Our friends over at the College Sports Council have released new data on Title IX’s impact on the state level. An interactive map shows that popular high school sports are disappearing entirely from states. It’s not a pretty picture:
“Sports that are thriving on the high school level are now entirely missing in many states. Despite an explosion in youth soccer, for instance, that sport has now been eliminated or reduced to a single collegiate team in more than 22 states.
“The study also found that collegiate wrestling no longer exists or has been cut to a single team in 35 states. Collegiate swimming, volleyball and gymnastics teams – each of which are Olympic sports – have also been drastically reduced by Title IX’s proportionality requirement.”
Statistics on Division I wrestling, volleyball, swimming, soccer, and gymnastics are available. Check out the map here.
The CSC has also launched a fabulous Title IX blog. Check it out here.
My favorite post is called “In Their Words” – it has quotes from proponents of gender quotas. My personal favorite is the first one about hating the movie Rudy. Call me sentimental, but Rudy is the single most inspiring sports movie of all time. How can you not get choked up when the crowd chants “Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!” and they lift him off the field?