The stated philosophy of the NCAA to maintain and preserve intercollegiate sports for all athletes seems to have been abandoned due to political expedience and over-reliance on revenue-producing sports. This is the only conclusion that can be reached after years of the NCAA's refusal to discuss a serious collegiate problem, namely the erosion of nonrevenue and endangered Olympic sports.

The NCAA has become so concerned with calculations of ratios, percentages and quotas between men's and women's programs, that regardless of NCAA figures showing growth in the overall number of men's programs, many nonrevenue sports continue to be terminated.

It should be noted that NCAA participation rates may be skewed. While there has been an increase of 150 schools in the NCAA since 1990, which indicates growth in both men's and women's programs, it does not reflect the number of schools (before the additional 150) that added selected endangered Olympic sports.

Part of this problem stems from 1972 when Congress passed Title IX. Modeled after the Civil Rights Act, Title IX sought to ban gender discrimination in any education or similarly related program. The goal was to create equal opportunities without prejudice.

In 1979, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare promulgated the final regulations affecting Title IX. Today, the Department of Education, through its Office of Civil Rights (OCR) administers regulations affecting Title IX. A significant, and laudatory, result of Title IX has been a great proliferation of women's sports programs -- and no one disputes that women's sports were in dire need of rejuvenatation.

However, in improving athletics opportunities for women, many nonrevenue men's programs have disproportionately downgraded to club status or have been altogether eliminated. There also is some evidence to show that when an institution joins a conference or is involved in a conference realignment, a sport that is not part of the conference championship format is terminated.

To university officers and athletics administrators trying to abide by OCR Title IX compliance rules regarding finances, scholarship distributions, facility considerations and support services, it becomes apparent that eliminating nonrevenue and Olympic men's programs is easier than facing a gender-discrimination lawsuit.

Despite this obvious problem and repeated attempts to have NCAA administrative and university officers address it, there has been steady refusal to convene even a nonbinding, nonlegislative panel or forum to discuss the erosion of nonrevenue sports.

Ironically, the NCAA is capable of investigating problems associated with Division I basketball, examine gambling, amateurism and violence in sport, yet somehow this group of educators can't even discuss possible avenues to save sports from being canceled.

Curbing the losses

More than 350 men's programs were lost between 1993 and 1999. Those include Olympic sports such as track and field, swimming, wrestling and men's gymnastics, which presently is down to 24 programs in all divisions with the possibility of another loss at the end of this season.

With such a great loss of men's gymnastics programs, the size of the collegiate pool for selection to international competition has been greatly diminished. This was evident by the smaller number of male gymnasts who competed for spots on the American team at the Sydney Olympics as compared to previous Olympic Trials.

To support Olympic Games participation by collegians, the NCAA formed the Olympic Sports Liaison Committee. This was an effort to show the membership that the NCAA supports Olympic sports in conjunction with the United States Olympic Committee. However, there appears to be little evidence that this committee has done anything to curb the loss of Olympic sports.

And for the record, this committee was not the group that played an "important role" (NCAA News Extra, September 11, 2000) in protecting sports from being discontinued due to low sponsorship. That action was initiated by men's gymnastics coaches, who, with support from several universities, drafted the legislation, wrote letters, developed personal contacts and lobbied before and during the 1996 Convention in Dallas. The referendum passed. Subsequently, this same group went to work again to pass legislation that Olympic sports championships would not be dropped.

There are more than 130 NCAA committees designed to maintain control of intercollegiate athletics in areas of parity and progress for student-athletes who wish to represent their institution in intercollegiate competition. Yet there is not one entity that can even the discuss ways to save programs from elimination.

When the 2001 NCAA Convention meets this January, delegates will have an opportunity to become the first to establish a formal dialogue on those issues during an Association-wide forum on Title IX issues. They would be following the actions of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, which convened a panel discussion on these issues at its last convention.

OCR representatives have been invited to lead the discussion at the NCAA Convention, but who will speak for the men's programs facing extinction?

It is time for the NCAA to end its lackadaisical and revenue-driven approach to Title IX compliance. Fulfilling the mandate of this regulation to provide education and education-related opportunities across gender lines can be achieved without shutting down sports programs.

Happily, women's sports are increasing, but must it come at the expense of men's programs? Will America in the future be unable to field Olympic wrestling and gymnastics squads? Is it possible that a future Rulon Gardner (the American gold medal winner in wrestling at the Sydney Olympics) will not have an opportunity to compete?

While funds generated by football and basketball are important to the colleges and have a direct effect on programming, the NCAA and its membership must remember that all sports programs are important to the participating student-athletes. With foresight, careful and intelligent planning coupled with cooperation and the expected increase in annual revenue, many programs can be saved from extinction.

At the coming Convention, the NCAA should change its Title IX compliance efforts to provide equal opportunities for both genders. Such a change will save many programs from elimination, rather than disproportionately impacting those male student-athletes competing in nonrevenue programs. Until the NCAA adopts such an approach, not only will Title IX remain unfulfilled, but men's nonrevenue sports will continue to suffer disparate treatment.

Otherwise, the assertion from the first page of the current NCAA Manual stating that "intercollegiate athletics is an integral part of the educational program" should be rewritten.

Richard M. Aronson is the executive director of the College Gymnastics Association.