VT, they won't follow Spellman's lead per se, but the O'Bannon and concussions situations are huge potential game changers. I can foresee a time when a number of lower-tier D1 and D2 programs conclude they just can't play 'the game' so they will give up and spend their money elsewhere."the first school in a decade to leave the NCAA. "
We'll have to wait and see how many D1 schools follow Spelman's lead. My guess - Zero.
Oh yeah, no doubt that there was many factors that were involved in the cutbacks to sports in the 1930s, not the least of which was the Depression and the cost of hosting central state tourneys. For the girls the situation was depressingly similar to the tenor of the times which was that girls should be guided toward more "productive" things than athletics. But on the boys side there was a general movement to cut back on the competition because school administrations feared that too much emphasis was being placed on sports and not enough on academics, and they wanted to cut back on trends that they felt were hurting the students' education. That is the crux of the issue that colleges are wrestling with today."Trend" was not quite the right word, and in my email exchange with the author of the paper, I now realize his emphasis was more of the privatization of th elite (to which you allude) and less the Spelman "let's do phys ed for the masses not just the elite". However, I had done some recent research and found it interesting that there was active opposition to intercollegiate sports, not due to some notion that "girls" couldn't do it (although we know there was some of that sentiment) , but more motivated by the desire to have a general physical education program.
In my high school, the coach also taught gym, but you got the sense he was a coach first, and did the phys ed classes because he had to, and if he could be a full time coach, he would. I wouldn't be surprised if that matches the experience of many.
In contrast, Senda Berenson and Clara Baer were interested in physical education of the entire student body. Both fought to make phys ed a requirement, not an elective. Both saw basketball as a way to make exercise more interesting, rather than a game in itself. Both were phys ed teachers first, and may not have even considered themselves basketball coaches per se. It was an aspect I hadn't know about.
Yeah, and a lot of top D1 schools have been paring their teams back for years, many times citing cost or Title IX issues rather than interest factors. I'm always surprised when I do cross country college roundups to see how few sports some of the big schools have left, and a few have no male cross country teams but do have huge women's XC teams (most of the roster though is basically inactive) which are needed to help offset the gender numbers for the football team. The hypocrisy in college sports runs deep, and a number of colleges are just saying that faking it all just isn't worth it anymore.several schools have already dropped teams
Whatta ya mean? They haven't won an NC since that goat incident, if I'm remembering right. UChic has gotta get over its problems with goat smell and just let the billies be billies.It has worked out pretty well for the University of Chicago.