Mel Tucker is wearing special shoes on the sideline of MSU’s game against OSU
Prior to Michigan State’s contest with Ohio State, Holly Rowe of ESPN went to talk to Mel Tucker about the shoes he was going to be wearing on the sidelines for the game.
This is incredible! Thank you Mel Tucker @MSU_Football head coach with a special message today! Supporting women. Been fighting forever to be seen in football, this means a lot to me. #37wordspic.twitter.com/DnI6LLHuFr
Tucker’s shoes are in honor of Title IX and the aniversary of it, showing support to the movement of including women in sports.
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“This is a passionate hill I would die on,” said Ohio State coach Lisa Strom.
Clemson coach Kelley Hester remembers a time when the NCAA Division I Women’s Championship field was selected solely by rankings. She was in college at Georgia in 1993 when it changed to regional qualifying. At first, the country was split into two regions, East and West. Then it expanded to three sites in 2001, then four in 2015 and, now, for the first time in 2022, there will be six regional tournaments.
The women’s regional setup now mirrors the men’s in the number of sites. However, six fewer women’s teams will advance to the NCAA Championship in Scottsdale, Arizona. The men and women compete in back-to-back weeks at Grayhawk Golf Club.
Why do the men get to send 30 – five teams from each site – when only 24 teams advance for the women?
“This is a passionate hill I would die on,” said Ohio State coach Lisa Strom. “We’ve been behind in opportunities for women’s sports for a long time.”
Julie Manning, chair of the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Committee, said last fall when the group took the proposal to the Championship Oversight Committee to move to six regional fields, they didn’t ask for an increase in the number teams that advance.
“I don’t know that we would’ve had the confidence that we could get them both done,” she said.
Stanford University golfers celebrate as their teammate Rachel Heck (not pictured) wins as individual medalist during the NCAA Women’s Golf Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
The COC approved the proposal to move to six regions and put it in place for 2022. It’s unusual, Manning said, for a proposal to be accepted and put in play in the same year. The committee scrambled to find two additional sites to host May 9-11, adding Stanford Golf Course in Stanford, California, and the Vanderbilt Legends Club in Franklin, Tennessee.
Four teams from each site will move on to Grayhawk May 20-25 for the NCAA Championship.
Manning said women’s coaches approached her at their annual meeting in Las Vegas last December and asked why they didn’t push for 30.
“In hindsight, now knowing that that just flew right through,” said Manning, “… you feel like you left something on the table that you didn’t bring up.”
Currently, there are 298 men’s Division I teams and 268 women’s Division I teams.
A breakdown of the regionals fields shows that the number of teams advancing to regional action (81 for the men and 72 for the women) is equal at 27 percent of the total number of programs.
But what’s not equal is the number of teams that advance to the national championship. Thirty teams on the men’s side equal 10 percent of all programs; and 24 on the women’s side equal 9 percent.
“The golden ticket, the holy grail of coaching golf is making it to the NCAA finals,” said Hester.
The addition of six teams equals more opportunities for college players and coaches.
Strom looks at regionals as the equivalent of the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament. The first round is equal from a percentage standpoint. But then on the road to Grayhawk, the men suddenly get more.
Shouldn’t the men’s and women’s fields in Scottsdale mirror each other in size? It can’t be a financial issue. The cost of sending six extra teams is minuscule when looking at the entirety of the NCAA budget.
If the numbers were equal at 30 teams, the women would have 11 percent of teams in Grayhawk compared to the men’s 10 percent. This seems entirely reasonable at a time when just last year women at the NCAA basketball tournament were fighting for adequate facilities.
Oklahoma golfer Logan McAllister celebrates after making a hole-in-one on the eighth hole during the NCAA Men’s Golf Championship Final at Grayhawk Golf course. (Photo: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports)
Devon Brouse, head women’s coach at Purdue who coached on the men’s side for decades, has always believed that a 24-team setup makes for a better championship in terms of management.
“But clearly,” he said, “if the men are going to be playing with 30, the women should have 30.”
Manning said the committee has since forwarded a request to the COC to have 30 teams at the finals. The matter was discussed at the April COC meeting but tabled until the summer.
This seems like an absolute no-brainer.
“I tell our girls you fight for what you believe in,” said Strom, “and stand up for what’s right.”
There’s no good explanation for why the women should be short-changed.
Candace Parker’s new documentary debuts the weekend of the men’s Final Four.
Sometimes, one dream leads to another. And sometimes those new dreams are built on the backs of those who came before them.
That’s becoming the life of WNBA superstar Candace Parker. In 14 years as a player with the Los Angeles Sparks and Chicago Sky, she’s more than lived out her dream of being a basketball player — she’s literally one of the all-time greats. Her career accomplishments include two WNBA MVPs, two Olympic gold medals, a defensive player of the year and rookie of the year award, two college national championships, and after helping Chicago win the title last season, two WNBA championships. The list goes on.
But now she’s also a budding star as a studio analyst for Turner Sports, where she signed a multi-year extension in September.
It’s an opportunity she called “a dream.”
It’s also keeping Parker busy this time of year. She’s in the thick of March Madness, covering the NCAA men’s basketball tournament across Turner’s family of networks. This comes a month after she and wife Anna Petrakova welcomed to the world their first child together. In two weeks, she’ll introduce another baby to the world; the very first film from her production company, Baby Hair Productions, in association with Turner Sports and Scout Productions. Titled “37 Words,” the film is a feature-length documentary that will “chronicle and celebrate the societal and cultural impact of Title IX, anchored through the perspective of Parker,” according to a press release.
Oh, and the WNBA season starts in less than two months.
It’s not lost on Parker that her impressive portfolio may not have been possible without the 37 words tucked inside the 1972 education amendments that make up Title IX. The law prevents discrimination on the basis of sex in educational programs and activities. And though there’s still a way to go to create true equity across genders, as highlighted by the discrepancies between the 2021 men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments, there’s no denying progress has been made. That’s the story Parker wants to highlight, she told For The Win in an interview that took place just before the start of this year’s tournaments.
Former LSU associate athletic director Sharon Lewis said that she was sexually harassed by Wilson during his previous stint with the program and that no action was taken.
According to a report from The Athletic’s Brody Miller, LSU running back coach Frank Wilson has been accused of sexual harassment by former Tigers associate athletic director Sharon Lewis. Per court documents filed on Thursday, Wilson allegedly exposed his genitalia to Lewis during a previous stint at LSU.
Lewis said that Wilson asked her to touch his genitalia and also attempted to kiss another female employee without consent.
Wilson spent six years as an assistant for the Tigers before serving as the head coach at Texas-San Antonio and McNeese State. He was brought back as part of coach Brian Kelly’s first staff this offseason.
Lewis said that she made the allegations known at the time to senior associate athletic director Miriam Segar and executive deputy athletic director Verge Ausberry. Per Lewis, there was no investigation and no action was taken. Segar and Ausberry were suspended in 2021 after an independent investigation found that they failed to properly handle reports of sexual misconduct.
In a statement, LSU said that any previous allegations against Wilson weren’t brought to the attention of the university.
“We are unaware of any prior allegations against Frank Wilson, and there is no evidence that any such allegations were ever reported to LSU officials. Further, none of these allegations were shared during the highly visible, independent Title IX review that LSU initiated last year.”
Lewis was fired in January as part of mass layoffs within the athletic staff. Her termination came just months after she filed a lawsuit against the university alleging that she faced retaliation for reporting incidents of sexual harassment by former head coach Les Miles toward several female athletics student workers. The incident with Wilson has been added to that lawsuit.
USA TODAY Sports spoke with three employees, who provided more details about the incident. One of them alleged that Wilson tried to kiss her during an after-hours meeting.
“Everybody knew how Frank was,” said one of the former staffers, who was in her 20s at the time. “It got to a point where we didn’t want any of the girls working with him. I dealt with Frank’s sexual harassment for years. His comments. His behavior. He always made, not only me, but so many of the girls feel so uncomfortable.”
It’s unclear how LSU plans to proceed as far as Wilson’s employment, but this is yet another damning report that comes on the heels of several years of reporting on sexual misconduct within the program, going all the way up to Miles himself.
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LSU athletes are rallying together to support the movement for much-needed change at LSU.
It seems that almost every day LSU is making national headlines for yet another sexual assault scandal, or blatant failure to protect their students and more specifically — their survivors.
Monday evening, LSU student-athletes gathered outside of the PMAC sporting their teal “We’re Committed” gear in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The teal gear represents joint forces and a united front towards ending sexual and domestic violence on campus.
The event was organized and planned by the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and featured a lineup of educational and passionate guest speakers.
The Tigers heard from the STAR Organization, Lighthouse, LSU Student Government and fellow student athletes from both SAAC and the Black Student- Athlete Association (BSAA).
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This rally was not meant to be performative. It was meant to express the student-athletes feelings of disappointment and betrayal towards an administration that is meant to protect them. While also educating students of the resources that are available on campus, and showing their support for survivors.
“We had a great turnout from athletes from a variety of sports at the ‘We’re Committed’ Rally. As athletes, our voices and our platforms are our strongest asset, and last night we utilized them to be agents of change and to help demolish this toxic culture of sexual assault and abuse,” senior swimmer Lexi Daniels expressed.
This event is just a step. LSU has much more work to do in molding their culture into one that students, faculty, and alumni can be proud of. LSU needs to put the safety of their students at the forefront of their university, and not as a footnote.
Ending the football and men’s and women’s golf programs will save about $1.2 million.
ST. CLOUD, Minn. — St. Cloud State University will end its football and golf programs next year to comply with a Title IX court order and manage budget shortages.
The changes will affect about 115 student athletes, seven coaches and two graduate assistant coaches, according to St. Cloud State President Robbyn Wacker.
St. Cloud State has eight men and eight women on its golf teams.
Twenty scholarships are dedicated to the football and golf programs. Some of those scholarships are split or shared among more than one athlete.
The school’s golf facilities are “very limited,” Director of Athletics Heather Weems said. And it was tough to get the athletes time on the course during harsh weather.
Those limits compounded with the school’s other considerations, and golf didn’t make the cut.
Men’s soccer will be added to the school’s athletic program to keep the program in compliance with NCAA rules.
St. Cloud State has to comply with the U.S. District Court’s August order in a Title IX lawsuit by balancing the opportunities and benefits it offers for female students in the athletic program.
In addition, the university anticipates a $5.1 million budget deficit for the 2020 academic year. Athletic budgets have struggled under declining student athletic fees tied to declining student enrollment and increasing costs, Wacker said.
“All three of these (factors) have converged and brought us to the table,” Wacker said Monday. “We know this is going to be tough for folks.”
She met with coaches in October to talk about the challenges facing athletics, including the court order, she said.
St. Cloud State released its plan to eliminate football and golf Tuesday afternoon. The program changes start next fall.
Right now the university has 19 teams. That will drop to 17, leaving six men’s teams and 11 women’s teams.
Ending the football and men’s and women’s golf programs will save about $1.2 million. Some of that will go to the new soccer team and other sports, said Weems. Some will go to general university funds.
St. Cloud State’s football program dates back to 1895 but support for football has waned, Wacker said. There were 58 football season ticket holders this fall. In the last three years, the average Huskies football game drew between 1,000 and 1,300 spectators, Weems said.
