Texas HS Athletics (Ladies VS Guys)

[Red Pepper]

Are Lady Athletes treated the same as guys in Texas High School Athletics?

Should they be treated the same in areas such as  1) Pay for Coaches  2) Food allowances for student athletes while travelling  3) Equipment & uniform allowances  4) Facilities  5) etc.?

[Guest HFGirlsSportsFan]

Good questions, but you need to be a little more specific.  On a similar sport basis (Men's/Women's Soccer, Baseball/Softball, Men's/Women's Basketball, etc.),  money spent on student athletes and the facilities they use should be equivalent.  You cannot compare Football to Volleyball or Baseball to Basketball due to equipment/practice facility differences.  Food and lodging allowances should always be the same.  Coaches pay is a function of 1)number of athletes/staff managed, 2)size of school, 3)amount of revenue generated by that sport for the school, 4)market value of the position and 5)Success and experience in the position.  In the real world, we use a system called the Haye system to evaluate the level and compensation of a job.

[East TX]

Title IX has always been a joke.  All girls sports are treated unfairly.  Look at the SB fields for the girls for starters across the USA!
Parity?

Don't give us the football money generation baloney.  When you have more Coaches on the sideline than players on the starting offense- on the field; you don't "generate" any money....LOL

[Guest HFGirlsSportsFan]

[quote name="East TX" post="745769" timestamp="1263853974"]
Title IX has always been a joke.  All girls sports are treated unfairly.  Look at the SB fields for the girls for starters across the USA!
Parity?

Don't give us the football money generation baloney.  When you have more Coaches on the sideline than players on the starting offense- on the field; you don't "generate" any money....LOL
[/quote]

Title IX enforcement has been weak and taken a long time to get off the ground (passed in 1972).  But I can see the improvement.  This year HF girls will get to play softball on a new home field that IMO is much nicer than the baseball field.  Its progress.  Most school districts have more needs than money and are poor financial managers/planners.  This is the reality of the situation, just like the reality of why some sport's coaches are paid more than others whether you believe its baloney or not.  I am the father of a female athlete at a 3A school and can honestly see no difference in how my daughter and her male counterpoints are treated. 

[Red Pepper]

Very good comments.  Been enlightening to me.  Other ideas that I have are as follows:
*  I too see a lot of improvements.  Most schools are trying to do what is right with limited $.
*  Football is king and normally generates much more money than any other HS Sport.
*  HS Athletics aren't run like the "real world".  Coaches/teachers don't have many rights.  Coaches that ask for clarity on some issues don't always have their contracts renewed or simply mistreated to the point that they move to another school.  I sometimes think this is a good idea but other times I think it is unfair.  Gets rid of "gripers" but sometimes lose [u]very good [/u] coaches.  Good lady coaches are sometimes harder to find that guys.  Just ask any AD.
*  AD/Head Football coaches are usually fired/rehired according to their win/loss records which is probably one of their reasons for taking funds from lesser (hate to use that word) sports and spending on football.  I sometimes understand their logic.  Logic shouldn't justify wrong behavior.

These are my thoughts only. I will say LOL. That might keep me out of trouble.  Thanks for your comments.

[Guest HFGirlsSportsFan]

Good comments.  If educators had a strong union, this would go a long way to establishing parity.  Name another union that could affect most households with children and impact business in general.  It comes down to the fact that most teachers would not sacrifice the education of their students for personal gain.  A strong union would have to eliminate the descrepancies you describe because it must represent all its members equally.  Although I am a conservative, I support Unions that work for the betterment of their membership while providing necessary services to business by which they are employed.

[Red Pepper]

Unions are doing a great job.  Some of the better ones are UAW, SEIU & ACORN.  LOL

I know that unions have helped many workers move to the middle class and made life better for many non-union workers.  I also know that the Texas Teachers Union does a lot of good.  Not sure that Texans have the patience to allow teachers to go on strike and abandon the children in order to make athletics better.

I was personnaly upset when [u]our president [/u] recently exempted unions from paying additional taxes on their health insurance for their support while us non-union workers are (were) going to have to make up the difference.  LOL

Back on the subject.  While Texas has made great strides on parity between Ladies and Gentlemen Student Athletes, we have a long way to go for real parity and I am not sure a strong teachers union would have a positive effect on anything in Texas Athletics.  Been wrong before.  LOL  :D

[East TX]

It was kind of funny,  when they asked Ross Perot what it would take to stop the collapse of public education across America.....he quickly responded, "Number one thing would be to immediately TORCH all the teachers colleges across America. Secondly, run the Teachers Unions out of the business of education of youth."

I think that was funny in that the Teachers Unions spent a TON of money from that point on to get him- bashed-- completely   LOL

Basically their are three things that the Teachers Unions fight continually:

1. The skewing of training college Education Majors into TOUGH subject matter to get a degree and eliminate the host of classes on.... how-to-teach...NATIONWIDE

2. In each class K-12 test the children on the materials to be taught at the BEGINNING of the course(first day) and then test the same students at the END of the time frame of the course AND pay teachers bonuses that can perform better than others!.. NATIONWIDE

3. Try to cut out the common denominator UNION mentality--pay the good ones well and run the bad ones off; that are not really helping the kids.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To the person bragging about HF softball etc:  You went for years with NO field for the girls period. Secondly your brag about the boys field not as good now as the girls field is interesting--you had no girls field and most would note your boys BB field is not one of the better ones....WOW I did not know I could be so kind....

HF has one of the best in Coaching & Management in Texas in Wayne McHaffey: he did wonders for the whole school system in Rusk, TX; problem is he is just the baseball coach at HF.