NCAA Forgets It Is International Women’s Month

Women athletes are second class citizens.

03-26-21 STFLA #2276

International Women’s Month, which started in 1978 as a daylong long celebration of women in Santa Rosa, California, is held every March. The National Collegiate Athletic Association whose charge is to look after student-athletes and make sure students get a college education has apparently overlooked that March is International Women’s Month. The college and university organization runs two major basketball tournaments every March and April and has trademarked a slogan, March Madness, as a way of promoting these tournaments. Men’s college basketball players get the full March Madness treatment from schools and the NCAA’s television and streaming partners. The women? Nothing. The NCAA likes to boast about how many women are actively involved in playing college sports yet it doesn’t use the March Madness slogan for its women basketball players. Perhaps the reason for that is this. The women’s game doesn’t bring in the television revenue or get cities to throw money at the NCAA for the Final Four like the men’s game does.

The NCAA lauds Title IX compliance but it seems someone forgot about equal treatment this year during the basketball tournaments. The men who play for the pride of whatever school they attend got better training facilities, better food and better gifts than the women who also play for the pride of whatever school they attend. Neither men nor women players get paid for their endeavors on the basketball court. They could get an education but the NCAA keeps the revenue away from the players. Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments was signed into existence by President Richard Nixon on June 23rd, 1972. The law opened the door for women to receive an equal opportunity at getting an education and for women to be able to get jobs as professors. It also provided for an expansion of women’s sports.

I’m Evan Weiner.

Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191