), it was not common for girls to grow up playing school sports at the same rate as boys. Beginning in the late 70s and early 80s, girls sports exploded. It's natural that those sports would be growth areas for colleges. While I agree, to some extent, it's unfortunate it comes at the expense of some men's sports, I do think we should keep in mind how much football is the cause of a lot of these disparities.
So alternatively, I guess the question is: if you want to save football instead of all those other sports, what's a sport that requires a lot of personnel that would be of interest to women? The closest I can think of is crew, since you can (wo)man a lot of boats. Indeed, during my time on the Farm, I was of the impression that the women's crew team was one of the few teams you could walk onto as a frosh and end up with a scholarship by the end of your senior year, because it was one of the offset sports for football, and it didn't require a whole lot of intrinsic skill or years of training. (Maybe that's changed?)
One other thing to note, too: until roughly my generation (late Gen X, early millennial), it was not common for girls to grow up playing school sports at the same rate as boys. Beginning in the late 70s and early 80s, girls sports exploded. It's natural that those sports would be growth areas for colleges. While I agree, to some extent, it's unfortunate it comes at the expense of some men's sports, I do think we should keep in mind how much football is the cause of a lot of these disparities.