Running News Daily

NCAA women’s team won´t race for their school until the men's team can do the same

The College of William & Mary women’s track and field team are refusing to represent their school unless the men’s team is reinstated. According to The Virginia Pilot, 26 members of the team signed a letter stating that the women wouldn’t wear their school’s uniform to compete.

As of now, the school’s men’s team will be axed at the end of this academic year. The letter was reportedly taped to school president Katherin Rowe‘s office door on Saturday night. 

Why are more men’s running teams getting cut?

In the NCAA, several universities and colleges have cut track and field and cross-country programs due to revenue losses from COVID-19. Many schools have cited Title IX as the reason for these cuts. Title IX is an NCAA-wide rule that ensures equal opportunity for both male and female athletes, proportionate to enrolment. The policy states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” 

This means that across the entire athletic department (meaning all sports), there has to be equal opportunity for men and women to compete, which includes an equal amount of scholarship money. A sport like football, for example, draws lots of money out of the men’s scholarship pool. Without a football team (or a team of equivalent roster size) in the women’s sports, their track and field athletes reap those rewards, but the men’s running programs can suffer.

The letter

While the men’s track team was cut due to budget deficits, the cross-country team (which is one of the school’s most successful teams) remained in place. However, as all distance runners know, the distance side of track and cross-country are essentially one entity. If you cut one, you basically cut the other. 

In the letter, the women were critical of both the athletic department’s actions but also the level of transparency. The letter read, “We watched the leadership of the college retreat into hiding while the emotions were raw. We waited for the level of honesty that we’ve come to expect from our faculty, just not our leadership.”

Interestingly, the women’s boycott of their own program could now cause Title IX issues for the university. It’s unclear how a roster of non-competitors would be assessed by the NCAA, especially when many of these women compete in three seasons (cross-country, indoor and outdoor track) which, according to The Richmond Times-Dispatch, counts three times for compliance purposes. For now, the women don’t have any competitions scheduled until next semester, but come the new year their refusal to compete could present big issues for the university.