Wednesday, February 9, 2011

“Fate of five sports at Cal may be announced Thursday” plus 1 more

“Fate of five sports at Cal may be announced Thursday” plus 1 more

Fate of five sports at Cal may be announced Thursday

Posted: 09 Feb 2011 08:48 PM PST

Cal officials are expected to announce Thursday the fate of five sports slated to end after this school year as part of an effort to save the athletic department $4 million annually.

At stake are the futures of baseball, rugby, men's and women's gymnastics, and women's lacrosse, which the school announced in September would be cut.

Their fates depend on a complex group of factors such as gender-equity requirements and whether eliminating specific programs could jeopardize private donor pledges.

Coaches and supporters contacted Wednesday said they had no indication how the chancellor's office would resolve these questions.

"I haven't heard anything," said Cari DuBois, coach of the women's gymnastics team.

An initiative called Save Cal Sports, responding to chancellor Robert Birgeneau's mandate to generate $25 million for short-term rescue of the programs, submitted documentation last week showing it has pledges for about $12 million. One source said about half that money was generated by a group of supporters with no specific sport affiliation.

The chancellor's proposal called for the five teams to create enough revenue to fund themselves for the short term, during which time they would be required to raise money to establish permanent endowments.

It seems clear that none of the sports can be reinstated unless the two women's programs return, allowing the university to meet Title IX federal gender-equity requirements.

If only women's gymnastics and lacrosse are spared, however, donors who gave on behalf of men's sports could rescind their contributions.

"It's just a pledge," said Bobby Tulk, a former Cal baseball player who helped with fundraising. "It's certainly not going to go in the coffers if men's sports aren't reinstated, especially baseball."

Eric Pearson of the College Sports Council, which campaigns for Title IX reform, called Cal a case study in the complexity and contradictions of gender-equity compliance.

"There's a real crisis in collegiate sports," he said. "The institutions that are trying to do the right thing, like Berkeley by offering broad-based programs, they're the ones who are really being punished."

Elimination of either women's program, he said, would put the university out of compliance with Title IX because it no longer could claim it meets the interests of its female athletes or provides them expanding opportunities.

With those two prongs of Title IX compliance eliminated, Pearson said, Cal would face scrutiny because it does not meet the proportionality requirement of female athletes to females in the general student body.

Title IX rules have made it difficult for schools to deal with issues such as budget cuts, said Murray Sperber, a visiting professor at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Education and the author of a book on the effects of college athletics on education.

"It's a mess," Sperber said. "It's as if lawyers wrote (Title IX) for other lawyers to have more work."

The university issued a statement Wednesday saying it "fully analyzed the Title IX consequences" before makings cuts in September and would provide answers on how it intends to comply with the law after determining the future scope of the athletics program.

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GYMNASTICS: Kentwood's Johnson, Kentlake's Steckler dazzle at sub-district meet

Posted: 09 Feb 2011 03:01 PM PST

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Jordan Johnson is well aware that she could be tumbling on the postseason gymnastics mat for the final time this season. That's why the Kentwood senior is making the most of these final few weeks. Johnson certainly made the most of her time on the mat during Saturday's sub-district meet at Mount Rainier High in Des Moines, leading all locals with a sixth-place finish in the all-around with a ...
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