Title IX forces UNLV to add another women's sport

With federal dollars at stake, UNLV athletic department administrators are poised to do what it takes to stay in compliance with the law:

Create a women's water polo team.

Water polo may not have the community appeal of say, women's golf, but there are more players on a water polo team than a golf team.

And in the world of Title IX gender equity politics, more women in the locker rooms means the university's $55 million in federal funding remains secure -- money that in part pays for the emerging emphasis of the university, research projects.

Title IX, a federal law passed in 1972, requires that universities maintain men's and women's athletic participation rates that match the gender division of undergraduate enrollment.

UNLV's current undergraduate enrollment is 53 percent female and 47 percent male. Its athletic participation is 47 percent female, 53 percent male.

Administrators consider a 5 percent variance safe. But when the margin slipped to 6 percent this year, UNLV assistant athletic director Lisa Kelleher said the push was on to find another women's sport.

Although the decision isn't final yet, "we're looking for numbers. Golf doesn't really necessarily give us numbers," Kelleher said.

A water polo squad would have about 20 members; golf -- a sport many locals have requested -- would have 8 or 10 members. "This is a way to keep us out of litigation," Kelleher said. "If we don't follow the rules, it can affect the whole university. You can lose federal dollars if you're not compliant."

After years of ups and downs in the gender equity arena, UNLV is stepping out as a diligent caretaker of Title IX issues. In addition to pouncing on the participation ratio at the 6 percent margin, the school is seeking $1.2 million from the legislature this session to pay for women's athletic programs -- twice the amount it received in the last biennium.

As at most Division I schools, the UNLV athletic administration continues to grapple with offsetting the scholarship opportunities provided by football, for which there is no female equivalent sport. If the 75 football scholarships did not fall under the Title IX umbrella, compliance would be a moot point for most universities. Some 25 schools are under investigation by the federal Office of Civil Rights (OCR) for complaints that they are out of compliance. If found non-compliant, schools are generally given a chance to develop a corrective plan, but the law allows for withholding federal dollars.

"Water polo would help us move in the direction of equity," Kelleher said. "Golf would leave us on the borderline."

In addition to research dollars, universities jeopardize their student federal financial aid by not complying with Title IX. Nevadans are receiving more federal financial aid per recipient than students in 40 other states -- about 85 percent of total financial aid came from the federal government during the 1997-98 academic year.

In 1979, UNLV underwent an on-site investigation by the OCR, was found to be out of compliance, and began a long haul to full compliance -- which it achieved in 1987.

In 1995, then-new athletic director Charlie Cavagnaro instigated a review of compliance checkpoints and found that athletic participation was 70 percent male.

"We were very far away from compliance," Kelleher said. "So we made a plan to get in compliance over the course of several years."

The university reinstated women's volleyball three years ago and instituted a women's soccer team last year. UNLV also has been more selective in hiring female coaches and has renewed its financial commitment to many of them.

The women's track coach, Karen Dennis, has been named the head coach for the USA Women's Olympic track team while volleyball coach Deitre Collins saw her salary increased by a whopping $30,000 -- from $40,000 to a base salary of $70,000 -- when Iowa tried to lure her away.

Women's basketball coach Regina Miller was brought in at $85,000, which is competitive with the $110,000 base salary men's coach Bill Bayno made in his first season -- especially given that Bayno's program is UNLV's cash cow, while women's basketball generates no income.

Additionally, while women's squads have been created or expanded, men's have been squeezed. Women's basketball actually has more scholarships than the men, 15-13.

"It's only in recent years that we've had this squad size limit for men," said Jim Reitz, coach of both the men's and women's swim teams, who has been at UNLV for 19 years. "For 16 years we didn't have a limit on the men's swim team, but in the last two years, we've been capped."

The men's swim team now has 22 members; the women's has 30.

"The men are severely handicapped because of it," Reitz said.

Reitz said creating new women's teams without funding could send men's teams into financial trouble, as they are forced to cut their budgets to fund the new sports. "Unless funding comes with a new sport, we're in trouble," Reitz said. "In non-revenue sports like mine, there are no places to make cuts." During the 1997 legislative session, UNLV's athletic department received $300,000 per year for two years to bring women's sports programs up to the level of men's -- the second highest state appropriation toward gender equity funding in the nation to date.

Of that, $118,000 per year went to women's athletic scholarships, and $90,000 went to the new women's soccer team's operating budget.

This session, UNLV is seeking $600,000 per year over the next two years.

"We're talking about whether to send any of our student athletes up there (to the Legislature in Carson City) to speak," Kelleher said.

But Title IX does not only require universities to maintain proportional team participation levels. Among its 13 major components for gender equity, it requires that women's teams have comparable sports facilities to the men's.

"One area we know we need to get better at is facilities," said Kelleher.

To that end, the university is building an $8 million sports pavilion next to the Thomas & Mack Center that will serve as the new home to the women's basketball and volleyball teams. The three-story, 60,000 square-foot center will have two 10,000 square-foot practice courts, a 4,000-seat arena court, locker rooms and storage facilities.

The pavilion is under construction and expected to be open in 2000 -- provided private funding comes through.

"We're looking at corporate partnerships -- several different ones are interested," said Thomas & Mack director Pat Christenson. "We're hoping to secure the $8 million through a naming race ... we're looking for a name (title sponsor)."

Additionally, renovations at the Thomas & Mack and Sam Boyd Stadium will enable women's sports to have more space, according to Kelleher. A new track and field facility (UNLV fields a women's track team but no men's) also was recently completed. And plans for a new softball stadium are under way, although that project has been delayed by several years.

"We're working on a very aggressive fund-raising plan for a softball stadium," Kelleher said.

In the meantime, Kelleher continues to sift through requests for a new women's sport. Water polo likely will be the next to find its place on the UNLV campus.

"But there is a lot of interest in water polo," she said. "We're thinking about adding women's water polo because it is an emerging women's sport -- it's going to become an Olympic sport," Kelleher said. "Synchronized swimming is also big. And handball, crew, equestrian -- there are a lot of options."

Kelleher keeps a drawer full of letters from members of the public who want to see certain women's teams created.

Golf in particular has a growing support group. In recent years, state Sen. Kathy Augustine, R-Las Vegas, has put pressure on the athletic department to start a golf team.

"If I was talking about exposure, then golf might be the answer," Kelleher said. "But in terms of participation numbers, golf won't quite do it."

That aside, Reitz said that local interest in golf might enable the university to negotiate a deal with a benefactor, either an individual or corporation, to endow a women's golf team. In fact, as in other areas of university financing, administrators say that private funding may be the solution to the equity problem. If the community would sponsor women's sports, the university's men's sports would benefit indirectly.

"As women climb into positions of authority around the community and in companies, we're hoping that they will begin to recognize their ability to help women's sports," Kelleher said. The administration and the UNLV Foundation are pursuing several sponsorship leads right now, she said.

But money for women's sports isn't yet free-flowing from the private sector. Last week, as the Board of Regents checked off a list of consent items in a lengthy agenda, it approved the waiver of the Women's Sports Foundation's annual audit because "the expense of such an audit would create financial hardship for the UNLV Women's Sports Foundation."

The UNLV Women's Sports Foundation raised $29,149 for women's sports in 1996, $22,525 in 1997 and has a current balance of $17,438, according to Lydia Sale, the Foundation's treasurer.

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