The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- February 15, 1999

Women's sports seeking fast track to championship status

BY KAY HAWES
STAFF WRITER

While women's rowing is the only sport to be elevated from an emerging sport to an NCAA championship sport so far, that may soon be changing as well.

The NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics has asked that four emerging sports -- water polo, ice hockey, squash and bowling -- be put on the "fast track" to championship status on an accelerated timetable.

The committee has made the recommendation after a gender-equity audit of the Association. Currently the NCAA sponsors 42 men's, 36 women's and three coed championships.

"It's clear that we need to have more championships opportunities for women," said Cheryl L. Levick, chair of the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics and senior woman administrator at Stanford University. "We looked at emerging sports as the logical place to find more of these opportunities. And water polo, ice hockey and squash were the emerging sports that had the most current NCAA member-institution participation."

Water polo is sponsored by 37 institutions, while 40 institutions sponsor women's ice hockey and 27 institutions sponsor squash.

"We feel that there are enough numbers to have a quality championship," Levick said. "And we also think more institutions will add the sport if we have a championship."

Bowling is being recommended for a championship to increase the opportunities for female ethnic minorities. "Bowling does not have the same numbers as the other sports do, but we're also looking at diversity issues. Bowling has a large number of ethnic minority participants."

Another consideration is that there are several men's championships that have fewer than the required sponsorship for a championship since NCAA championships in men's Olympic sports are protected by NCAA legislation. Also, at the most recent NCAA Convention, Division II voted to retain a championship in Division II men's lacrosse, even though the sport is sponsored by only 31 institutions and is not an Olympic sport.

The Committee on Women's Athletics does not object to retaining those men's championships, but it does ask that the championships offerings be balanced. "We don't want to take participation opportunities away from student-athletes. The more participants the better," Levick said. "We're not against protected sports for men. But it does seem even more important that, if we're going to have protective clauses for men's sports, we also fast-track these women's sports to balance it out."

The committee has recommended that women's water polo have an NCAA championship by 2000-2001, ice hockey by 2001-2002 and squash by 2002-2003. If bowling has more than 25 institutions participating (up from the current 21), then the committee recommends a bowling championship by 2003-2004.

These recommendations are currently being considered by the Association's governance structure.