Editor’s note: The forum piece below was shared with local media last Thursday. On Friday, Assemblymember Helen Thomson invited Associate Athletic Director Pam Gill-Fisher and Cross-Country Head Coach/Physical Education Program Director Sue Williams to meet with her at her home. Gill-Fisher reports an "informative and cordial dialogue."

We are very concerned about the media treatment of the women wrestlers and their status in Intercollegiate Athletics. Many column inches have been devoted to the complaints of the wrestlers, and very little that details the perspective of Intercollegiate Athletics.

ICA’s position and reasons for actions taken have been largely ignored by the press. Even last week’s dismissal by the Office of Civil Rights of the women wrestlers’ complaint received only slight mention. The OCR declined to file a formal complaint on behalf of the wrestlers, ruling that their complaint was baseless and the accusation of gender discrimination groundless, ruling that UC Davis had acted well within federal guidelines when it asked that women wrestlers earn their way onto the roster through athletic performance. The OCR also ruled it was appropriate that the women were placed on the roster for spring training on the mats, which is the preparation to try out for the team in fall ’01.

UC Davis has a record of gender equity in athletics that is admirable, and the program has served as a model for other institutions. According to NCAA information, it is the largest women’s athletic program in the nation in NCAA Division I, II or III institutions – UC Davis offers more athletic opportunities for women than any institution in the United States. UC Davis has also been named the No. 1 Division II women’s athletic program in the nation by Sports Illustrated for Women two straight years. This ranking is based on qualitative as well as quantitative factors, and we coaches have worked very hard to create outstanding teams. One would think there would be an element of trust in a program that creates legitimate athletic opportunities for women to a level unmatched by any other university in the nation, that such a program would be presumed innocent until proven guilty rather than vice versa.

The female wrestlers at UC Davis wish to be considered members of the men’s wrestling team (since the NCAA does not recognize women’s wrestling as a sport). Yet they, by both their own admission and their former coach’s admission, were unable to beat not only current team members, but even male wrestlers who were cut from the squad following tryouts. This hardly constitutes making the team, and, in fact, their former coach did not place their names on the team list of 34 wrestlers who made the team in fall ’00. The women wrestlers claim they should be placed on the team because they have been allowed to be on the mats in previous years. Yet the growth of interest that should have been fostered by this opportunity simply hasn’t occurred. There have never been more than one to five wrestlers in a given year who have practiced with the men’s team, and none have ever wrestled in an NCAA event representing UC Davis.

Interest level is lacking

Women’s wrestling simply has not generated the numbers necessary to indicate they are more viable than other emerging women’s sports. Information from the California Interscholastic Federation, which governs high school sports, documents that there are 752 high school girls who wrestle in California; there are 4,588 high school girls who compete in golf, 4,722 high school girls who compete in badminton, and 2,629 high school girls who compete in field hockey. Women’s wrestling is not a sport sanctioned by the NCAA. Accord-ing to the NCAA’s online Web site Sports Spons-orship, there are only 235 men’s college wrest-ling programs in the nation at all divisions, and none of them are designated as mixed teams (those with men and women on the rosters).

All women’s sports since 1972 have gained ICA status by first establishing viability by showing numbers of participants at the college and high school level and adequate opportunity for competition with like teams. This was the avenue that the women wrestlers were encouraged to take last fall by UC Davis administrators by establishing club status. Doing so would have offered them the opportunity to be on the mats at the same time as the men’s team, and brought full insurance coverage (since they had no school coverage after the end of the tryout process for the men’s team). This provided the opportunity to establish a thriving club team, one poised to be considered for varsity status should the NCAA someday sanction the sport. The women wrestlers apparently feel they are entitled to bypass a process that has been evenly applied to all other women and men’s teams.

The women wrestlers state that they consider it a demotion to be placed on club status. UC Davis currently has three women’s club sports identified officially by the NCAA as "emerging sports" (sports increasing in participation that may gain NCAA status) – badminton, bowling and equestrian. Another UC Davis club sport, field hockey, is already a san-ctioned NCAA sport. These teams compete at the club level and have been working through the established process as emerging sports. They would like to achieve ICA status and would have valid complaint if they were by-passed and wrestling was granted such status.

Gary Voet in The Sacramento Bee states that Assemblywoman Helen Thomson is: "adamant that female wrestlers should be part of the varsity team and not be ‘relegated’ to club status, and that this may result in a larger cap" (larger numbers of men on the team). Every men’s sport would then have legitimate cause for complaint if their numbers were not also raised. To do so would jeopardize the ability of UC Davis to comply with federal Title IX guidelines requiring proportional participation by male and female athletes. The only likely option for Title IX compliance would then be to eliminate some men’s teams in an athletic program that is broadly based and does not have unlimited resources. This is an option no one would want to consider: UCD’s goal has always been to increase appropriate athletic opportunities, not eliminate them. The situation cannot be reasonably resolved by "simply" placing the three women on the men’s team.

When ICA administrators insisted last fall the women could not participate with the men after they were unable to make the team (an appropriate action in our opinion), athletic ad-ministrators met with the women wrestlers to have direct communication about the change. It is now evident that the change in their status should have been dealt with in a formal way with a written public statement, since such an action might have prevented the current situation. It is also very regrettable that neither the wrestlers nor the coach went at that time to the established groups who could deal with such situations, the Student-Athlete Advisory Com-mittee and the Coaches Advisory Committee.

Gender complaint misguided

The women wrestlers filed a gender discrimination complaint with the Office of Civil Rights, and last week the OCR ruled that there was no basis for complaint. It is not clear why Assemblywoman Thomson has taken a public position in opposition to the federal agency charged with oversight of these kinds of issues, nor why she feels her opinion is of more importance than that of OCR. Assemblywoman Thomson has not met personally with any member of athletic administration for information on the reasons for actions taken by Intercollegiate Athletics.

The women wrestlers tried out for the wrestling team and did not make the team based on talent (and we understand fully that it would be very difficult for a woman to make a men’s team). They are now demanding to be placed on the team based on the fact that they are women. This flies in the face of the ethics that have guided the growth of women’s athletics in the past 25 years and is nothing other than reverse discrimination. They have no more right to be on the men’s wrestling team because they want to than male gymnasts would have a right to be on the women’s gymnastics team. Preferential treatment is wrong in any form.

– Sandy Simpson, chair, UC Davis Coaches Advisory Committee, women’s head basketball coach

– Sue Williams, head coach, women’s and men’s cross country

– Deanne Vochatzer, head coach, women’s track and field

– Kathy DeYoung, head coach, women’s softball

– Emily Plesser, head coach, women’s crew

– Barbara Jahn, head coach, women’s swimming

– Stephanie Hawbecker, head coach, women’s volleyball

– MaryClaire Robinson, head coach, women’s soccer

– Jennifer Cardone, compliance officer

– Mitch Campbell, lecturer, academic advisor

– Michelle Roppeau, director of athletic advising, Student-Athlete Guidance Services