Columnist Ron Kantowski: Ladies, check your e-mail or risk losing your sport

Friday, April 1, 2005 | 9:46 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

On Wednesday, as she was finishing errands prior to leaving for Indianapolis and the Women's Final Four, I asked Lady Rebels coach Regina Miller what she thought of the U.S. Department of Education's clarification to the Title IX guideline.

"What clarification?" she asked.

This is what happens when lawmakers call a press conference during opening weekend of March Madness. Nobody -- not even those who should -- pays attention.

Actually, the announcement was made on a government Web site, which seems more underhanded than a Rick Barry free throw, given the number of women athletes it could impact.

Under Title IX, the 33-year-old law that kinda, sorta leveled the playing field in providing equal sports opportunities for women at the NCAA level, there is a three-pronged criteria by which schools must abide. The first concerns the proportion between male and female athletes and the second is based on historical progress in closing the gap between opportunities for men and women (i.e., adding women's teams).

The third prong is the one that could allow the non-conformists some wiggle room. Schools that can show there is not sufficient interest among female students for women's sports technically don't have to provide them.

And it just got easier for those schools to make their cases.

Under the new guideline, schools will be able to determine the interest in women's sports among its female students by quizzing them through an online survey. Where schools once had to jump through hoops in justifying not having women's sports, now apparently all they need to do is send out a mass e-mail and hope nobody is logged on.

Gentleman, start your spam blockers.

It seems whimsical and arbitrary that schools will able to use such an unreliable medium as e-mail to determine whether Bobbi Sue gets to play ball. But that could be just where this is headed.

Remember the old joke that every time its football team went on probation, Oklahoma had to drop another woman's sport? Now, it could be as simple as a sorority girl ratcheting up her spam filter or hitting the delete key on her laptop.

"I can hear it now," Julie Foudy, the captain of the U.S. women's soccer team, told USA Today. "We lost a women's team because the e-mail survey got stuck in my spam folder for six months."

While we're still waiting for another top secret e-mail to determine what it all means, it doesn't sound good to some of those who have taken the time to investigate.

Like the guy who came up with the idea in the first place. Birch E. Bayh, the former U.S. Senator from Indiana and author of Title IX, fears the Bush Administration is trying to do an end run on the intent of the law.

"Sports is all about advancing the ball, but the Department of Education has thrown women's athletics to the back court," Bayh, still a partner in the Washington law firm Venable LLP, said in a statement.

"Over the past 33 years we've made enormous strides, moving from 10 percent participation on campus to 40 percent. Now is not the time to start backsliding."

Cary Groth, the new athletic director at Nevada-Reno, said her school won't be looking for an out. She said these surveys are about as reliable as a Tijuana wristwatch, and she speaks from experience.

During her tenure at Northern Illinois, Groth said the high school athletic association sent out a survey trying to gauge interest in adding girls' volleyball to the statewide athletic curriculum. Survey said: None.

But hold on, Richard Dawson. The IHSA decided to add the sport anyway, and girls' volleyball has proven to be one of the state's most popular sports, with more than 300 schools playing.

"If they would have judged by the survey, they would have thought there was no interest," Groth said.

Lisa Kelleher, associate AD and senior women's administrator at UNLV, said it's important to remember that the so-called "third prong" is only an option, not a requirement, in determining interest in women's sports on campus. Like UNR, she said UNLV does not plan to drop any women's sports by utilizing the loophole, nor, she says, does she anticipate UNLV would use it as a reason not to add a women's sport.

She said 51 percent of the athletic opportunities now go to women at UNLV as the athletic department continues to strive to mirror the makeup of a student body that is currently comprised of 56 percent females.

"We're chasing a moving target," she says.

While UNLV seems to be doing its part, Kelleher agreed that when it comes to the next generation of Mia Hamms and Diana Taurasis, Washington just fired a loud warning shot.

Even if it tried to muzzle it.