Title IX at SRU: Coaches Perspective and the Future

The women's soccer/softball complex built recently to improve equity on campus

Everyone has their own opinion on equality. The website Dictionary.com defines it as, “the state or quality of being equal; correspondence in quantity, degree, value, rank, or ability.”

Slippery Rock University defined equality in its latest Strategic Plan for Equality in three goals.

The first was to increase the revenue for athletic scholarships among both men and women. I guess you could call that value.

The second was to increase the budget for athletic facility operations, maintenance and upgrades, which would increase rank and ability.

The final was to develop a process that allows more flexibility to maximize resources to best fund all athletic programs. This somewhat falls under quantity.

It seems that the definition of equality in the dictionary is somewhat similar to what SRU looks to do with its athletics. Its strategic plan is to improve all athletics at the university.

Head coach of the women’s soccer team Noreen Herlihy said that she remembers when the campus was in a much different situation with Title IX where women's teams had to drive in vans to games and now they have buses with drivers that take them to games. That's just one of the improvements that she has seen in athletics overall at SRU.

Coach Herlihy discusses what she believes the intent of Title IX was at SRU and what she has seen firsthand. 

In our past part of the series we saw that when it comes to the student athlete on campus, women are very close to equal in receiving scholarships, and ahead of men in the amount of recruiting expenses they are given and the game day expenses.

When it comes to coaches, that equality swings the other way. An average of seven men’s hea coaches showed that the annual institutional salary is $49,638 and for female head coaches, the average is $44,299.

This is a difference of $5,339. Now, there are factors that must be examined such as the length of time that coaches have been on staffs but the raw data shows that male head coaches make more money at SRU than female head coaches.

When you examine the data of assistant coaches there is a swing in the opposite direction. Assistant female coaches make $20,866 on average where male assistants make $18,847, a difference of $2,019.

Once again it seems that while there are some differences between the amount of money given to males and females, equality from a numbers standpoint has been reached or is at least very close to being reached.

As Holly McCoy said in part two of this series about Slippery Rock being in great compliance with Title IX, coach Herlihy seems to agree and believes that the future of Title IX is one where equity will be reached, or at least always strived for, and even if Title IX was taken off the books that'd still be the case.

Herlihy discusses the future of Title IX 

Title IX at SRU: Differences between programs

There are several immediate differences that can be noticed biologically, psychologically and several other ways between man and woman. The one place that another difference is between men and women is in the athletic domain.

Slippery Rock University has gone through several battles involving Title IX and has worked toward meeting equality between men’s and women’s sports programs on campus.

Improvements were made to the softball field after a 2006 lawsuit that was filed and more improvements were made in 2009 when the lawsuit was re-opened. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette has a more in-depth account of the lawsuit.

Below is a slideshow of some differences between the men's baseball field and the women's softball field. While the men's stadium is much more advanced than the women's, improvements have been made to the women's to attempt to make it a state-of-the-art venue.

The 2011 Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act shows the raw numbers of the distribution between men’s and women’s sports.

When it comes to athletically related student aid, men receive $407,093 in total aid while women receive $438,080. The percent of women is higher so when you break down the number per percent, women receive $8,424.62 and men receive 8,481.10.

While the men receive around $60 more per scholarship, the difference per percent is rather insignificant.

There is a bigger difference when it comes to recruiting expenses per percent between the men and the women. Men’s teams receive $20,259 and when you factor in the 48 percent that they make up, you have $422.06 per percent. The women receive $35,087 for recruiting and the 52 percent gives them $674.25 per 

percent.

This shows that on average women’s programs receive an extra $253.19 for each percent of athletes over men.

Does this mean that equality has been reached because women receive more funding than men for recruiting?

Assistant Vice President of Diversity and Equal Opportunity Holly McCoy said that she believes that SRU has done a good job at reaching equality at SRU by first reaching a proportion between the percent male and female athletes and the percent of male and female students. The second part she said is usually referred to as the "laundry list" and consists of funding, recruiting money, etc. 

Holly McCoy discusses the two main components of checking Title IX compliance

Another area to look for differences in equality of funding comes down to the total game day operating 

expenses between the sexes.

Overall, the men’s programs combine for $288,178 in expenses for 259 athletes. The women’s side has 313 athletes and spends $374,099 in operating expenses.

Per athlete, that figures show that game day expenses for men are $1,112.66 and for women it is $1,195.20, a difference of $82.54 for each individual athlete.

Operating (Game-Day) Expenses by Team
	Men's Teams			Women's Teams
Varsity Teams	Participants	Operating Expenses per Participant	By Team	Participants	Operating Expenses per Participant	By Team	Total Operating Expenses
Basketball	13	$3,333	$43,334	13	$2,954	$38,406	$81,740
Football	81	$891	$72,188				$72,188
Baseball	31	$1,807	$56,012				$56,012
Field Hockey				22	$1,577	$34,687	$34,687
Lacrosse				24	$2,248	$53,962	$53,962
Soccer	22	$1,975	$43,444	23	$1,815	$41,746	$85,190
Softball				24	$1,583	$38,003	$38,003
Tennis				10	$2,102	$21,015	$21,015
Track and Field, Indoor	25	$629	$15,718	63	$380	$23,923	$39,641
Track and Field, Outdoor	74	$425	$31,483	86	$592	$50,919	$82,402
Track and Field,X-Country	13	$2,000	$25,999	28	$1,448	$40,534	$66,533
Volleyball				20	$1,545	$30,904	$30,904
Total Operating Expenses Men's and Women's Teams	259		$288,178	313		$374,099	$662,277

Graph provided in SRU's 2010-2011 EADA Compliance Report 

While the numbers show that equality has been reached, it ultimately comes down to the experience that the players and coaches have for the programs and if they are offered an equal chance to succeed in their sports.

McCoy said that she believes the strides made by the university have brought the university into compliance with Title IX. 

Holly McCoy talks about the improvements SRU dealing with Title IX 

Check back later this week for the final part of the series which deals with several coaches views on Title IX at SRU and where Title IX will be headed in the future.