Department of Education Decision Crushes Trojan Navy's Hopes for
Regaining Varsity Status
  
Last month a Bush appointed Commission on Title IX announced its final recommendations to the Department of Education. The commission, made up of athletic directors and high profile members of the sporting community had been charged with examining Title IX, the controversial law that deals with gender equity in athletics.

It was a much anticipated moment for men's rowing coach Gene Kininmonth, who hoped a positive decision would help his team regain varsity status at USC.

The Title IX Commission was formed in response to a lawsuit filed last year against the US Department of Education by the National Wrestling Coaches Association. In its lawsuit, the wrestling coaches
seek to have one of the key requirements of Title IX, known as "proportionality," overturned as a measure of compliance.

"Proportionality" has basically come to mean that the ratio of male to female athletes at a school must closely reflect that school's
overall student body.

In order to meet the controversial "proportionality" interpretation of the law, many schools have added women's teams, but, for budget reasons, many have also sought to reach the goal by cutting men's teams or imposing caps on their rosters.

"That is what happened to the men's crew at USC in 1994," said Coach Kininmonth.

In fact, more than 350 National Collegiate Athletic Association programs involving about 21,000 male athletes have been terminated since 1991. A whopping 171 wrestling programs were dropped.

Coach Kininmonth has seen the devastating effects of Title IX first hand. In 1991 he inherited the remains of a once proud UCLA men's crew program that had been cut the previous summer. At George Washington University, where he coached prior to coming to USC, he faced a roster cap on his squad that restricted him to a limited number of oarsmen and no walk-ons could be added after the first race of the fall.

"In fact, while I was at GW the women's crew coach was soliciting the Athletic Director to cut the men's crew as a solution to the university's Title IX compliance issues -just so the women's team
could take our budget,"  Coach Kininmonth said.

Kininmonth wrote his concerns to the Title IX Commission: "No-one is against Title IX but it does need some tweaking," he said.

At least some of the Commissioners must have read his appeal. Following a crucial vote, a majority of the Commissioners recommended to the Department of Education that "walk-on" student-athletes, who do not receive athletic scholarships, should not count in determining "proportionality."

This recommendation opened the door to the Trojan Navy's return as a varsity sport at USC.

"The ramifications of this were incredible for us," said Coach Kininmonth on the announcement. "Men's Crew is already a sanctioned Pac 10 sport so we had a strong case to make to Heritage Hall to welcome us back."

Two days later, however, the Department of Education ruled against the Commission's proposal making its rejection on the basis that the
Commission had not been unanimous in its recommendation.

"It is a bitter pill to swallow but we are still Trojans and we will Fight On!" said co-captain Danny Friedman. "Every thing we have we purchased as our own organization. We have what we have and no person and no laws can take any of that away from us now," he said.