Robservations: Soggy days shake up schedules
(A trio of quick shots while desperately researching to find the answer to this week’s Central Oil Trivia Challenge…)
Spring. What a great time of year.
The birds are back from their trip down south, the sun is shining, and day after day is filled with fun sports action in baseball, softball, golf, track, soccer — you name it.
Unless, of course, it rains.
Which it has, constantly, all week.
Every spring, there’s no phrase that sinks the soul more than, “you know, it’s supposed to rain today; they may not play.”
You hear it every year, but you never get used to it. It seems at least once a week I find myself scanning the clouds, thinking “oh, surely this will hold off.” Or sticking my hand out the car window, feeling the drops and saying to myself “oh, man, they can play in this, can’t they? I don’t think the heavy stuff’s going to come down for a while.”
It makes sense, of course, to postpone these games. You don’t want to force people to play in a downpour, or tear up your field sloshing through the mud.
But it sure makes for some interesting days around here, adjusting our schedules and trying to fill up a sports page when the thunder-boomers run everyone off the fields.
• Speaking of being run off the field…
Four men’s teams at Bowling Green University are being run off —permanently — thanks to the wonderful gender-equity rule.
If you’ve never heard of it, a 1972 law known as Title IX says schools must offer scholarships roughly equal to the number of men and women on their campuses. Because of that rule, BGSU has had to eliminate four men’s sports to comply with the law.
Men’s tennis, swimming, and indoor and outdoor track and field will be eliminated at the school, which has an enrollment of over 19,000 students and competes on the Division I level in the Mid-American Conference.
Basically, here’s the beef most people have with Title IX. If you’ve got a football team, let’s say, that has 75 scholarships, you then have to provide 75 scholarships for female athletes. So welcome to the exciting world of fast-pitch softball, women’s cross country, gymnastics, swimming and the like.
The thing is, in providing all these sports for women, you’re also beginning athletic programs which, let’s face it, won’t bring in a dime of revenue to the school. So, you get into money trouble.
Now, the federal government won’t let you cut these women’s teams that lose money, so you have to cut men’s teams to balance the books.
Want a bottom line? Here you go. If you’ve got a child that wants to be an athlete on the college level, and you hope that child can get a scholarship in their particular sport, you better hope for one of two things.
One, hope he’s a football player. Or two, hope she’s a girl. Because if you have a son, his sport may get the ax at any time, just so his school will have enough dough to support women’s teams that can’t support themselves.
• Speaking of support (I love these smooth segues, don’t you?)…
I took in a Nashville Predators game Sunday afternoon, and you’ve got to love the kind of excitement generated at the Gaylord when those guys hit the ice.
I’m telling you, as long as the scoreboard is flashing “cheer,” those stands will be rocking.
I still wonder if half the people in the crowd understand what they’re cheering about. But nowadays, I wonder even more if they’ll start cheering for the other team next year, just to get the money back for that “Playoff Pledge” season-ticket guarantee.