Quote of the Day

One can hope that our habit of equating

"old" with obsolete and "new" with

best will in time disappear.

Admiral Hyman Rickover

Quote of the Day

When one door closes another door opens;

but we so often look so long and so regretfully

upon the closed door, that we do not see

the ones which open for us.

Alexander Graham Bell

Quote of the Day

The hardest skill to acquire in this sport is the one

where you compete all out, give it all you have,

and you are still getting beat no matter what

you do. When you have the killer instinct

to fight through that, it is very special.

All great swimmers have that skill.

Eddie Reese

Quote of the Day

Alright, they're on our left, they're on our right,

they're in front of us, they're behind us...

they can't get away this time.

Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller

His Uncle Mike says...

...it'll pass anything but a gas station!

Deena Deardurff Schmidt Wins $1.45 Million

The former San Diego State swim coach reached a settlement with the university.

Schmidt declined to comment. An Olympic gold medalist in 1972, she filed suit in November 2007, alleging several years of mistreatment at the school, plus “unequal and inadequate” facilities, pay, practice times and administrative support during her tenure from 1994-2007. Schmidt claimed her chances of success as a coach were diminished when SDSU closed its old campus pool in 2000, forcing the team to train off-campus. Her swimming and diving program had finished last in the Mountain West Conference championships during her previous five seasons.

Her suit said she had fought to build a new pool. But after SDSU's new $12 million pool facility opened in March 2007, SDSU Athletic Director Jeff Schemmel told Schmidt in June 2007 that her contract wasn't being renewed. At the time, Schmidt was making $68,000 annually. She also was scheduled to undergo surgery for melanoma and previously had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Read more here.

Read an older post about the suit (from 2007) here.

Quote of the Day

No man is an island, entire of itself;

every man is a piece of the continent.

John Donne

Quote of the Day

If you want to inspire confidence, give plenty

of statistics. It does not matter that they

should be accurate, or even intelligible,

as long as there is enough of them.

Lewis Carroll

Propaganda Disguised as "Research"

Don't quit now, Title IX Reformers, we've got them on the run!!!

The latest bit of "research" put out by the Women's Sports Foundation is evidence that they're becoming desperate. The tide is turning. America is waking up. We're going to win this war yet, soldiers!!

Read their report here and the executive summary here.

I'd planned to pull "highlights" out of the report and shoot holes in them, but there are just too danged many. Where to start?

Here's one:

The substantial variation in participation trends across sports has altered the extent of racial and ethnic diversity within college athletics. For men, some of the largest participation growth occurred in football and track and field, two sports that contain some of the highest levels of racial and ethnic diversity.

Translation:

Getting rid of all those white-boy swimmers and wrestlers hasn't provided a single extra opportunity for women, but we'll count it as a plus because it looks like a racial balance issue.

We won't tell you that it actually skews the race numbers.

We've been saying that gender balance is achieved when the women athlete numbers match the women undergrad numbers. When it comes to race, though, we'd rather not use that same formula.

That sort of data would actually show a huge racial imbalance between our athlete and undergrad populations.

See how ridiculous their quota system is?

Check out their "major findings" below. Instead of me having all the fun ripping holes in this garbage, I'll let y'all take your own shots.

You'll find a few truths (like overspending in football/basketball and over-recruiting of foreigners in tennis have hurt sports like swimming, tennis, and wrestling) sprinkled in with a Pack-O-Lies.

Their idea of research was to find a few stats that make Title IX look less harmful than we know it's been. They managed to leave out the mountain of data that shows how the insane enforcement of Title IX has severely damaged sports like ours.

Major Findings:

1. All available data on intercollegiate athletic participation produce the same conclusion: Both men’s and women’s participation levels have increased over the last 25 years.

• Analyses of Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA) data and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) data demonstrate that men’s participation increased by around 6% between 1995-96 and 2004-05 and women’s participation increased by more than 20%.

• NCAA data, the only source of information for earlier years, indicate that similar trends occurred between 1981-82 and 1995-96. During this period, men’s participation slightly increased, while women’s participation grew at faster rates.

• In recent years, gains in women’s participation have slowed. NCAA data show that women’s participation increased annually by 3.6% between 1991-92 and 2001-02, but only by 1.5% between 2001-02 and 2004-05. As a result, the gap between men’s and women’s participation has not meaningfully narrowed since 2001-02.

2. Higher education institutions have responded to Title IX by increasing women’s participation rather than by decreasing men’s participation.

• Between 1992-93 and 2000-01, the period during which Title IX was most vigorously enforced, women’s participation increased annually by 4.5% and men’s participation increased annually by 0.3%. The corresponding figures are 2.5% and 0.2% for the periods 1981-82 to 1992-93 and 2000-01 to 2004-05. These findings indicate that the period containing the strongest enforcement of Title IX had substantially higher growth rates for women but did not contain substantially lower growth rates for men.

• The number of men’s wrestling teams fell by 36 between 1984-85 and 1987-88, one of the largest three-year declines in wrestling sponsorship. Because athletic programs were exempt from Title IX between 1984 and 1988, this finding suggests that Title IX is not the primary cause of the decline in wrestling sponsorship.

• Schools that were far from compliance with Title IX in 1995-96 were more likely to add women’s participants over the next nine years but were not more likely to drop men’s participants relative to schools closer to or in compliance (as measured by substantial proportionality).

3. Expenditures on intercollegiate athletics, especially for men’s basketball and football in Division I of the NCAA, have grown at unsustainable rates.

• Expenditure data collected under the EADA demonstrate that aggregate athletic expenditures increased annually by 7% between 1995-96 and 2004-05 after adjusting for inflation. Fulks (2008) found a similar rate of growth for the 2003-04 to 2005-06 period using NCAA data.

• While the overall rate of growth in athletic spending did not meaningfully differ by NCAA division, the growth rates for individual sports did. In Division I, the highest growth rates occurred in basketball and football, while in Divisions II and III, expenditure growth was more rapid in sports other than basketball and football.

• Because the scale of expenditures varies dramatically by NCAA division and sport, a comparison of growth rates can hide important differences. A 7% annual growth rate for the 1995-96 to 2004-05 period increased athletic expenditures per school by around $8.2 million in Division I, $1.2 million in Division II and $675,000 in Division III. Within Division I, a 7% annual growth rate increased expenditures in men’s football by approximately $2.45 million per team and increased the expenditures in women’s sports (other than basketball) by around $135,000 per team.

4. A variety of factors beyond Title IX and rapid athletic expenditure growth help explain why participation in certain sports (such as lacrosse and soccer) has grown steadily while participation in other sports (such as tennis, gymnastics and wrestling) has waned.

• In both men’s and women’s athletics, lacrosse experienced the largest percentage increase in high school participation between 1991-92 and 2004-05. Relative to most other athletes, lacrosse participants have stronger academic preparation and come from families with higher levels of income, traits that college presidents increasingly value.

• Tennis sponsorship has declined most rapidly in those NCAA divisions where international student-athletes are most prevalent. For example, men’s tennis sponsorship has remained steady in Division III (where only 2% of tennis participants are international) and has substantially dropped in Divisions I and II (where 20-25% of tennis participants are international).

• Over the last 15 years, gymnastics is the only sport to experience participation declines at the high school level. Gymnastics has higher injury rates than other sports at a time when health care costs are steadily rising.

5. While the early growth in women’s athletics favored those sports with the highest levels of racial and ethnic diversity, recent growth has favored women’s sports with less diversity. This latter shift has occurred because almost all NCAA schools already sponsor most of the sports with high participation by female athletes of color.

• Of the 10 sports that contain the largest percentages of athletes of color, five (basketball, volleyball, cross country, softball and tennis) are offered by more than 83% of NCAA institutions. Two other sports (indoor and outdoor track and field) are sponsored by 59-68% of NCAA schools.

• Of the 12 sports with the lowest levels of diversity, only one (soccer) is sponsored by more than 48% of NCAA schools.

• The implication of these sponsorship patterns for future participation growth is most severe for African-American female athletes because they are heavily segregated by sport; close to 68% participate in three sports: basketball, indoor track and field, and outdoor track and field. Available data indicate that the level of segregation for African-American female athletes did not change between 1999-2000 and 2005-06.

Wasn't that fun? Were you able to find the many flaws in their twisted "logic"?

I think every American with an ounce of common sense should be deeply offended by this report. The WSF obviously thinks the men and women of this country are ignorant enough to believe their "findings".

They should be ashamed of themselves!

CSC Issues National Appeal for “Common-Sense Reform” to Title IX

Read the petition here.

Sign the petition here.

See who signed here.

edited 9:13 p.m.:

Just read a great quote in a WSJ article on this WSF report:

"It sounds a lot like our study minus the accuracy," said Eric Pearson, chairman of the CSC, a coalition of athletes, coaches and parents pushing for Title IX overhaul.

Quote of the Day

If we're growing, we're always

going to be out of our comfort zone.

John Maxwell

Quote of the Day

For man, autumn is a time of harvest,

of gathering together. For nature, it is

a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.

Edwin Way Teale

Quote of the Day

American professional athletes are bilingual;

they speak English and profanity.

Gordie Howe

Quote of the Day

We were basically one and the same,

although Jim was just about perfect,

and, of course, I am perfect.

William Shatner

Quote of the Day

I never wanted to be famous.

I only wanted to be great.

Ray Charles

Quote of the Day

I'll promise to go easier on drinking and to

get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty

thousand dollars, or two-hundred

and fifty thousand dollars will I give

up women. They're too much fun.

Babe Ruth

Group Names

You've heard of group names like Barracuda, Shark, Piranha, etc.

I have some who don't get the concept of "even out the lanes".

When there are three or four in most lanes, they squeeze seven or eight into theirs.

I'm calling it my Sardine group.

Quote of the Day

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win

glorious triumphs even though checkered by

failure, than to rank with those poor spirits

who neither enjoy nor suffer much because

they live in the gray twilight that knows

neither victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt

Quote of the Day

There was a time when we expected

nothing of our children but obedience,

as opposed to the present, when we

expect everything of them but obedience.

Anatole Broyard

Quote of the Day

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able

to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Aristotle

Quote of the Day

The pessimist complains about the wind;

the optimist expects it to change;

the realist adjusts the sails.

William Arthur Ward

Quote of the Day

The best thing one can do when

it's raining is to let it rain.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Quote of the Day

The farther behind I leave the past, the

closer I am to forging my own character.

Isabelle Everhardt

Quote of the Day

I was not lying. I said things that

later on seemed to be untrue.

Richard M. Nixon

Quote of the Day

One day in retrospect the years of struggle

will strike you as the most beautiful.

Dr. Sigmund Freud

Quote of the Day

The cemetery is filled with indispensable men.

Charles de Gaulle

Quote of the Day

Chance makes our parents,

but choice makes our friends.

Jacques Delille

Quote of the Day

The man who complains about the way the ball

bounces is likely the one who dropped it.

Lou Holtz

Quote of the Day

The most beautiful experience we can have is the

mysterious...the fundamental emotion which

stands at the cradle of true art and true science.

Albert Einstein

Quote of the Day

My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither,

but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on

your plate - that's my philosophy.

Thornton Wilder

Quote of the Day

To achieve, you need thought...you have to know

what you are doing and that's real power.

Ayn Rand

Quote of the Day

Modern man thinks he loses something - time -

when he does not do things quickly. Yet

he does not know what to do with the

time he gains - except kill it.

Erich Fromm

56" Kingfish

Quote of the Day

Only the guy who isn't rowing

has time to rock the boat.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Quote of the Day

A teacher who is attempting to teach, without

inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn,

is hammering on a cold iron.

Horace Mann