Due to a planned shift in UC Berkeley‘s Title IX policy compliance, there will be a likely reduction in roster spots for men’s sports by 2021.
Chancellor Carol Christ made the announcement in an email to the Cal campus this past Thursday, based on a decision made following a Collegiate Sports Associates (CSA) report on the athletic department. The CSA is a sports consulting and executive search firm, and their 2017 report found considerable desire to consider changes to Cal‘s current sponsorship of 30 sports– 86% of 367 individuals surveyed felt that there needed to be changes made.
Cal is compliant to Title IX by way of Prong 3, which means schools are required to add sports for the underrepresented gender, when possible, to ensure gender equity. Christ says that continuing to comply with Prong 3 “seems unwise” and has decided to shift to Prong 1 of Title IX compliance.
Prong 1 is met when there are proportionate opportunities for athletic participation for both male and female student-athletes. If Cal is to make this prong shift, and if they don’t want to add more sports, men’s roster spots will probably need to be decreased.
Cal men’s head coach Dave Durden tells SwimSwam that this policy change shouldn’t impact their team. According to him, recruiting classes are traditionally comprised of 6-8 athletes, meaning they typically field a team of 24-32– below roster management numbers.
Christ noted that Cal already has difficulty sustaining its 30 Division 1 sports, but cutting sports will be a “last resort.”
Good too many males in Sport. Time to make way for GIRL POWER!
Were are jumping to conclusion. Christ’s statement clearly says cutting sports is a last resort. Furthermore, Cal’s aquatic programs are well funded and supported and obviously extremely successful. There is zero risk of the programs being cut.
What is being discussed is a reduction in men’s headcount, read walk-ons, in some sports. These will primarily be in sports where the coaches themselves have indicated that a reduction in walk-ons will have negligible impact on their success. These include spots mostly on the football, crew, and rugby teams. I emphasize that the coaches themselves have stated that it will not impact their success.
Will this hurt Cal & Durden in recruiting athletes going forward???? Will a top notch athlete reconsider even looking into Cal?
Didn’t Durden already go through this at Maryland? He has to be strongly considering the Auburn job, as this could not have been worse timing for Cal to announce this if they wanted to convince him to stay.
Can we just challenge the idea that football needs 80- 100 players? Can they really not field a competitive team with half that amount?
With 40 players? Absolutely not.
If NFL rosters can field a team with a 53 person roster, it would seem that college teams could get by with a scholarship cap closer to that. That said, limiting college football rosters will never happen.
It already did happen. went from 105 pre 1973 to 95 and then to 85 in 1992. D1-AA has a 65 cap and hence those schools can field more of the other sports. In D2 it is 36 full scholarships that can be split. It can happen. It will simply take a lot of public pressure and for those beholden to no changes in Title IX to at least be reasonable and realize 1) more men are drawn to play sports than women, and 2) football should not be in the equation (or if it is it should not be funding any women’s sports).
As a Cal fan for so many years, I feel Cal is in a “box” that is hard to escape because:
(1) Cal’s football program does not draw enough attendance at games to continually support football and other lower revenue sports programs on campus. It’s simple: If your program wins, you are apt to draw more attendance. Have you noticed the TV basketball games where gyms are packed for winning programs while losing program don’t even fill half of their gyms?
(2) Cal’s admissions standards preclude enrolling athletes that can more easily go to other colleges where they have a better chance to stay eligible and (hopefully) be graduated. And when has it ever changed that top athletes want to… Read more »
James Naismith, maybe, Doubleday, not so much. Abner invented baseball.
Turns out, the ‘Doubleday invented baseball’ bit is a hoax (and he never claimed to have invented the game in his life, and only one of the letters or papers left after his death mention the game – from 1971, 38 years later). It was part of a propaganda narrative around a civil war general, war hero, etc. The guy who led the commission that decided Doubleday was the inventor was a close friend of Doubleday. Doubleday was at West Point when it was allegedly invented in Cooperstown, and his family didn’t even live there anymore. The best piece of evidence that Doubleday invented baseball was from a guy who was 5 years old at the time Doubleday allegedly invented… Read more »
I didn’t know that background and baseball was my game. I also didn’t know you were a baseball fan! I’m friends with a former president of the Hall of Fame so this sounds like a great topic to discuss next time I see him.
The hall recently made its biggest acknowledgement yet of the reality, by referring to the Cooperstown origin story as “mythical.”
I love baseball.
Also, my grandma’s friend Montrew Dunham wrote the book about Abner Doubleday for the “Childhoods of Famous Americans” series. While she was a renowned local historian (won an award for it), this one was a miss for her – though in 1995, when it was written, most people still believed in the Doubleday story.
She also did a really good one on Roberto Clemente, if your kids are so inclined to learn about a true baseball hero.
Thanks for the correction… I always get those two mixed up, and I knew I should have googled it.
I totally agree. If the NCAA limited scholarships in football to 50 instead of 80, the problem would be solved. Even 50 is pretty high, if you think about it, but it’s enough to have backups and even some third-stringers on full scholarships.
This is a logical proposal but at a place like Cal you may run into problems cutting football scholarships that often go to minority students who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend, in favor of swimmers, rowers or squash players.
Schools with powerhouse revenue sports programs (ie. Football and Basketball) do not have the same issues CAL and others have with their non-revenue sports. Unfortunately the public schools with highest academic standards seem to have toughest time being Football/Basketball powers.
Gator, the reason is conservates are fleeing the more liberal public schools. so the more conservative or ideological neutral schools poach the players from conservative backgrounds who happen to be conservative.
Look at most NFL quaterbacks. Most are very christian and conservative. They would be out of place in a school like bekerly or ULA which gives the perception of being sort of anti christian and maybe low key anti white.
I think we may get new powerhouse Christian colleges in football. The number one candidate would be liberty university. They can easily recruit conservative christian players from places like Texas more easily than say UCLA. Liberty is flush with cash.
So true. This all goes back to Joe Namath, the greatest Christian quarterback ever.
This is hilarious
Not sure about that, since the two best ever went to very high academic standard/not so conservative public schools:
Tom Brady = U Michigan
Aaron Rogers = CAL
you don’t need to be conservative to be a great NFL quarterback, but you do need to be very smart.
I,ll say CAL is liberal not “not so conservative”
Those high academic standard schools don’t foster spiritual life and it,s hard to meet someone who shares your faith/ values in those liberal non spiritual schools if you are religious and are looking to get married to someone with similar belief systems and values,
It,s much easier in more conservative public schools like Texas a&m, Oklahoma state university, Utah state university etc.
private conservative universities like California baptist university, regent university, liberty university etc and
Private ideologically neutral universities like Notre dame, saint Leo university etc. Catholic universities tend to be neutral in general. Not swinging one way or the other.
You said high academic standard schools tend to… Read more »
Gator I’m not arguing with your point but I will argue with your examples. Brady is 40. Rogers is 34. They were in college in VERY different times.
And the 2 best ever?! Rogers has 1 SB! Ill take Elway, Montana and Marino (yes, bad example given my previous point but whatever) any day! 🙂
There is no difference between the genders, so we are told. So there should only be “sports,” not men’s sports and women’s sports. No? Well then which is it? Is there a difference or not?
The pickle Title IX has always created for ADs is there’s no offset to football, a 100+ head count men’s sport. Plainly put, this won’t impact Durden’s program one iota. The article rightly emphasizes that Cal swimming isn’t an open outcry system where non-recruited swimmers who gain academic admission on their own can walk-on. If that were the case, it does create a headache for administrators at a Cal or anywhere else. Without doubt, this announcement isn’t aimed at Cal men’s swimming but is rather a warning shot for all non-revenue men’s program coaches. Welcoming a kid who earned theirown way through admissions to walk-on isn’t a good deed without an impact; it’s one spot more to juggle against the… Read more »