Sports
sportsed(S),clackamas.edu
Wednesday, Octi 19, 2011
Gender equality no easy task
By John William Howard.
Sports Editor
I ’ve always wondered
why Clackamas Community
College doesn’t have a mens
soccer team. It would seem,
what with theim m ediateand
recent success of the wom
en’s program and the overall
dominance of. the athletic
department, that such a team
wouldn’t even be in question.
. However, during the fall
sports season, options for
men are cross country ...
and that’s it.TJnless I’ve been
doing my math wrong, that
means there are six sportsfor
women and only five for the
men. Isn’t there something
off about that?
As it so happens, there
isn’t. Title IX was legisla
tion passed in the early ‘70s
intended to force equal
opportunities for both men
ana women. And not just in
collegiate athletics, ’ but in
all institutions that receive
public funds. That; includes
access to things -like higher
education and employment.
The basic idea is that the
number of , athletes should
mirror’ the ratio .of students
at the school. If 59 percent
of the students are women,
then 59 percent of the ath
letic program should be
made up orjjgmale athletes.
H eres where things get
a little messy: that’s about
as clear as Title IX gets. It’s
interpreted in a myriad of
ways and because of that,
there are several different
solutions to complying with
Title IX legislation, accord
ing to self-proclaimed Title
IX advocate Paul Fiskum, the
assistant coach of the mens
basketball team. "
One path is to provide an:
equal number of sports for
each gender. For '.instance,
volleyball will be offered to
offset football arid, baseball
will be offered to offset soft-
ball. The numbers are clear,
simple and easy to keep that
way.
Another path, one that
CCG takes, is to offer the
same or close-to the same
am ount o.f scholarships
for both male and female
athletes. This too is messy
because the sizes of teams
vary greatly from sport to
sport. The basketball teams
are always going to be the
same size, sure, but you don’t
ever see, the softball team
with 15 players on their
pitching staff like you do on
a Baseball team.
T hat creates another prob
lem. If you try to have an
equal number of men’s and
women’s sports, you won’t end
up with the same amount of
scholarship athletes for both
genders. T he way around
that is to offer an imbal-
a n c e d a m o u n t o f s p o rts . F o r
instance, the wrestling team
is currently carrying 3 4 wres
tlers, making it larger than
the soccer (15 players) and
volleyball (12 players)-teams
combined. T hat makes offer
ing men’s soccer impossible,
unless another men’s sport
were cut.
But think about it. Which
stellar program o f ours
would you cut to make way
for a fledgling meri’s soc
cer team? You can’t cut any.
That means that we have to
keep things the way they are
in order to be sure that men
and women are on an equal
playing-field.
The thing is, just having
equal scholarships dtfesnr
cut it. The point is that
both inen and women would
have an' equal and fighting
change- to play sports ana
th at incl udes uni for ms, trav
el, facilities and any other
amenities.
Fiskum coached softball
for 20 years at CCG and
said that there were plenty
of times where he saw a huge
disparity between the nice,
new baseball stadium and
the softball ‘stadium’, which
would be nothing more than
a backstop with a few bench-
es/ 3
“The softball team will
get thrown out in the north
pasture on a hunk of weeds,”]
said Fiskum. “T h at’s not
right.”
And it’s not. T hat’s why
we’ve seen such a rise ■ in
female participation in ath
letics. People have begun to
understand that you have to
treat everyone equally, no
matter who or what they are,
The Clackamas Print
5
Upcoming Events
Time/date
Clackamas @ SW Oregon
6 p.m* Oct. 21
Clackamas @ Umpqua
1 p.m. Oct. 22
Women^ Soccer.........____________
Clackamas vs. Chemeketa I p.m. uct. 19
Clackamas @ Clark
1 p.m. Oct. 22
o r w h e re th e y c o m e fro m .
If that mean's (that* w’e don’t
have a men’s soccer team,
then that’s alright. I’m fine
with that.
CROSS COUNTRY: Men take first, women
second among NWAACC competition
Continued from Page 1
’The men meandered around once
they finished, bufthe talk wasn’t about
the gopher holejust past mile three,
or even about how each runner did.
Everybody was talking about when
they passed the confused biker face
down On the ground and finished the
ta.ee without him.
Despite the slight - detour and the
face plant, both the men and the
women felt good about their races,
with the CCfc men’s tearib finishing
second behind Willamette University
and the women’s team finishing fifth,
but only trailing the NWAACC
defending champion Clark College by.
Four points.
Highlighting- the women’s face was
the. tenth place' finish of ffeshman.
Teresa Lawson. ' Before j Clackamas,
Lawson had neyer been-a crosscountry
runner, but has quickly vaulted to the
near top of the league, already winning
the NWAACC Gross Country Female
Athlete of the Week the week of Sept.
24, prompting Mantalas to say that
she. was “setting herself up to be a con
tender for the conference title.”
Lawson was just two seconds off her
personal record, in- Friday’s race, which
was only her fourth cross country meet
of her life.
Clackamas men. The meet was the second at home fo r the Cougars.
“I started out kinda [in the] front of
the pack, whichwas my goal: to stick
with me Oregon State girls, which I
did for most of the race and I beat a
couple o f them,” said Lawson.
“It’s really intimidating at first?
because you see .{the universities) roll-
up and they just look awesome,” said]
Lawson] who Finished Stecond out
of -all NWAACC affiliated athletes:
“Because they’re, four-yeàr schôols, ..a
lot of them are older than us. We come
in at 19, so it’fc,intimidating, but \ye,
just show ‘em up out on the course.”
On the men’s 'side, Clackamas had
three runners finish in the top .ten,
with Brad Prettyman takingseebnd,
Mark Medgin taking sixth and jofge
Gil-Juarez-taking eigth, leading the
pack for the Cougars. Thé biggest,
story, though, was the last 300 meters-
Tor freshman Austin Collins.
“I was thinking about' it the last
three miles. I seen the people in'front
of me and I finally caught the one guy
that I was trying to stick with ana I
knew there was a huge pack in front
of me with a mile to go,’ said Côllins,
who was running in jtist his second
race on the home course. O n.the last
Stretch, Collins kicked it in to high
gear, passing runner after runner en
route to finishing fourteenth. -
“It’s pretty painful. You just think
/don’t die, don’t die’ and then when it’s
over you feel good.”
Over all, Mantalas was pleased with
the performance of both teams, but
said that their main goal was to do
better than the year before.
“We’re ready to achieve a little bit
more and the dedication^ is there a
little bit more,” said Mantalas, who
All photos by John William Howard
Theresa Lawson covers the last few hun
dred meters injustherfourth cross coun
try meet o f het life. Lawson finished
‘■tenth, and first for Clackamas. ■
is in his second year as associate head
coach. “If we just continue to get a
little bit better, then that’s all we can
ask for. We show up and have a good
race on NWAAGCs, and where the
chips fall, they fall.” ,
Cross Country
Next Up: Home-
Southern Region
Championships 3 p.m.
Saturday Oct. 29