The University of Tampa will be adding a women’s lacrosse team next year. The team, however, may not be ready to compete until the spring of 2014.
“We are going to try and hire a coach in the late summer or the fall,” said athletic director Larry Marfise. “We want our coach to come in and have a full year to recruit and we will most likely compete the following year. We’d hire a coach now, but our facilities are temporary right now.”
Coach Whipple came in this season to start the lacrosse program for the men, having previously started the program at Florida Southern two years before.
“We hired Coach Whipple in mid-January and he convinced us that he would have the program ready to go by the first spring. If a women’s coach comes in and says they can get the program up and running by the first spring, we’ll look into that, but the plan right now is to compete in the spring of ‘14.”
According to the university’s athletics website, tampaspartans.com, there are currently eight men’s sports and 12 women’s sports at the school. “We did not add women’s lacrosse because of Title IX, but because it is attractive to students,” Marfise said.
According to the United States Department of Justice, Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity. It has been in existence since 1972.
“Title IX is very convoluted,” Marfise said. “You don’t have to have a 50/50 ratio of funding, you don’t have to base it on proportionality; there are several different prongs to be in compliance with Title IX. Say we have 60 percent females and 40 percent males at our school; we would give 60 percent of the scholarships to females and 40 percent to males. That’s the prong we use.”
By next spring, we will have 13 women’s sports and just eight men’s sports. We have women’s tennis, but no men’s tennis. Women’s crew is recognized as a division-II sport while men’s crew is just a club team.
“Title IX is in effect to make sure you treat everyone equal,” Marfise said. “They don’t check in on you and will only come in and react if there is a complaint. We have a Title IX officer on campus. People think it was started because of athletics, but it was really started at engineering schools.”
Marfise also stated that the university won’t be adding any more men’s teams in the immediate near future (within a year of adding women’s lacrosse) because Marfise and the rest of the staff want to get women’s lacrosse established first.
Coach Whipple is a big supporter of the addition of the team.
“I was all for adding women’s lacrosse, behind them 100 percent,” said Whipple. “I think they’ll come in and be successful. I’m hopefully going to be on the search committee and I want them to carry on a winning tradition as well. Women’s lacrosse is one of the fastest growing sports out there.”
The men’s lacrosse team won the Deep South regular season conference title in its inaugural season, but lost in the semifinals. The team finished 11-5.
“Our kids have come in and set the bar high. We will support the women’s team; I want them to win,” said Whipple.
The women’s game is much different than the men’s. “No contact is allowed and the women don’t wear shoulder pads or helmets,” said Marfise. “The field is wider, but shorter and it’s just a different game.”
Marfise didn’t rule out anyone becoming coach, but he appreciated that coach Whipple was able to start up the program at Florida Southern. “In a perfect world, we would look for someone who has experience starting a program, like coach Whipple did, but I don’t want to rule out any other prospects,” Marfise said. “All of our staff will be invited to help with the selection process.”
Since Whipple had experience with starting the program, he was able to convince the university that the team would be ready by this semester. He had many recruits come in and practice together in the fall, and then he cut that number considerably before the season started.
The women’s team would already be behind because they haven’t been able to pursue recruits yet, and there is no word if they will be able to practice in the fall yet, since it’s possible a coach won’t even be hired until then. Marfise is apprehensive, but excited with the addition.
“I’m apprehensive because I want to do it right,” he said. “We’re moving into new facilities and locker rooms, and just making sure we have enough space and everything will take time to work it all out.”
The stadium that both teams will share is scheduled to be ready by next spring. We will know soon if the women will begin competing in it next spring or the spring of ‘14.
John Hilsenroth Jr. can be reached at jhilsenroth@spartans.ut.edu
I whole heartedly agree with Mr. Matthews. Title IX doesn’t take into account significant realities about gender differences. My hope is that significant scientific evidence from studies in evolutionary psychology, etc. will help the courts make the right decision to revisit this case and come up with a more just verdict or court order.
Whoa. Let’s be clear. Title IX very specifically REQUIRES discrimination based on gender. For instance, the proportionality prong makes a fundamental assumption that girls and boys participate in athletics at the same rate. This fact has been shot down repeatedly by any valid statistical or scientific study. Because of this idea, Title IX and schools that follow this prong put more emphasis on adding girls teams and if they can’t do that for lack of interest, they cut boys teams. So in reality, the schools punish boys for the girls’ choices.
Here’s your hint – the school is more worried about the gender gap in sports than the fact that they’re 60%female in the classroom. If the school applied Title IX fairly, they would have to remove 1/3 of the female students to match the female proportion in the general population – but they don’t seem to care that there’s a gender gap in education
Furthermore – would they do the same to correct the racial gap? Nope. It’s all about the girls.
Think about it, if the school is 60% female, and the honors classes are 98% white and Asian, but the sports teams are only 56% female.. which issue is most pressing? The lack of males or minorities in the classroom? Nope! It’s all about the girls
And that my friends, is discriminatory- no matter who says it isn’t.