Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

As Title IX hits 50, UNLV mostly in compliance — with some occasional prodding

Lady Rebels Win Mountain West Championship

Steve Marcus

UNLV Lady Rebels guard Essence Booker (24) gets a hug from UNLV Lady Rebels head coach Lindy La Rocque as the Lady Rebels celebrate their 75-65 victory over the Colorado State Rams in the Mountain West womens championship game at the Thomas & Mack Center Wednesday, March 9, 2022.

Lindy La Rocque doesn’t remember the days before Title IX became the law of the land — the UNLV women’s basketball coach hadn’t been born yet. Then again, that’s true of a lot of coaches working today.

The Education Amendments Act, which included the now-famous Title IX, became law in 1972, meaning that sports has evolved into an era where all players and most college coaches and administrators grew up in a world with Title IX. Still, 50 years later, its influence on women’s sports is still felt on a day to day basis, and the younger generation understands its impact.

Under Title IX, discrimination on the basis of sex was prohibited at any educational institution receiving federal aid. It meant that women in athletics were afforded the same status as men: College teams must provide an equal number of scholarship allotments to men and women and other financial resources, and the student-athlete experience must be equitable among the sexes.

That ideal has yet to be fully reached, which is why La Rocque cites the ongoing importance of Title IX. The legislation’s anniversary is Thursday.

“I think it’s more relevant now than ever,” La Rocque said. “It’s great to see how far it’s come, but it’s also a reminder of the work that has to be done and has to be advocated for. It’s still not how things have always been. There’s got to be conscious effort, attention, and work, so hopefully one day it will become the norm and how things have always been: The women get what the men get and that’s just how it is.”

The scope of Title IX is wide, encompassing big-picture items like scholarships and access to practice facilities along with various minute details and “small stuff.” Accessories like workout clothes and sneakers and personalized gym bags and anything else provided by the university must be doled out equally.

It’s not always easy to ensure that level of equity. Schools are required to employ full-time Title IX coordinators to monitor compliance, but UNLV women’s golf coach Amy Bush-Herzer says issues can still arise.

“It’s really so much more than making sure the budgets are the same,” Bush-Herzer says. “It’s something people forget. If you have this many men on a team, you have to have this many women. For us, it’s golf course access. It’s making sure we have the same amount of uniforms. There’s people handling all that in the administration.”

When things fall through the cracks, La Rocque says it’s up to her and other women’s coaches to advocate for their programs.

“To be honest, there are things I feel I still have to continue to speak up for and fight for,” La Rocque says. “I think there’s a great awareness for doing the right thing, but you can get comfortable and get lost in doing things how they’ve always been done, and that’s just not right anymore from an equity standpoint. As a leader of the program, I do feel like those are frequent conversations. No one is going to stick up for our program other than me, so we’ve got to do it. I think it’s been met with great response and action from our university, but it’s not normal yet.”

La Rocque points to the difference between the way the men’s and women’s basketball teams were promoted by UNLV last year. The women enjoyed a tremendously successful season, embarking on a 12-game win streak, claiming the Mountain West championship and earning a trip to the NCAA Tournament, but La Rocque feels UNLV could have done more to market the upstart squad.

She says her players attended some men’s basketball games and left questioning the difference in the way the programs were treated.

“From a resource standpoint, we know the men’s team is historic and traditional, and that’s where a lot of our resources go,” La Rocque says. “But especially in a year like this, when we have a great year and we’re winning championships and we have a win streak together, and we don’t get any of the marketing resources. And it’s, ‘Well, it’s because we didn’t project that.’ But now that we have more attendance and we are having better revenue, let’s put some of that toward the marketing. That was something, especially at the end of the year, the men had three or four games late in the year where they gave away free T-shirts. Our best giveaway was a cup. So I think there’s work to be done there, especially when our players are going to those same men’s games and they’re like, ‘Why aren’t we getting this?’ And I’m the one that has to answer to them.”

Bush-Herzer can’t recall any instances during her 12 years at the helm of the golf program when she had to go to the administration with a Title IX complaint, but she feels confident that any issues would be sorted out in an agreeable fashion by one of the university’s 11 full-time Title IX administrators.

“I’m happy I have the relationship with our Title IX administrators that I do,” Bush-Herzer says. “I don’t feel like I could go to them and not get a response. I feel like I could go to them and they would handle it.”

When issues do crop up, La Rocque relays her concerns to deputy administrators Sarah Wattenberg and Mallory Poole. The school has a good track record of making things right, La Rocque said.

“It may not seem like much to the public, but when you’re a student-athlete here, to have something like your name and number on a warmup shirt instead of a blank one, it just personalizes it,” La Rocque says. “That’s an area where I haven’t really had to ask for anything. And it’s not just for us, it’s (women’s) golf and volleyball and tennis, soccer. I see them getting the same cool things we’re getting. I think that’s a great first step.”

La Rocque’s biggest concern with regard to Title IX is complacency. She realizes she wasn’t there for the “dark days” before the law was passed, and therefore it might be easy to slip into believing that the current situation is good enough.

Sometimes it takes a big revelation to puncture that way of thinking. In the modern era, nothing has kept institutions on their toes more than social media. While previous slights toward women’s athletics would often go unreported or fly under the radar, today’s athletes and coaches can take their case directly to their followers.

At the 2021 NCAA Tournament, which was staged in a “bubble” environment, a Stanford assistant coach shared a photo comparing the women’s paltry weight room to the men’s expansive exercise center. The Instagram post sparked a nationwide conversation, forcing the NCAA to step up and provide equal accommodations to the women.

That kind of incident proves that after 50 years, coaches, players, administrators and even fans must continue to be vigilant in ensuring Title IX continues to work for women.

“I think there’s a really heightened awareness,” La Rocque says. “Especially for a campus like UNLV that is so diverse, the Title IX component plays hand in hand. The day to day for us is continuing to fight for the same things that our men’s team gets. We have a great equipment staff to make sure that happens. And we travel to our away games in a similar manner that the men do. Here at UNLV we try to do everything that we can to create a very similar experience for our female athletes, regardless of team or talent or class.”