August 17, 2004
Stupid Doubleheader
It helps if someone who claims to follow sports and is factchecking the "liberal media" could actually check the Olympic rosters to make sure they're right.
Carrie Lukas goes off on Title IX, unsurprisingly. (It is the National Review, after all.)
Should these numbers really be cited as evidence of progress for women? The number of women competing was essentially unchanged. The so-called victory for women was the elimination of more than 50 male athletes from the U.S. roster.
The Washington Post was wrong, but then Lukas overreaches and steps in it. The elimination of male spots didn't happen because Title IX is killing men's sports. There are 56 fewer males this year because something even worse and even more un-American happened. Our baseball team didn't qualify for the Games.
How big is a baseball team? Let's look at the rosters.
Australia: 50 men.
Canada: 38 men.
Cuba: 38 men.
Greece: 46 men.
Italy: 73 men.
Japan: 40 men.
Netherlands: 41 men.
Taipei: 42 men.
Lebron James: a man unto himself.
Average number of men per team: 46.
Did Title IX kill off men's sports to enforce "equality" at the Olympics? Not unless Title IX made the U.S. baseball team suck so bad. You'd think someone so concerned about the gender balance of sports would look to see why we didn't send so many men to the Olympics before going off - both the Post and the National Review.
(As a commenter pointed out, we also failed to send a soccer team. A soccer team puts eleven players on the field, and will usually send 20-22 players, total. Taking out the two teams that didn't qualify...we actually sent more men this year.)
Posted by Jesse Taylor at August 17, 2004 04:50 PM | TrackBackDidn't the men's soccer team also fail to qualify? Or am I misremembering?
Posted by: FlipYrWhig at August 17, 2004 04:58 PMI'd support banning all men from the Olympics if it meant we got to see nothing but beach volleyball all day long.
Posted by: Quain at August 17, 2004 05:03 PMOur men's soccer team didn't qualify either. There has to be at least 15 or 18 guys on a soccer team.
Posted by: Rikki at August 17, 2004 05:36 PMHate to nit-pick, but you realize that Lebron James is a *basket*ball player, right?
Posted by: pkgw at August 17, 2004 05:40 PMFrom the looks of the men's game against Puerto Rico, it looks like we didn't send a basketball team either.
Posted by: Incertus at August 17, 2004 05:45 PMPKGW - go to the site I linked that lists all the men's players.
Lebron is on the last page for God knows what reason.
Jesse: Well, I'll be damned. The man can do everything!
Posted by: pkgw at August 17, 2004 06:02 PM(Since we're fact-checking here, the Olympic soccer roster is fixed at 18 -- which is actually pretty small for international tournaments.)
Posted by: ahem at August 17, 2004 06:09 PMWhy would Title IX have anything to do with the Olympics? Isn't T9 about sports in educational facilities?
Posted by: halle at August 17, 2004 06:11 PMAhem - okay - I was just counting up the rosters posted on the Athens site, which may not reflect official counts, but do list between 20 and 22 men and women on each roster as official Olympic athletes.
Posted by: jesse at August 17, 2004 06:29 PMAhem - okay - I was just counting up the rosters posted on the Athens site, which may not reflect official counts, but do list between 20 and 22 men and women on each roster as official Olympic athletes.
Posted by: jesse at August 17, 2004 06:30 PMErm, and how many possible Olympic athletes are getting shot at in Iraq at the moment? We've already lost an NFLer over there.
Posted by: Ogondai at August 18, 2004 12:36 AMActually, we lost that NFLer over in Afghanistan, not Iraq.
Posted by: JohnOwens at August 18, 2004 02:09 AMThe "Title IX is ruining men's sports" is a favorite anti-feminist meme in the college sports world. Bill Littlefield had an "Only a Game" segment on it a couple of years ago. It seems Title IX somehow forces girls and women into sports in high school and college, and colleges are then forced to cut men's sports to comply with it. What's happening, of course, is that colleges cut less lucrative or glamorous sports so they can keep plowing money into the alumni-pleasing football and basketball.
Posted by: Buffalo Gal at August 18, 2004 10:17 AMMy favorite fact culled from the most recent Title IX flap was that wrestling and gymnastics — the men's sports which were supposedly most hurt by Title IX — had been vanishing at a faster rate before Title IX went into effect than afterwards.