I cannot say that I know any more about Title IX than when I started working on this series. In fact, I may know even less because of the sheer amount of information and angles surrounding this complex and touchy issue.
I thought I had done my homework. I researched the topic as thoroughly as I could by reading as much as I could on the Internet, in newspaper clippings and previous studies.
I had high ideals entering this week, even if I did not have an explicit goal in mind.
Maybe I wanted to clear the air on some issues. Perhaps I desired to raise awareness about this complex topic. I thought I could even change someone's mind.
I did manage to do the latter'I changed my own mind.
I used to think that it was Title IX that was killing sports. While I knew that losing baseball at Wisconsin was not about the legislation but about the budget, I could not help but feel that there was some injustice about that.
I even wanted to get rid of the proportionality aspect of Title IX because I thought it was unnecessary.
I know now that this is simply not the case. The problem is athletics budgets that cannot fund more women's sports due to lack of money from revenue-generating sports.
I now see that the proportionality portion of Title IX gives the legislation its strength.
But I also realize that athletics departments are under pressure to spend more money on revenue-generating sports to fund more non-revenue athletics teams.
In a sense, it is a kind of a Catch-22 for a university's athletics department.
Which side is right?
Personally, I have no idea. But I do know this:
Title IX is, without a doubt, one of the most important pieces of legislation in the last 100 years.
The numbers would be reason enough to believe Title IX has worked. However, the legislation has had a larger impact.
I have seen the results in the faces of every person that I had the pleasure of interviewing.
Their expressions and answers showed me that not only has Title IX worked in its express intent of allowing women to participate in athletics, it has had an unintended consequence'self-confidence.
I do not believe, throughout all of my interviews, that I saw a female athlete who did not think that athletics helped her at one time or another.
The five stories the sports desk delved into in terms of Title IX are just the tip of the iceberg. I realize these are not the only areas we could have investigated.
In fact, I could probably write 20 or 25 stories dealing with different aspects of Title IX.
Whether it would be female coaching salaries, opportunities in women's professional athletics or whether wrestling is being killed off by this legislation, I felt that the five we did would hopefully showcase Title IX and its effect on this campus.
If I had to do this all over again, I would not hesitate to spend two weeks of my free time for this.
I can only hope that the sports desk gave you a factual and, in some cases, first-hand account of what Title IX and its impact is.
I am forever changed by this experience and am better for it.
