Nobody talks about it, but folks in the Athletic Department and Administration are stymied by the million dollar plus cost of supporting the women's volleyball program due to Title 9 which drags down the entire athletic budget.

This team since 2010 has had records of 11-15, 8-18,13-14, 11-21, 7-24, 10-20 and last season 8-21 with an overall CAA record of 27-75! This year we're 2-11 thus far, winning a lopsided zero sets in 7 of the 11 losses. The sport exists in a vacuum at W&M...nobody attends the home games and, to add insult to injury, volleyball practice times at Kaplan
genuinely hamper the men's basketball program.

It isn't the records, however. We seem to be going overboard to drive up the costs: 11 of the 14 ladies on the squad are costly out-of-state
students (Tenn-2, KY, ILL, NJ, KAN, TX-2, OREG, COLO & MD). Since
we give out at least nine scholarships, most have to be going to support much more costly out-of-state scholarships.

And, to add to the cost, they traveled for three days this season for some reason for an expensive travel meet in Tucson, Arizona.

The program spends over a million dollars and the school would drop it in a flash if it could. The problem facing the athletic department is that to drop the sport means a corresponding drop of a men's sport of similar cost due to Title 9.

There appears little the College can do. My only suggestion would be to recruit only in the state and eliminate costly road trips to at least ameliorate the stunning costs.

Any thoughts from our esteemed commentators on this W&M discussion page?

Swap it for womens rowing or sailing. The end.

I am not in favor of dropping any sport. I'm adverse to slippery slopes.

I like volleyball. It's a great spectator sport. Just because the program isn't doing well on the W-L ledger is not a reason to drop it.

Is the solution to find a good coach and market the program?

(09-21-2017 09:34 AM)nj alum Wrote:  I am not in favor of dropping any sport. I'm adverse to slippery slopes.

I like volleyball. It's a great spectator sport. Just because the program isn't doing well on the W-L ledger is not a reason to drop it.

Is the solution to find a good coach and market the program?

Volleyball can be a winner. Why not recruit where the players are; here in SoCal?

They just hired a new coach little more than a year ago, so let's give her another two years to turn the program. Women's lacrosse is another sports we've been bad for long time. I think we can be better but for some reason we've been just bad.

I do not understand the constant struggle our athletic department has with Title IX.

In 2010 the Office of Civil Rights, which is a sub-agency of the Department of Education, issued the "Dear Colleague" letter. In that letter the OCR lays out a three pronged test for compliance with Title IX. Satisfaction of any one of the prongs makes a school Title IX compliant. Here is a direct quote:

"Where the members of one sex are underrepresented among intercollegiate athletes, and the institution cannot show a history and continuing practice of program expansion, as described above, whether it can be demonstrated that the interests and abilities of the members of that sex have been fully and effectively accommodated by the present program."

All W&M has to do is demonstrate that the athletic interests and abilities of female students have been fully and effectively accommodated in our athletic department. If we're reaching way outside of our typical student body geographic base just to find volleyball players, I think the AD could easily make the argument that our typical female student has no interest in volleyball. Then you could take the millions we spend on the sport and reinvest it in a women's sport that actually has student body interest like soccer.

I actually like volleyball and the players I met while I was in school certainly were assets to the campus community. But I'm tired of our athletic department crying about Title IX when there is a solution staring them in the face.

What's the business adage? It costs double to win a new client than keep an old one? Cutting an entire program is a major decision, and doing it just so you can start a new one with Title IX being the only reason is asinine. Sure the volleyball team hasn't had the success of some of our other Olympic sports, but a new sport isn't guaranteed to have success, and as said we have a new coach who is just starting her style and system.

drop it and promote the club rowing program, which has been successful on that level for decades. CAA already sponsors rowing.

Generally, I also do not favor dropping sports. I'm still annoyed that wrestling and men's lacrosse were dropped in 1984 (can't remember what the third sport was). However, IF volleyball were to be dropped, then how about adding women's softball? Our baseball team is competitive, why couldn't our softball team be likewise? I do acknowledge that softball probably costs MORE than volleyball, but I am thinking about the sports aspect not the money aspect.

The dropping of a sport is a slippery slope indeed. One of the more recent examples in Virginia was in 2014, when Radford University dropped 3 sports: Men's Track & Field, Women's Swimming and Women's Field Hockey.
It impacted 5 coaches and 64 student-athletes. My wife, kids and I personally knew two of the coaches and at least 5 of the student-athletes. Also impacted were hundreds of alumni from those sports programs, whose main connection to the school was through their sport. I can tell you, to this day, most of the affected parties have a TON of ill will toward the university. So when a college drops a sport, they burn a lot of bridges, not only with current members of the team, but with hundreds of alum.

Let's not confuse two things. Dropping a sport because of budget cuts is one thing. Dropping a sport because they're "doing bad" so we start another program is just stupid.

(09-21-2017 07:42 PM)hktribefan Wrote:  Let's not confuse two things. Dropping a sport because of budget cuts is one thing. Dropping a sport because they're "doing bad" so we start another program is just stupid.

If we dropped sports because of poor performance the hoops team would have been axed 12 years ago.

(09-21-2017 08:37 PM)Rocco Wrote:  

(09-21-2017 07:42 PM)hktribefan Wrote:  Let's not confuse two things. Dropping a sport because of budget cuts is one thing. Dropping a sport because they're "doing bad" so we start another program is just stupid.

If we dropped sports because of poor performance the hoops team would have been axed 12 years ago.

In 1984, when the three men's sports were dropped for Title IX compliance, the women's basketball team was almost dropped at that same time (the only reason it wasn't, I think, is because it was needed for quota reasons to elevate the numbers of female athletes). The point is, the women's basketball program has STUNK for almost every year since 1984 and has only recently gotten respectable (on its way to good) under coach Swanson. So, if "doing bad" was the criterion then the women's basketball program would have been the first to go. (Followed by volleyball, which brings this thread full circle to where it started).

(09-21-2017 08:37 PM)Rocco Wrote:  

(09-21-2017 07:42 PM)hktribefan Wrote:  Let's not confuse two things. Dropping a sport because of budget cuts is one thing. Dropping a sport because they're "doing bad" so we start another program is just stupid.

If we dropped sports because of poor performance the hoops team would have been axed 12 years ago.

Don't being back the memories of Chucky and Ricky days.

What can be:

https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/t51.28...7600_n.jpg

http://www.purduesports.com/sports/w-vol...-body.html

Just need that sweet, sweet B1G Network money to fund the program.

Zorch, I might be mistaken, but I thought that wrestling and fencing were cut in the mid 90s. IIRC, we had an All-American fencer that finished his W&M career as a club athlete.

(09-22-2017 08:09 PM)Rocco Wrote:  Just need that sweet, sweet B1G Network money to fund the program.

Not really about funding ... it's about the right venue, etc, etc. It's a great spectator sport. Purdue plays in a bandbox.

If Blow Gym were still around, that would be a great venue for Tribe volleyball.

http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/w_volleyba...ndance.pdf

(09-22-2017 08:26 PM)TribeInTheBurg Wrote:  Zorch, I might be mistaken, but I thought that wrestling and fencing were cut in the mid 90s. IIRC, we had an All-American fencer that finished his W&M career as a club athlete.

Fencing! Ah, yes, thanks for reminding me. I still think that it occurred circa 1980's but I wouldn't bet my life on it. As I get older, time compresses and whole decades coalesce into short time points.

(09-22-2017 08:56 PM)nj alum Wrote:  http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/w_volleyba...ndance.pdf

Apparently Nebraska is a hotbed for volleyball, with Univ of Nebraska (Div I) and Nebraska-Kearney (Div II) drawing huge crowds. Who knew?