On the college front, Truman State University announced on Monday that it will cut men’s golf after the spring season and will phase out scholarships for men’s tennis, men’s swimming, baseball, and wrestling. The school admitted that cuts to women’s teams were off limits due to Title IX concerns. As I’ve said here many times, Title IX constrains school’s programs decisions. This is just one more example. More details on the Truman cuts here.
On the high school front, here is the latest egregious example of Title IX interfering with how booster club money is spent. A Massachusetts football booster club is being blocked from donating money to the football team. Huh? Somehow it’s unfair to female athletes that the football team is good at fundraising? Give me a break. High schools rarely cover all the costs associated with a sport — leaving booster clubs to pick up a lot of slack. For example, the budget for my high school golf team didn’t even cover our entrance fees to mandatory league tournaments, let alone optional invitational tournaments (nor did it cover similar expensive for the boy’s team). So my mother and other parents organized fundraisers to cover the rest of our costs. If you go out of your money to raise funds for your team, you should be able to spend it on your team.