Savings Sports blog has an interesting post about Title IX . One quote in particular caught StickItMedia’s eyes — “the NCAA cannot be considered an objective source. The NCAA leadership is on record as being closely aligned with groups fighting all forms of Title IX reform and has attempted to quash any debate about the effect of Title IX on decreasing collegiate participation opportunities in the Olympic sports.”

So true. What’s aggravating is that men’s gymnastics is always given prime-time network exposure every four years at the Olympics. Not to mention the fact the ratings for that coverage are always very high. The fact that the NCAA doesn’t bend over backwards to champion more collegiate opportunities for male gymnasts is maddening. Men’s gymnastics is a PREMIER Olympic sport.

Case in point. California, especially Southern California, is a hotbed for gymnastics talent…arguably the largest hotbed in the country. Yet California is home to only two NCAA Division I men’s gymnastics programs…Cal and Stanford. Southern California has no Division I men’s program! This means that Southern California is a net exporter of male gymnasts to the rest of the country. Simply abominable!

The NCAA should put political correctness aside and prioritize Olympic sports, gender be damned. Waivers should be granted to institutions that strive to offer more opportunities for Olympic-caliber athletes. There should be a bare minimum of two Division I men’s gymnastics programs in Southern California alone. UCLA has produced some of our nation’s finest Olympic gymnasts, such as Mitch Gaylord, Peter Vidmar and Tim Daggett. Incredibly, UCLA dropped the sport in 1994. Thankfully, the sport has been revived recently in club form.

Schools like USC, Long Beach State and Cal State Fullerton are all located within thirty miles of some of the nation’s best men’s club gymnasts. These schools would have ready access to a tremendous talent pool. Current Long Beach State Athletic Director, Vic Cegles, has prior experience working with a Division I men’s gymnastics program when he was at Temple University. We wonder if Cegles understands how great a program he could build at Long Beach State, in a relatively short period of time.

Sorry to be so California-centric, but similar scenarios also exist in Texas and Florida. Both states export their club gymnasts. In fact, there are no men’s Division I programs in the entire Southeast. The state of Texas has exported Jonathan Horton and Steven Legendre to Oklahoma University. Mary Lou Retton’s offers to fund men’s Division I programs for various schools in Texas have fallen on deaf ears. What’s up with that?

Let’s put this into perspective. The vast majority of U.S. men’s Olympic gymnastics medalists over the past 40 years have competed at the Division I level. The number of Division I men’s gymnastics programs continues to dwindle. We’re now down to less than 20 programs. Even that number is composed of a handful of dominant programs. Oklahoma University has won the majority of NCAA team championships over the past ten years. This is representative of an existing relative oligarchy that controls the sport. We’re certainly not knocking the level of competition, but it would be nice to see more schools and athletes in the mix.

How many gymnasts “retire” after their club careers due to lack of opportunities? It’s amazing how many club gymnasts blossom once they start competing at the Division I level. The potential for many others to blossom is being lost because they have nowhere to go. This needs to stop! Men’s gymnastics deserves the same prime-time attention from the NCAA that the television networks offer every four years.

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Related Posts:

Title IX Reform: Saving Men’s Gymnastics

Attention NCAA: Quit Screwing with Men’s Gymnastics