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Sorry, Chico—I was NOT referring to your info—I actually think your data are very useful.

I should have said something about Title IX making us feel better because it forces people to show fairness on paper—Does that make more sense?

Again, keep sending your data—please! No slam intended on your input here. I thought your data helped my point, in fact.

Chico......making me hungry!

other than the fact that the topic is supposed to be best player in the state.

I have historically (some may say histerically) tried to to fight the 800 pound gorilla when it comes to football and scholarships.

But I am not going to touch it this time. This time I would suggest that equality should be achieved with at minimum american born students. I recent paying taxes for schools and having the athletics departments go to Brazil or Lithuania to get a player. Most do not even finish the school and it is unfairly putting a student-athlete just as capable at a disadvantage.

But we all love soccer on this board so inevitably things need to roll back to it.

The fact is that girls teams get something like 3 or 4 more scholarships than boys. "Lesser" boys sports like soccer pay the price for football being the 800 pound gorilla.

Merry Christmas all!!!!!!

Random thoughts about what has been discussed in this post.
1. I tend to agree that it is easier for female athletes to get athletic scholarships. I have know girls that rtan 25 minute 5k's in high school that got money to run in college. Just in ase you didn't know, 25 minutes is not very good.
2. Maybe things aren't equal between the sexes but title IX has made a difference. See above. Add to that the fact that many male athletes have lost the opportunity to play in college because their teams have been dropped (I am in the category. My school dropped men's soccer after my freshman year to comply with title IX. So if I seem bitter, get over it. Schools such as UCLA have even dropped men's sports or the team has had to find a way to fund themselves.
3. I have seen females not keep the grades they needed for academic scholarships yet the continued to get the scholarship so they wouldn't change their major. Anything to do with this post? Maybe not, but yes I am bitter because I put myself through school since I did not want to transfer (remember dropped soccer program).
4. You don't have to look at just middle school basketball to see the differences between girls and boys. When downtown soccer existed, the boys teams (around U15-16) would go to Clemson and scrimmage the girls. The players I knew said that it was not much of a challenge for them (the boys that is). My 10 year old son has made comments about how slow even the U11-12 developmental girls game is. I used to be a semi-regular at the Atlanta Beat games. Maybe went down for 5 or so a year. It was a chance to see soccer and maybe do some stuff in Atlanta but overall it was very mediocre. And to think people throughout the world say the MLS is not very good. Finally, along these lines, I watched about 5 minutes of the first WNBA game before I fell asleep.
5. Did I read the post wrong that said Claudio Reyna is not an inferior athlete to Raymond Felton? I guess it is all how you define athlete. All I know is that if I was going to play a pickup game in ANY sport (minus soccer) I would choose Raymond over Claudio any day of the week. It wouldn't matter if I even knew the object of the game, if it had something to do with sports and athletics Claudio would even be way down on my list of soccer players to choose. Before anyone questions how much I know about Claudio, I have followed his career since he graduated HS. Before he started at UVA, he was on team that toured the country. When the team visited Greenville, my parents hosted Claudio and another player.

So Title IX has forced the horribly unfair situation that favors males (historically) to be slightly less unfair (again, look at the numbers Chico provided)? I know some males have suffered a "loss" by programs being dropped—look at wrestling. But those instances can never make up for the lost opportunities for decades women have suffered simply because they are female.

It is a matter of timing. I would never support males losing opportunities so females could have opportunities; that is a perversion of the intent. BUT we are still not even close to the field being level. Again, that may be because females will never want an equal number of chances—or it could be the deck is attacked against them socially.

I realize that this could be construed as somewhat harsh; so take it not as a response to anything posted here but instead as a cautionary tale.

Sometimes I like looking up words...here's one that sprang to mind recently:

Mysogyny: Misogyny is an exaggerated aversion towards women. Compared with anti-woman sexism, misogyny is usually regarded as directed against women by some men, though women can also harbor misogynistic views. In feminist theory, misogyny is recognised as a political ideology similar to racism or anti-Semitism, existing to justify and reproduce the subordination of women by men. The etymology of misogyny comes from the Greek and means to hate (misein) woman (gyne). [Link]

Here's an interesting exercise. Substitute race in place of gender in some of these Title IX discussions and see how they read. I can remember growing up in a racist environment in which I heard about all of the breaks that some of "them" got, the jobs and opportunities that went to some of "them" instead of "us", and even how watching "them" play sports wasn't as exciting (in this case because "they" lacked discipline).

Title IX is an attempt to treat over half of our population fairly. It is not a "quota" system; because if it were we'd have a lot more money and scholarships available for female population. Instead, it is a system that attempts to make sure that federally-supported organizations don't overly discriminate against over half of our population. Please note the term "overly."

I appreciate that some people don't like watching females compete. Then again, there are some people that don't like watching the MLS because the quality of play is so much below the EPL. There are some people that don't like watching college football because the quality of play is so much below the NFL. There are many people who prefer college basketball to the NBA, not because of the skill of the players, but because of the style of play.

But given the fact that 80%+ of college football programs lose money, and that 33%+ of Division I-A college football programs lose money, trying to make an argument about audience with respect to college sports is always going to be weak. The simple fact is that like high schools, colleges are for the most part government supported and athletics are shaped not by the potential audience but by the manner in which we wish to shape society.

Merry Christmas...

Bingo and bravo, Chico—Perceptive and a great addition to this discussion.

Chico,

Don't kid yourself.....thanks for clearly insulting me and others with your namecalling. Merry Christmas indeed. You should be ashamed of yourself.

This thread started out talking about the states best players, migrated to where they were going to school and who was recruiting them, then on to why Furman allegedly wasn't recruiting the states best U18 players, then on to costs, the recruiting process and matching up players and schools. In a pretty good post Purple and Yellow introduced the topic of gender inequity. I responded and all cain broke loose.

Not sure that this is a topic that will ever be debated on an internet forum rationally or unemotionally. Smug namecalling only ratchets up the emotions.....

My 7th grade son just got done studying John Locke (amongst others) and I helped him get ready for the test he had a few days before break. It was interesting...the only role of government, Locke believed, was to ensure that the natural rights of man (and woman) were protected.

Our debate wasn't about college athletics in general, or funding in particular. Its about soccer, and college scholarships. Period. And the facts.....are that girls have appreciably more opportunity than boys to get college scholarships. And the reason for this.....is an
attempt on the part of society to engineer a solution, a remedy as it were, for past wrongs.

If fairness is the question, is this fair?

Football is the love of America. We can cry and complain about their 3rd stringers on full rides while our starters sit there with a 1/4 scholarship.....but given the popularity of soccer in America we're lucky we get what we get. USC pulls......85,000 to a football game? How many for a soccer game?

Fairness can't be had in an apples and oranges world. If my daughter goes to Harvard and I spend 40K on her for school and my son goes to York Tech and I spend 1K per year on him and both are happy and both are doing what they wanted to do......have I been a fair parent?

The fact that America spends a fortune on football shouldn't be the justfication for unfairly treating male soccer players.

The fact that woman HAVE been artifically limited over the last 100 years.....cannot be undone by giving out 3-4 additional soccer scholarships per year.

We cannot compare football and soccer. We can only compare soccer to soccer.

My sons CESA team is looking to do an Ireland-England trip this summer. I was doing a little internet research on one fo the stops they were doing (an English University) and reading their website.

No University sports......only Club sports. The equivalent of IM or inter-fraternity leagues.

Why in America.....should higher education subsidize athletics at all?