Title IX and idiots

You can read the entire AP report on Title IX embedded below, but here is a few key quotes. Commentary follows in another post.
AP: The head of an athletic department in the mighty Southeastern Conference says the biggest problem with meeting gender equity is what he calls the elephant in the room: College football. “We have 330 varsity athletes, 110 are on the football team,” Vanderbilt vice chancellor David Williams said Tuesday night. “So if you want me to get to 50-50, that means I have slots for 55 men other than football.”

… Money is out there. Williams was part of the SEC’s negotiating committee that worked out a 15-year deal with ESPN reportedly worth more than $2 billion to televise the league’s sports in 2008. Vanderbilt will be receiving $18 million to $20 million a year under that package. “One needs to understand that college athletics in Division I in this country is big business, and we sit in a conference that signed the biggest TV (deal). And they didn’t give us that money for anything but two sports: Football and men’s basketball,” Williams said.

One woman in the audience asked how to control football to offer more opportunities to the other students. She said she has a 19-year-old son who couldn’t attend the college he preferred because the school doesn’t have men’s soccer and a 15-year-old daughter who also plays soccer and runs track.

She suggested a cut to 50 scholarships for football. (read the entire AP report below)