200 Years; Male-Female Participation in Sports

from communication center the university of texas at austin this is two hundred years in the year nineteen seventy six the american republic celebrates its two hundredth anniversary as a part of the us bicentennial program at the university of texas at austin two hundred years explores the past present and future dynamics of history's longest living democratic society this is rick's we're for two hundred years this week we will be talking about the desperation of men and women and sports with us are winning inspire do so associate professor and chairman of the department of health physical education and recreation at the university of texas at austin you jean elson professor of general business and member of the universe does athletics council for intercollegiate athletics for a man at the university and ana look the amo director of intercollegiate athletics for women at ut austin let's begin by establishing if we can where the men and women can

form and compete equally and sports or should they will start with don another take warning signs information away for her expertise lies in physiology and exercise without talk a little bit about the sociological and psychological factors i think when you consider the case of the superior athletes the olympic champion the national competitor were not really looking at sex differences in personality characteristics how we see athletes men and women who have very dominant personalities very autonomous score high and extract intelligence very tough minded people when you look at the majority the athletic population female we're looking at female characteristics which of an inbred by our society for the past you know hundreds of years and were looking at a female who is predominately less dominant than the male who is more emotionally sensitive who is more anxious more conservative far more sociable mormon less self sufficient in those characteristics are really the best to react in a high stress

environments or you know in your many many years of experience what they viewed as an emissary would necessarily be true that women have a less try and less and parents and it would be foolish to suggest that they can compete at me level of performance at which men compete that doesn't mean that they don't have an entirely legitimate and commendable role in the intercollegiate athletic field i think he have to talk about two i'm always worried about whether women in can compete together nine one of those points is the type of activity and the other point is the level of our performance artist jason that you talking about so for instance if you talk about football or baseball or sports in which our strength and speed and interests are primary

components and if you also talk about very very high level levels of scale birgeneau women don't compete very well with man but if you talk about archery around for a bird diving ice skating in terms of form the filing compete as well or better than me and any fee talking about elementary school for instance our junior high school in non physical education classes were not talking about ultra high levels of performance training and skill i use than they compete also very well so any conversation now that regard so the question can women compete with me and yet say and at what level and in what sport was probably the rule of the woman has been relegated in this country and culture of the germans are levick ability do you feel that women could become weightlifters

sterling good lineman nfl for example if they have a different cultural think women can become anything they want to because i don't know how many of them want to become line and i don't think they can do it in the nfl because they are talking about a male sport association we just don't have very moment that women who are sixty eight the way to honor an eighty lbs and think about well what do you get them they're interested in and playing football a very high level expertise professional sports i would say that they'd be in a woman's professional football it and i can attach a negative connotation to the context for young women actually are better protected than because they can contact sports their reproductive organs our house internally were male reproductive organs or how sixteen there's no reason why women couldn't just fine in context boards but now and then juice it would never planned

well i won't say never but it means very rare find two hundred and eighty pound woman it's two hundred and eighty pounds of muscle you could make it in the pro ranks with me and when i find a very good quarterback possibly sixty as good coronation intelligence as a strength than a crowbar hundred yards but she would be one of them in nature i wonder now i'm i really seen some long procedure accusing playwright and that kind of that it would be realistic talk about women especially in football and maybe better protected in some respect but you know very well normal case of they got out into the game they simply wouldn't be able to stand up to bashar goes into to recite battering their land martin if you're trained for it and i think the potential

lives there that i don't have any experience in porridge to indicate the counter situation on the regime than just a constituent worse than forcing women at his fate and pop warner football man yeah that lower age levels and there's blood contact course that's that's well before on puberty and well before they began to develop their sex differences generally all women can compete with a man in sony's our sports if they are a lot bigger than a lot taller and heavier so that the heaviness is more muscular component than fat the problem then if you time of football is that you get up to such heavy levels and such great heights that women can't be taller from our heavier and so therefore we can compete very well the listener great weight is really only developed within the last twenty thirty years in football as much as i can remember when the two hundred and thirty

four black mold cleveland browns the largest runner around and we could run over almost everyone wears today that would be entirely different sets out that the fourth then averaged eight hundred and sixty five it's really it's comparable rule going back some of a great athletes only low wages their uniforms may suggest they were five feet four it's indicative of our professional sports is going where the emphasis is being placed with a professional sports apparel level are saying let's go unless intelligence come into play as factors when compared with strength and brutality in the case of ice hockey that disturbs me a little bit about what we can do to change that we're getting back to a more of an even display of physical and an intellectually it's ending so what you are saying is that really the role of sports weathered the intercollegiate a

professional are on the high school level or elementary level determines the participation of human are women what should they and they try to do and wilson manson women's level and simply explore that for well the first thing i should do make clear that i'm not speaking for the athletics council nor as athletics council take a position on this matter and i would certainly start with the proposition that women do have a proper role and a very important role in the village intercollegiate athletics and that an effort to muster exerted by the university to see that they have the opportunity to display to the full level of there and desires and capacity and my plan or exit one in its chairperson of women's athletic so insane and the only

people harmed all that kind and i would agree with gene that the university has to deliver the coveted for women at least done making sure that we are equitable programs for women but the type of sports in our program are responses didn't interest soaring or not reprogramming terms of the next five years which sports are going and depends on how college sports son developed that institution uninterested people we're water resources are thinking didion's to once again on the type of sport i think it's entirely on an educational concept to have women and men competing together on teams in sport such as archery and now badminton fencing gymnastics sports of that sorrow where they are just as the five types of activities within the sport that are my own female but i think that in those events women should

complete generally gets women man should compete against me in and then there in the our sports that i think that there must be several separate the latrines otherwise the women will have an opportunity to compete in all if it seems to me like going women would have a great opportunity here for example if the aim of the program were to prepare us for olympic participation is this to great ago because it seems to be one weakness our nation has in journalism on the womens divisions of track for example are some of the other olympic sports we've been criticized there you know make an excellent point because european countries in terms of amateur athletics are dominated by federations usually are receiving government financial support we just do not have an amateur organization here so in effect her college programs are replacing the federation so we're preparing a place for what the competition right now the thing that's standing are way more than anything else is not the quality of the

program as much as the politics that are involved in getting the love began late selected getting coaching staff who were big themes how much time we give them to train its side it's it's an absurdity to think that we are fielding basketball teams that have played together for three or four weeks before going into the world championships of the decade that's astounding country has i think that there are societies image of the romance laden the role that the moment when his plight is controlled press fifty years i've been repressive in terms of fielding high level women and acting head if foreign role continues to change slowly as it is i think they will find their american women are more competitive but assad hasn't condone nor encouraged women to begin training at age eight or ten and continued heavy training and throughout their adolescent period one woman wrote him femininity

to the scene and get the raid be like a bad instance this year he confessed lovely lovely athletes as a matter of fact i am one of the yam points to backtrack and make always laptop they've about this subject is there women do become strong when they trained and they do develop muscles when they trained not anything like thick stand of mail much you appear in terms of bulk but they do develop discernible indefinable musculature and i think it's important that our society is beginning to own change are what we consider to be aesthetic our interpretations of femininity and we're beginning to see that women who have some solid muscle in newer firms are very beautiful indeed to them when compared to women were quite quiescent so i think their image if you look at some of the older art for instance

at what the artist used to consider as they get women and compare that with some of the far right now and you see a much more vigorous mormon mom will reveal that that think back at some of the paintings me ruben period and i had the idea i recognize their historical and cultural constraints which have made it an adorable for the woman to be strongly muscular tone but i i rode in a rural area where women were worked in this field and that they'd been strongly in the way that athletics mix well and we found nothing objectionable well and one thing that has been bandied about in the sports sections of the papers and sporting events and title nine we've heard that the intercollegiate athletic program for a man is going to be banished him to the ground and the government some modern

forces title nine although we've heard many many times and it seems to me from athletic directors and coaches at college football is going to be destroyed except untouched doesn't happen the last the twenties are uses institution of normal modest scale anyway ooh what about title nine what is it and what can we anticipate its effects on the line is that part of a nineteen seventy two that education then that's an all it really says is certain institutions of higher education who are recipients of federal funds there can be any sex discrimination and as educational activities are programs or you lose those federal funds when you consider for example at of the university of texas were receiving twenty to thirty million dollars a year and federal funding salute you could have a push to get what i could and mental and the other i've said this before and anti don't mind has been something that people always ask me about i don't think we were probably here at the university of texas

with regard to coming up with a goodwill programs we have two or three years to do it and we have the financial resources available to us i don't think anyone is sinking in terms of reducing women's athletic program it all but we're looking at building of the women's athletic program did you hear rumblings about fertile mind what has two lawyers from a manservant we're all persons live they've always apprehensive of the intrusion at delhi and health programs and experience of education generally is extended here or i and probably a lot of gratuitous interference much will depend upon the cooperation of the people heading up the various programs within the university and i think here we have people who recognize the proper ends which all programs are you expecting to serve and i don't say that you were going to have the difficulties that some

people anticipate that early point of the statute i can understand some of the comments made at one time by people to call a national basis that suggested that the way to create a strong program a women's athletics when to take the manned program divided in half and half of the funding for that one and so there would be quality but i think that he has been pretty well then the women's athletics need to rise on the bases that they announced an opportunity in terms of the plan physical education programs rather than athletic programs that we have a man who's been a very planned facilitating force co educational physical education programs we're beginning throughout the country anyway before thailand spain is that the dancing our audience cause of the problems to our falling land very quickly and it's sad and i'd say it's a rush

all over the country a movement political problems which are at physical education levels were skill levels are low and down the objectives are different it's a very plan their time program what i anticipate over the rest of the country many of our illustrations that come from the interactive texas which obviously were all involved in how our women's athletics programs being treated over the rest of the united states than comparable institutions smaller institutions are growing in leaps and downs yes no question that on the average were looking at budgets which increased from one hundred to eight hundred percent in the past two years each year itch showing unbelievable increases i think the problem has been recognized now it's a first step and mostly institutions are struggling to find a financial resources than ever said before will maintain men's programs at their current levels and still provide equal opportunity for women

and it's going take us some time to work those problems out on institutions aren't fortunate as we are they don't have the financial resources to come up with that kind of a switch her share of offensive will calm financial feasibility of certain extent of all i've been able to maintain and catholics now a question as to what will provide three and come to support women's athletics and owners and apparently any no equivalent women's activity which has the spectator attractiveness that of all these men for their resume and that five finance at sombrero when many of our institutions or football as the dominant sport or mailers or blair maybe course we have a well rounded program at the universe many institutions can narrow shortsighted most of the institutions and the united states did not

depend on inspections verification did not depend on football gate receipts on their program we're looking at her at two hundred and fifteen institutions out of nine hundred or a thousand who have football programs that are actually bringing in money most of the programs in the country received mandatory student the financing and or are funded through university funds legislative appropriations especially in area coaching coaches' salaries odds are looking at a different funding methods across the country i think one great thing that is going to happen we criticize intercollegiate athletics the longest time of existing outside of the educational institution makes its own maya operates almost as a corporate entity and a war that a lot of the law are a lot of the larger institutions and we've been wondering how do we bring it back into the fold under normal university governance truck structures are or how do we convinced that will be instances really in education like a man think that's going to happen on the university decides its responsibility is to find and we've

ceased forcing students too i'll be entertainers in order to have an educational program to have to bring in a thousand people on a saturday afternoon to support some other sports team events are a little are antithetical to what were supposed be doing education are you going to suggest though that a great majority of the students and alumni in the spectators want the kind of program we now have that they must surrender their desires in favor of the people who make the educational decision on athletics suggesting that at all i think you get a quality program and spectators want to come to your program great i love the idea of a thousand people and they have tremendous football program it's a quality educational program for kids that's fine but to depend on their behalf to have to bring in those people is what i'm arguing about i think women sport is going to come up with something that is revenue

producer i would have to depend on those ravenous says what i would not like to see it through if money's come in online want to contribute to a program in which they believe that they're interested in great it freeze money for other things in the university yes and i have a serious problem long time when you have increasing difficulties with budgets that all levels of the university and a time when athletics they produce the necessary increase revenues from increased cost then to generate funds to support a national program and have considerable the man went missing that airs tonight car horns athletics as unattractive as attracting spectators the women's programs in many parts of country and a very attractive and in our own time of eighty thousand but women's sports as they develop in this country they couldn't be more more interesting to watch more more people watched them they can engineer a

partial support for themselves well we have posed with a question about the future namely how are going to finance everything on our discussion this week about the biggies patient men and women and sports analysts have included warnings or do so associate professor and chairman department of health physical education and recreation at the unrest in texas at austin you jean elson professor and general business and member of the university's athletic council for intercollegiate athletics forman and donald the amo director of intercollegiate athletics for women at ut austin isis strikes we're for two hundred years two years as part of the united states bicentennial program at the university of texas austin is a continuing series of weekly conversations about the past present and future dynamics of history's longest living democratic society two hundred years communication