Stephen Fedyshyn

If everything is supposed to be bigger in Texas, then why is there only one male Division I soccer program in the entire state? The answer to this question is quite simple, but also controversial. When Title IX of the Education Amendments was enacted in 1972, it intended to bring an end to the exclusion of women in federally funded programs. One of the first entities to draw the ire of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, a now-defunct office that oversaw the implementation of Title IX, was the NCAA. In 1975, universities were given three years to comply with the regulations, no small task for large universities with multi-million dollar athletic budgets. As hard as the NCAA fought against Title IX, it was implemented with harsh penalties. No schools or programs were exempt from this law. Finally, women could participate in college athletics in equal numbers as men. Sounds great, right? Not so fast, my friend. While Title IX's goals are admirable, it has not worked out in practice as it was meant to. Its implementation dictated that colleges had to balance the numbers of female and male athletes to mirror the student population at their institutions. In theory, it was as simple as creating more female sports teams to even out the number of scholarship athletes between the two genders. But in practice, many males suffered as a result of this legislation. Male athletes from all over the country were told that their sports would be cut and they