Taking off on Erin's post yesterday about the tightening of athletic budgets...University of Missouri is trying to make itself a lttle less cut-able by funding its own scholarships. The team has been taking money from ticket sales and putting it towards a wrestling scholarship endowment fund. Not sure how they are allowed to do this--I would think the athletic department might have something to say about where those revenue dollars go. But good for wrestling for thinking ahead; too bad though about the columnist who choose to describe the situation that intercollegiate wrestling finds itself in thusly: "Tough economic times that strain athletic departments and the constant cloud of Title IX loom over the sport."
"Cloud of Title IX"? I know it is a column and not a strict news article and so there is some room for opinion, but still. When will writers stop blaming Title IX for wrestling's woes? It would have been nice to talk about how, in these tough times, football (at all the many many schools at which it does not cover its own expenses) is going to start raising money to fund itself too in case the winds shift and the Title IX cloud floats on over its head. Oh wait, yeah, that's never going to happen.
