Kent State Victories, Fundraising, and Title IX

I read an article yesterday on the success of Kent State University sports, in terms of both results and fundraising.  The article described the success as follows:

Golden Flashes baseball advanced to the College World Series, [men's] golf finished tied for fifth in the nation, wrestling was ranked at No. 13 in the nation, men’s basketball topped 20 wins for the 13th time in the last 14 seasons, and the football team is going to a bowl game for the first time in 40 years.

Those teams not only carried the Kent State brand into the national spotlight, but they helped athletic director Joel Nielsen generate over $3.5-million in fundraising for Kent football and baseball alone, most of it over the past 12 months. Fundraising for the other programs remains high as well.

As I read this piece, I wondered about women’s sports as all the above sports involve male athletes. The article did mention both the men’s and women’s golf teams flying around the country to compete, and it did note the renovation of the men’s and women’s basketball offices.  However, the focus of the piece was on football, wrestling, and baseball, sports with no female counterparts that would naturally share the wealth.  Thus, I wonder how the donations the successful men’s sports garner are being distributed so as to fulfill the demands of Title IX.   Nielsen talks of using fundraising to enhance the football program:

“When we arrived, we talked a lot about what it would take to have football success,” Nielsen said. “One of the things we looked at was that we were poorly resourced in football, primarily with our people. President (Lester) Lefton gave us the green light to go out there and talk to football donors, talk to people who wanted to see football be successful. We had about 20 people step up that first year, some significantly. That allowed us to pay some competitive salaries.

I wonder how the school has gone about maintaining equity with women’s sports.  I jokingly wonder if the solution might be found in today’s piece on April Goss a walk-on kicker for the football team.  If she is going to the bowl game and dresses with the rest of the team, that could make it so the football team is no longer a men’s sport but a co-ed sport. But I do not think that really works for Title IX.

 

 

Gender and Geico Lion Commercial

I wish I had thought of this analysis.  Lisa Wade on Sociological Images presents a great analysis of the Geico commercial featuring the hunting lion and the antelope with night vision glasses.

She talks of the way humans project gender expectations onto animals.  She looks back at a study of museum dioramas and the goes on to write:

The latest case is a Geico commercial….if you know anything about lions, you know that it’s unlikely that “Karl” is doing the hunting.  Among lions, it is the females who specialize in hunting (and they usually do so in groups, for what it’s worth).

The commercial certainly coincides nicely with what many of us believe to be true about the natural role of human men, but it doesn’t reflect the reality of lion life at all.

Perhaps the people at Geico thought that a female huntress would confuse or distract the reader from their joke.  Or perhaps everyone involved in the project didn’t know this fact about lions; their gender ideology would have masked their ignorance, such that it never occurred to them to look it up.  Either way, contemporary ideas about gender shaped this “diorama” and it potentially reinforces similar beliefs among viewers.

With all the football I watch and all the commercials through which I sit, I should have picked up on this commercial and its projection of gender.  My only excuse is that my background is much more literary and historical than scientific, or perhaps too much football dulls one’s awareness.

Now why is the spokes-gecko male?

 

College Football Ambitions: Title IX?

Many universities are moving their football teams up to the highest level of NCAA competition.  A New York Times article by Bill Pennington looks at the motivations and the pitfalls.  Generally speaking there is not much hope of a monetary reward as most programs lose money, but there is a hope of a higher profile in the state, the region, and nationally.  For example Old Dominion University’s Division I football team is intended to elevate the school to the same level (football-wise) as Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia in the state, and SUNY Buffalo has had out of state applications increase since becoming a Division I program.

The article focuses on the University of Massachusetts that moved up this last year, a move that involved playing games far from campus at Gillette Stadium, games that attracted few fans.  The idea may be that this move elevates UMass to the same level as already Division I UConn in New England.

A Nearly Empty Gillette Stadium hosts a UMass game (Erik Jacob, New York Times)

I wonder about the Title IX implications of all this investment, something the Times article does not mention.  The costs of the equipment, coaches, and scholarships involved are immense, and if they are all going to a men’s sport, does that not raise equality issues?  For UMass if they are getting a big stadium for the men’s sport and busing fans there, should not funds be available for a sweet softball venue on campus or the rental of Fenway Park and the provision of buses?  On a more realistic level, if a football team has a coach for every position (running back, quarterback, linebacker, etc.) as well as coordinators and quality control staff, then should not the field hockey team have a similar roster of position specific coaches?

I know that football is unique in that it is the sport an institution can use to show that it is a big time school, and no women’s sport has that impact.  So, there cannot be a way to get equal attention and hype, but at least the move up can be a chance to leverage funding.

On Watching Madagascar 3: Strong, Single Female Character in a Box

Chantel Dubois

I watched Madagascar 3 with my daughter this week and as is my tendency, kept my eyes open for things to analyze.  What struck me was the sufferings of the antagonist, Chantel DuBois, the animal control deputy chasing the animals across various continents.  Not only is she presented as assuming the posture of a dog (thus being a female dog) as she sniffs the ground to track the animals, but she also is the only prominent single female character.  Every other female character is (often literally) cuddly, fuzzy and paired with a male companion.  The single, professional woman in a position of authority suffers much humiliation and violent treatment winding up crated up and shipped off to Madagascar.   I doubt that this message is what the filmmakers intended; they likely were aiming for a modern Inspector Clouseau figure, but still the figure is troubling.  On another level,  I wonder why this figure bothers me where a male figure suffering a similar fate would not.  I believe it is because of the history of violence against women, and the bias against strong, single women in realm the political and economic realm.

I know I over analyze film–that’s why my family does not let me go along on outings to the local cinema and I only offer commentary after the DVD makes it home– but I cannot help it.  I will, however, stop before I author a screed on the presentation of Africa and the concept of “Afro-” culture in the film.”

Reading a Samoan Novel and Questioning One’s Motivations

” Go back to where you came from you…ghosts!  Gauguin is dead.  This is no paradise”  says Siniva a character in Sia Figel’s Where We Once Belonged.  The narrator continues, offering this commentary on reactions to Siniva’s quote:

Palagis [white people] were confused when they heard such words–most of them were shocked, shocked that someone recognized them doing what they usually did: Peeping-Tomming for a past, an illusion long dead, long buried in museums of their own making. They were ashamed and looked down, buying ulapule or coconut earring from an old woman out of guilt.

This quotation provides striking insight into the experience of Samoans being visited by white outsiders looking for some sort of mythic Pacific paradise or untouched location to study the essence of humanity.  The commentary about the way the past is constructed reminds me of all the old museum dioramas and displays I have seen featuring artifacts from the Pacific past with an effort to proved an authentic sense of life before contact.

The question then came to my mind as to why I was reading the book.  As I sit surrounded by the snow in the Midwest, am I looking to read an exotic text to serve as a contrast to my bland, first world existence?  As such I may not be the obvious tourist, but perhaps I am doing the same thing tourists do while claiming greater literary awareness.

My own motive questioning aside, I highly recommend reading this novel.  Not only for the questions it raises, but also for its portrayal of adolescence  gender, and maturation in a post-colonial society.

100 Point Angst: Gender Implications

I just read an article about the three college students who at some time have scored 100 points or more in college basketball game.  The first two talked about the angst the accomplishment engendered and worries about selfishness.  The third, a recent addition, was overwhelmed with media attention but thought his critics were wrong.

What interested me in the article was the brief mention of two female athletes who scored 100 or more points in a high school game (no woman has done so in college).  There was no mention of angst in their cases, although in one case the opposing team decided to forfeit at halftime.

This brief mention made me wonder as to why no women had scored 100 points in a college game.  All of my suppositions tended to rely on stereotypes: women are nicer, women are less likely to pursue a single mined individual goal while embarrassing the other team and marginalizing their teammates, women run slower so the fast break quick scoring approach would not work.  None of these seem valid.

LIsa Leslie in high school

So I am still wondering why a publicity seeking women’s program does not do what one high school did when they had Lisa Leslie playing for them as described in this New York Times clip:

Leslie might have scored 200 in her big game, but the opposing school quit at halftime. They walked off the court because they thought her 100 points were being orchestrated, and they were right.

Leslie’s coach at Morningside High, Frank Scott…used to pick one game each year to let his senior captain go for the school scoring record. The idea is to let the captain take every shot, and that is how Leslie scored 49 in the first quarter and 52 in the second quarter.

They simply stationed Leslie at midcourt and pressed all game.

Certainly there are sportwomanship questions involved, but I would imagine that somewhere a coach and player would have waved those aside by now.

Mankind? History Chanel’s Title Choice

If it is the story of us all, shouldn’t it be “humankind”?

 

I saw the banner ad for “Mankind” a History Chanel series premiering tonight and wondered why “mankind” was the title.  Why wasn’t the title “Humankind” or “Humanity”?  According to the series website, “Mankind The Story of All of Us is an epic 12-hour television event about the greatest adventure of all time—the history of the human race.”  If that is the case why use a title that many would see as sexist and exclusive.

Consider for example this guideline from a popular online writing guide from Purdue University:

Generic Use

Although MAN in its original sense carried the dual meaning of adult human and adult male, its meaning has come to be so closely identified with adult male that the generic use of MAN and other words with masculine markers should be avoided.

• Original: mankind
• Alternatives: humanity, people, human beings

On the other hand, the Oxford English dictionary states defines “mankind” as,

1. The human species. As a collective noun: human beings in general.

So there is linguistic backing for the History Chanel’s choice.  But I know that if a student turned in a paper talking about the history of mankind, I would circle the word “mankind” as a flawed word choice, one that could offend readers and thus detract from the author’s message.  In the same way, why would a network choose a single word title with offensive possibilities?

Spelman Cutting all Interscholastic Sports: A Promising Financial Model?

Spelman College is dropping all interscholastic sports and putting the money towards campus wide fitness programming.  The reasoning is eminently reasonable in that the school spends thousands of dollars for its NCAA Division III in which 80 students participates.  That money can be redistributed to promote the health of the student body as a whole. In addition facilities like the gym and weight room will be more easily accessible as they will not be reserved for teams at various times.  Beverly Tatum the president of the college notes, “we know that we have students who are already struggling with hypertension, already struggling with Type 2 diabetes, et cetera” and the shift to fitness programming will help those individuals.  One could say that this analysis relies on a false dichotomy in that a school can have both programs, wellness and interscholastic sports, but in an age of declining budgets this choice does appear reasonable.  It also gets back to the root goals of sports programs at educational institutions, establishing a sense of community and promoting wellness.  One need not travel and compete against other schools to achieve these goals.

In diversity terms, the fact that Spelman is a women’s college may play into this decision in that there may be less resistance from alumnae then there would be at a school where cutting sports meant cutting the homecoming football game.   Also, the fact Spelman is an HBCU may make this approach a model for other HBCUs both in terms of addressing financial difficulties and in terms of addressing issues of health within the African American community.  In fact, I hope this approach becomes a model for many schools with budget issues regardless of enrollment demographics.  If sports programs are losing money, why not cut them, focus on educational priorities, and, heaven forbid, stem tuition increases.

The Spelman cross-country team at their last meet this season, the school’s last meet ever.

Student Princes: More on Gender and Sports Team Names

Siggy, the student prince mascot

Following my post on the suffix -men and sports team names, I offer another conundrum: the Heidelberg University Student Princes.

This would seem to be a masculine name.  So, I wondered, are the women’s teams the student princesses.  No, as far as I can see they are student princes, too.

For example consider this line from a press release regarding a women’s soccer all-conference pick:

“Senior Krista Blake (Geneva) earned an All-Ohio Athletic Conference honorable mention selection in her final season as a Student Prince.”

I am not sure how the concept of female princes works exactly, but I did find the history of the name.  It is clearly a masculine centered history even featuring a castle.  The only possible logical reason behind the name would be the university’s tie to Heidelberg in Germany, but that still does not account for female princes.  Perhaps the name is taken today to be a reference to the phrase “what a prince” as a generic compliment.

According to the “History and Tradition” section of the school website:

The Student Prince of Heidelberg

As the story is told, the name was coined in 1926 by Edwin R. Butcher, Heidelberg’s alumni director and publicity agent. Butcher, it is said, was walking through downtown Tiffin when he noticed a theatre billboard promoting “The Student Prince of Heidelberg.”

Sigmund Romberg’s popular operetta, “The Student Prince” tells the story of a young German prince whose private tutor, a graduate of the University of Heidelberg, went to the king to request permission to place the isolated prince in the university where he could mingle with other students. The king agreed. At first, the sheltered prince hated university life with its common fraternity boys and dormitory life, even though he had private quarters. But with the encouragement of his tutor, the prince soon came to enjoy the academic experience. He even joined a fraternity and fell in love with a girl from Heidelberg.

Student Prince evokes images of that majestic castle overlooking the city of Heidelberg and the Neckar River and of the academic excellence, prestige and romantic charm of Germany’s oldest university. Heidelberg has long had close ties with its German counterpart, offering the highly acclaimed American Junior Year at Heidelberg University for more than 50 years.

In the next issue of the Heidelberg Bulletin Butcher tagged the football team the Student Princes, and the Student Princes they remained. Sports writers quickly picked up Butcher’s cue, and The Student Princes began to stick, eventually replacing The Cardinals as the official Heidelberg nickname.

How Would this Sell in the US: Honda Fit “She’s”

Now available in Japan, the Honda Fit “She’s.”  I wonder how this would play in America.