David Cook tileTo talk about University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's Title IX troubles is to sooner or later realize this:
Football and wrestling take up an awful lot of room.
UTC has 211 male student-athletes, with 133 of them either on the football team (which has 97 roster spots) or wrestling (36).
The university has only 145 female student-athletes, and there is no bulky, big-team, football-esque equivalent for them. The largest female sport is soccer, with 27 players.
It's like some unnamed Law of Athletics -- if colleges have wrestling and football teams, then odds are they'll also have a significant gender disparity.
Here's the rub: Title IX says athletics must reflect the classroom, and at UTC, they don't.
Whereas females are 55 percent of the student body, they are only 40 percent of the athletes.
"Contrary to what you might have heard, nothing in Title IX requires schools to spend the same amount of money on male and female teams," writes Jonathan Zimmerman in the LA Times. "Nor does it mandate an equal number of male and female athletes. Instead, it requires schools to take measures to make male and female participation on sports teams proportional to the overall numbers of men and women in the student body."
When trying to achieve Title IX parity, it seems more just and honest to skim spots from wrestling and football than completely eliminate men's track and field, which is what UTC is proposing.
Yet what if there was a way to keep all three -- football, wrestling and men's track -- by adding a sport exclusive to women?
A sport that would immediately add 30 or so women to the athletics roster?
A sport that is a graceful, gutsy and natural reflection of the Chattanooga landscape?
A sport that, ahem, is sure to make waves?
Why not a Lady Mocs crew team?
"UTC already has male and female rowing teams competing at the club level. Consequently, they already have facilities, equipment and a coach. Also, Chattanooga has strong rowing programs for high school students, an active local club -- Lookout Rowing -- and hosts the Head of the Hooch regatta every fall," one reader emailed on Friday morning. "Just a thought."
It's a rock star of a thought.
UTC's rowing club is led by the veteran Robert Espeseth, who has created a competitive club team with all the drive and heart of an official sport, yet none of the official NCAA backing. (And no, Espeseth hasn't spoken to me, lest you think he's pulling strings here.)
Elevating the club team to NCAA team status would be an organic extension of this city and its river; in fact, no other sport would so accurately reflect the aqua-postcard-outdoorism Chattanooga hopes to reflect. If Chattanooga is Cinderella, then women's crew is the right shoe.
Yes, this is big-pocketbook stuff -- the boats alone are like a second mortgage. Yet an established (club) program is already in place, along with a coach, equipment and boathouse that, I might add, is only a short walk from the football practice field. If one exists, shouldn't the other?
Best of all, a women's NCAA crew team would be an elegant and intelligent extension of the Head of the Hooch, that gorgeous regatta our city has hosted since 2005. The Hooch draws thousands of rowers from across the U.S. and the world.
And the university just blocks away doesn't have a crew team?
"Rowing is one of the fastest-growing NCAA women's sports," said Doug Beville, assistant director of the Hooch.
In 1981, only 43 NCAA schools offered women's rowing.
Today, 142 NCAA schools offer women's rowing.
Why not 143?
"I think Espeseth has done a great job for 20-plus years running a competitive and exciting club rowing program," Beville said. "Taking women's crew to the next level is a great opportunity."
Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook at DavidCookTFP.