College Volleyball and Cheerleading

Significant court ruling for Title IX and saving a volleyball program at a NCAA Division I university.  The Athletic Department tried to replace Volleyball with competitive cheerleading.  

Click for the article:  http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/connecticut-judge-rules-competitive-cheerleading-is-not-a-title-ix-sport-030613

This should be ruling noticed and if it ever changes, it should fought by all volleyball families and the AVCA.  Not because cheerleading is bad, but because if Athletic Departments can replace one women's sport with another women's sport which is cheaper to manage and supplies more student-athletes for the equity count, then they will.

Women's Volleyball has no male shelter when it comes to equity - This is one of the reasons why our sport lags behind other team sports, most especially women's basketball and now, softball.  WBB and softball is safe, when an athletics department has basketball and baseball.   Even women's soccer has some measure of protection, because of the men.

But, volleyball is on an island.  Crew or rowing has seen great gains within the NCAA is because this sport can garner a very large roster.  This large roster, relatively speaking, is easy to fund and creates a huge offset in participation numbers to football.  Volleyball does not sponsor such large rosters, and has no male cover.

Because of the economy and the emphasis on the Golden Goose of Football or the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament (each DI football team believes it can be the next Alabama and each no-name basketball program believes they are the next Cinderella story), athletic departments are constantly looking for ways to manage Title IX and Gender equity from a dollars perspective.  

Cheerleading is not a recognized NCAA sport, and I hope it never becomes one because other traditional women's sports will be at risk because an athletic department could put together a very large roster with ease which will count towards a faux equity count.