The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- November 8, 1999

Women's group eyes equity in staffing, championships

The NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics, which met in Atlanta October 12-13, examined the progress of a number of issues contained in the NCAA Gender-Equity and Diversity Audit, noting that while significant progress has been made, much is still left to be done.

As a part of that review, the committee also recommended to all three division Management Councils an increased emphasis on marketing women's sports, changes to the emerging sports process, changes to the way officiating clinics and sports rules are administered in two women's sports, and the eventual implementation of women's bowling as an NCAA championship sport.

The committee also recommended an Association-wide educational campaign on the positive impacts of Title IX.

The NCAA Executive Committee, acting on a recommendation from its Ad Hoc Committee to Review Diversity Issues, had directed the Committee on Women's Athletics (CWA) and the NCAA Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee (MOIC) to oversee the audit and give periodic status reports on issues identified within the audit.

The CWA reviewed the audit report, in effect noting progress (or lack thereof) on a variety of topics within the Association, and highlighted several issues for the ad hoc committee's attention.

Those included a recommendation by the CWA that the NCAA president review existing staffing needs of the Association and develop a plan to include women at the senior vice-president level.

The committee noted that the Association's executive management team has stated that it believes the general counsel position, held by a woman with a direct reporting line to the NCAA president, fulfills this recommendation. The committee disagrees and has expressed concern that the role of legal counsel is to protect the decisions made by the national office on legal matters; therefore, that individual does not participate in many of the Association's significant policy, hiring and management decisions.

The committee is seeking a plan to include women at the senior vice-president level who would participate in all significant policy, hiring and management decisions, including oversight of gender-equity and diversity issues.

The committee also noted the need for a Division I plan to increase minority and female representation throughout the division's governance structure. The committee noted that such plans exist in Divisions II and III where they have broadened representation. The CWA also encouraged governing bodies in Divisions II and III to avoid a situation where their stated "minimums" become "maximums" in terms of female and ethnic minority participation.

In a review of championships matters, the CWA noted that, as the audit recommended, a new vice-president position and three additional positions (director, assistant director and executive assistant) had been approved for Division I women's basketball, and that those positions either had been advertised or filled. The committee strongly encouraged the Association to find funding for the three additional women's basketball positions recommended by the audit, which would bring that tournament's management more in line with the Division I men's basketball tournament.

Marketing, licensing and promotions

A number of the ad hoc committee's recommendations in the audit report refer to initiatives in the marketing, licensing and promotions of women's sports. At the January CWA meeting, the committee noted that Host Communications (HCI), which handles many promotional issues for the Association, had hired a president of women's sports and promised to hire additional personnel and devote resources to increase the focus on women's sports.

Since that time, that individual has left the company and her replacement has not been identified. The committee expressed disappointment that HCI had not replaced the position or added other positions. The committee encouraged HCI to hire a president for women's sports and provide that individual with appropriate staff and resources to increase the promotion of the Association's women's sports.

The CWA plans to invite Jim Host, HCI president, and C. Dennis Cryder, NCAA vice-president for marketing, licensing and promotions, to its January meeting to address ongoing concerns regarding the women's sports president position, HCI/NCAA sponsorship packages, recruitment of female-owned businesses, allocation of revenue, and the status of corporate licensees.

Emerging sports

The audit report also contained recommendations to bring the Association's number of championships for men and women to an equitable number. Toward that end, the CWA continues to make recommendations regarding women's emerging sports.

The CWA has asked all three divisions to consider women's bowling as a championship sport in the fastest manner possible. The committee believes that bowling would provide additional championships opportunities for minority women, as it is sponsored by 23 institutions, 20 of which are historically black colleges and universities. The committee also noted that research indicates that currently, minority-female participation in NCAA championship sports is nearly isolated to two sports, basketball and track and field.

The committee recommended that legislation be proposed to exempt bowling from requiring a minimum sports sponsorship of 40 institutions before it can be upgraded to championship status. The committee noted that some existing men's sports have a sponsorship of less than 40 (such as men's gymnastics, which has 26 sponsoring institutions).

The committee also recommended that legislation be proposed to make bowling a championship sport for the 2003-04 season.

In another action, the committee reviewed its guidelines for emerging sports and agreed to change the guidelines to add language, effective immediately, to require that emerging-sports proposals include general information on championship rules and format for the sport.

In another action, the committee indicated its support for legislation that would reduce from two years to one year the time necessary for 40 institutions to sponsor an emerging sport for women before a National Collegiate championship could be established. The committee noted that if this legislation is adopted, the two sports that may first be affected are women's ice hockey and women's water polo.

Officiating clinics and sport rules

Also in conjunction with the gender-equity audit, the CWA has been reviewing officiating clinics in men's and women's sports, both those sponsored by the NCAA and those sponsored by outside organizations (and given supplemental grants by the Association).

The committee reviewed information identifying both of the budgets for men's and women's officiating programs. It noted that the men's NCAA sports officiating programs, including Association grants to outside organizations, had a $472,500 budget, while the women's NCAA sports officiating programs, including Association grants to outside organizations, had a budget of $247,500.

The committee noted that many more men's sports than women's sports had NCAA-sponsored officiating clinics. The committee also noted that many of the most popular women's sports had outside organizations controlling the rules and officiating, thus limiting the NCAA's ability to both control the rules in the sport and advance the officiating of the sport.

The CWA recommended that the NCAA be responsible for development of rules as well as for conducting officiating clinics in the sports of volleyball and soccer. This would require adoption of legislation creating an Association-wide rules committee for volleyball (the NCAA has a rules committee for men's and women's soccer), as well as additional funding for the officiating clinics, but the committee stated that it believed the additional control over the sport rules would be advantageous for a variety of reasons in addition to gender equity, including more control over: legal liability issues; the integrity of the game; officials' recruitment, training and evaluation; and student-athlete welfare and safety.

In another action, the committee expressed concern that a number of groups are sending out misinformation on the impact of Title IX and, in some cases, fund-raising letters seeking support for the repeal of the federal law.

The committee discussed a variety of ways to educate the intercollegiate athletics community on the positive benefits of Title IX, ultimately recommending a two-year educational campaign to dispel some of the myths regarding Title IX, provide accurate information about the law itself, and promote the positive results of the law. The project's details will be announced at a later date.