wrest65

Has Blanford beaten Mills?

I have no idea what rules were violated but I would think having a ref that is an alumni would open up this very discussion. Even if there were not rules violated having this situation just allows for accusations and puts Woodford County in a defensive position.

There are some southern wrestlers going.

I think we all second that - and for anyone that did not see the Durden/Cossgrove semifinal match - I want to say that Cossgrove showed allot of class in his loss-he was good loser and Durden was a good winner. Given the few moments of confusion over the score it would have been easy for things to turn unsportsmanlike and to both of their credit they handled the situation as true sportsmen - given the turmoil with some of the wrestlers in other regions this past year it was great to see two kids handled themselves so well. Congratulations to all of the state qualifiers and region 3 as a whole it was a great tournament!

I do not want anyone to think I am just being stubborn - I love wrestling and want everyone to have a chance to compete - and coming from some of the smaller schools with less money I understand the difficulties. As you can tell I feel strongly that it is very important that girls have equal opportunities as boys. So I think we can all agree that kids have gotten hurt all around. But turning back the clock on Title IX will not fix the problems. And I do think that some boys have been negatively effected by Title IX and it seems unfair that they are having to pay the price for past generations - but for years the girls have had to pay the price boys to have all of the sports and athletic scholarships. I will not continue to argue and again I am sorry I seem stubborn - I just think it is important that the kids today look at this as allowing equal rights for girls NOT at the expensive of rights for themselves - I do not want to foster a victim mentality-if a program is being cut - boys should stand up and ask questions just as girls should - I think everyone should endorse a community that embraces all sports male and female!

Here is name from past - Jack Jacobs at Waggener had quite a good team for allot of years in the 70's and early 80's. I would not put as the best of all times by any means - but "back in the day" they produced some pretty good teams - and few champs (including a repeat). For a what was then a smaller public school it was an accomplishment.

we can argue all day and not agree. And as for it being a wrestling forum I would think this is applicable and a pass is not needed. Maybe parents and boosters should hold schools more accountable when they decide to cut programs such as wresting programs - there is ALLOT of evidence that these programs were being cut well before the enforcement of Title IX. And again I will not accept that to give our boys opportunities we have to deny our girls and it is this attitude that has lead to the continued lack of support for our girls. I do not have to show you a picture of a rower who trained in middle school b/c as you have pointed out repeatedly most middleschool girls are not even presented this as acceptable option. But as a person from the state of KY maybe you should be familiar with the name Tori Murden she rowed across the Atlantic Ocean by herself - so there are plenty of women rowers out there and they should have the chance to begin rowing whenever they want at any grade level. But as I said there is no use arguing with you - it is too easy to blame Title IX for giving girls a chance instead of laying the blame at the feet of the institutions and society that created the problem. I do take heart in the one other person who posted here who seemed to understand the goals of Title IX and it becoming more and more acceptable and more young males are embracing and respecting the female athlete.

Thirty years ago, only seven percent of high school varsity athletes were female and today they represent 41 percent. Female varsity college athletes rose from 15 to 42 percent during the same time. The Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education says Title IX increased sport participation for high school girls from almost 295,000 to over 2.6 million in 30 years. On Sunday afternoon, February 8, 2004, the Gopher men's basketball team hosted Illinois, a team that went on to win the Big Ten regular season title. The game drew 13,404 fans. That evening, the women's basketball team took to the Williams Arena floor against Penn State, another team that would go on to win the Big Ten title. This event drew 14,363 fans. If you're looking for a red-letter day for women's athletics at the U and for the state of girls and women's sports in general (at least in Minnesota), this was it. All other variables aside, the women outdrawing the men at The Barn was an air-horn blast announcing that, 33 years after it entered into our vocabulary, Title IX has been a remarkable success. "[Title IX] fundamentally changed the landscape, because without it, we wouldn't be where we are," says Mary Jo Kane, director of the University's Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport and a leading expert on Title IX. "For the first time in history we have a critical mass of girls and women who play sports. You have young girls who grow up with a sense of entitlement towards sports.... It would never occur to them than an opportunity wouldn't be available to them." Perhaps no one has more institutional perspective on Title IX at the U than Jean Freeman, who until last spring was the head coach of the Gopher women's swimming and diving team. She arrived at the University of Minnesota as an undergraduate in 1968, took up swimming again on the women's club team (she had swum competitively from the ages of 8 to 16), then, after Title IX, became the first-ever coach of the women's intercollegiate team in 1973. Figuratively speaking, compared to the men's teams, Freeman's early teams at the U swam in frigid water and against a stiff current in both directions. While the men swam in relatively modern Cooke Hall, the women were stuck in Norris Hall in a pool without lane guides, starting blocks, or a timing system. It would take a couple of years before the women were able to use Cooke Hall one evening a week, and another couple of years before they had all their practices and meets there. And scholarships weren't available until later in the '70s. Freeman says that the state-of-the-art Aquatic Center, home of the men's and women's teams since 1990, was really the first manifestation at the U of an athletic facility built with gender equity in mind. "That still boggles my mind--that it took till 1990," Freeman says. "That's why we needed, and still need, a federal law to help us along. Because we still don't make change very readily." Over the past couple of decades, it's hard to question the University's commitment to female athletes and the success that has bred. Minnesota maintained separate women's and men's athletic departments until finances forced the two to merge in 2002. Before the merger, the women had a strong and vocal leader in Chris Voelz, the women's athletic director who is credited with getting new women's sports facilities built, creating a large scholarship endowment, and being a tireless supporter of women athletes. Three women's sports--soccer, hockey, and rowing--have been added in the last decade, and in 2003-04, 47 percent of the U's 866 athletes were women, according to senior associate athletic director Regina Sullivan. That ratio is above the national average of 42 percent and the Division I average of 44 percent. These are the success but there is still allot to do: According to figures from the latest NCAA Gender-Equity Report and the Women's Sports Foundation, still only 42 percent of all high school and 42 percent of college athletes are females, compared to 49 and 56 percent of the overall student populations, respectively. And college women still receive $137 million less per year in athletic scholarships. progress in gender equity is tangible and, at times, truly remarkable. It can be witnessed at The Barn, and it's increasingly evident on the sports pages of the local Star Tribune and Pioneer Press. You'll also find it at the schools and playgrounds now teaming with young girls in uniform--girls who don't even know what Title IX means, only that they're part of the game. "In one generation, we have gone from young girls hoping that there is a team, to young girls hoping that they'll make the team." and lastly from and article printed January 2007 Times Picyne to address the programs being cut: The problem is many universities and high schools took shortcuts to comply. Instead of working hard to find resources and funding to add female opportunities, administrators subtracted male opportunities. That's not a healthy new math. Look at college wrestling nationwide. It's almost a defunct sport now, victim not of Title IX, but of administrators who sliced those non-revenue generating programs to make the budget work with new female sports. That is an insane way to comply with Title IX. Think of the issue in these terms: An athletic program is like a family. There is a mom and dad (administrators) and four children (three men's sports, one women's sport). Suddenly, mom is surprised to discover she is pregnant (more women's sports on the way) despite the fact there is no promise of additional income (athletic funding).

For years and years girls have not (and even today) had the same number of scholarships available to them. I did not see you mention the number of colleges that have "recruited" players from outside of the US. I can think of three major basketball programs off the top of my head-these are young men so there for no one complained about scholarships being given to them. I think that if people are mad about programs being cut you need to ask the schools to account for the money being spent on sports - the numbers of non-revenue producing sports were down before Title IX - so it is not all the fault of women's sports. And by your logic women's rowing is of less importance than say men's wrestling - why is that? It is an Olympic sport and if there is women's team what is the issue-maybe there have should have been one from the start. If you look you can come up with a young man here or there that has been adversely effected and to that I am sorry-but there has been years of young girls denied the same opportunities as boys and until a WOMAN stood up and forced the Title IX issues no one ever bemoaned how bad it was or that their federal money was not being spent on their daughters.

Let me explain Title IX - to be in compliance there is a three-prong test" of an institution's compliance. Prong one - Providing athletic opportunities that are substantially proportionate to the student enrollment. Prong two - Demonstrate a continual expansion of athletic opportunities for the underrepresented gender. Prong three - Full and effective accommodation of the interest and ability of underrepresented gender. The purpose is to allow both males and females equal participation and opportunities in federally funded educational institutions. Some schools which have historically spent more resources on male sports teams, have taken issue with the law. Here are some stats on Title IX that might be helpful: Title IX has caused controversy, with some groups claiming that it has caused some schools to spend less money on 'minor' or 'non-money-making' men's sports programs such as wrestling, cross country, swimming, gymnastics, fencing and volleyball. On the other hand, supporters of Title IX point to statistics (from a GAO study) that indicate male collegiate sport participation has increased since the inception of Title IX, and that so-called "non-revenue" sports were being eliminated frequently even before Title IX. However, while the GAO study shows that male participation in sports was up 5% over the 1981 to 1998 time frame, male college enrollment during those years was up almost 19%. The number of men's sports teams available per male student has declined 21% over that time. Teams such as tennis, track and field, and swimming have decreased for men, while women's teams have increased. Although there are now more teams available to women than to men, the total number of male participants still significantly outnumber women; in 1998-99 there were 232,000 males participating in college athletics and 163,000 females. Before Title IX passed, an estimated 290,000 high school girls participated in competitive sports. Now it's estimated, there are more than 1.9 million and counting. There is performance, too, whether in women's volleyball, gymnastics or in the overall record of American women at the Olympic games in Atlanta. Finally, there is fairness: Title IX lets women compete for athletic scholarships once open only to young men. So as you can see it is very complicated and hard to tell who it has hurt and who it has helped. As I pointed out previously women are still influenced by societal stereotypes and expectations. I fully believe that girls should have the same choices and opportunities as boys. I think some of these schools used Title IX to cut some of its non-revenue sports and used Title IX as a cover. It is easy to blame the people who were being discriminated against - but I fully believe that by creating opportunities for girls you do not have to take them away from the boys.

It is more complicated than getting rid of one for the another. But even if that is the case you are right it does not seem right. There are flaws with every rule etc. and it was never meant to take sports away from boys and replace them with girls. For some schools it is economics and how it chooses to spend its money to insure equity. I am sure that wrestling at UK was not a big revenue producer so it was an easy sport to cut to save money. In the end one can only hope this have give more athletes more opportunities.

I think everyone here is supportive of the region and while we like to support our own team - it is also just fun to talk and argue. I do not let anything said here really bother me or make me mad. We all want the best 4 wrestlers in each weight class to go to state and do the best they can when they get there. Let's face it there are allot of people out there bashing this region. So the final word on the 135 weight class has always been that there are 4/5 really good guys out there & we just do not agree on what order 1-5 they should be placed in - but no matter what when the time comes we all be cheering for them to make a good showing at state-the same goes with all the weight classes!!

so do you agree with the change?