hamlet7478

My advice? Talk to your congressman. Problem is, female athletes are protective of Title 9, just as male athletes are scornful. The law will never be repealed / changed as long as men/women can only visualize the situation as win / lose, because 50% of the voters are men and 50% of the voters are women. If you are truly motivated, try and think of a win / win solution, then write your congressman.

Yes, Title 9 has hurt "minor" men's sports across the board. Not just soccer, wrestling, gymnastics, etc. Title 9 is another proof of the law of unintended consequences. The law was intended to provide "equal" opportunity for female atheletes, certainly a worthwhile end. As with most things, though, the devil is in the details. In this case the devil is interpreting what constitutes compliance with the law. Most schools have interpreted compliance as having an equal # of athletes of each gender or perhaps in proportion to the demographics of the school. So, if a Div I school like UT has 85 football scholarships, and the student population of the school is 50/50 male/female, you can't have many other male sports or the mix gets way out of whack. On the other side, schools will institute new female sports like crew to up the number of female athletes. The end result is that a lot of talented, hard working male athletes in sports like wrestling, soccer, gymnastics have nowhere to go after high school, because schools have chosen to drop minor men's sports to get into compliance with Title 9. In most cases, it's not a case of money. You see schools with lots of money refusing to reinstate minor programs even though alumni groups have agreed to fully fund the sport (see Yale wrestling).

You're eligible in TN 365 days from your last competition. No doubt MUS wound up their season late last February. Thus Mr. Hall is now eligible.

Maybe you can also advise them to just "chuck it from the cheap seats"! Great movie, great character. Best basketball movie ever.

I vote Norman Dale as best screen name.

The Vulcan Cup is a nice tournament, but a better event, and the the best women's competition in TN (including the State Div I tourney, I think), is coming up this weekend (Friday through Sunday) in Smyrna, TN. It is the PUMA Region III Championship Invitational.Please see the link below.[url=http://www.stonesriverladystrikers.com/]http://www.stonesriverladystrikers.com/

Gretchen Sutch (Knoxville Catholic) Belmont University

Thanks Don...you can certainly see part of why BGA was so tough this year.

I don't know their high schools. The web site did not include them. I assumed they were all TN kids. Can anyone help?

From the BWSC web site: Natalie Aaron/ U. of South Carolina Lara Langworthy/ U. of Tennessee - Knoxville Hannah Martin/ U. of Tennessee - Knoxville Jessica Smith/ Furman Anne Phillips/ Wofford Sara Krimm/ Arkansas State Meghan Mace/ Arkansas State Tara Mahan/ Tennesee Tech Kristen Carbine/ Lee Jamie Achten/ Lee Jamie Loftis/ Belmont Syd Bailey/ Lincoln Memorial Laura Lamberth/ MTSU Katie Putnam/ Savannah College of Arts & Desing Jordan Chase/ Samford All play for Brentwood Real Madrid, 2007 Region III Semi-finalists. Pretty impressive; 15 from one team going on to play in college. 5 playing at DI level.

Trenna Howell and Maggie Alexander (both Oak Ridge) signed with Carson Newman.

Canes--can you start a separate topic for this? It will get more visibility and participation that way, I think. Thanks.

New to the wrestling boards, but I just wanted to weigh in and try and provide some perspective from a Knoxville wrestling fan who's an "outsider". Coach Candela is a great guy and a good coach doing well at CAK. CAK has obviously improved dramatically over the last several years. Coach Welch came into Webb last year and is obviously doing good things there, too. Webb's City championship last year along with 4 placers in the State Div II tournament is evidence of that (Coach Welch can correct me if I got that wrong). The point for Knoxville area wrestling fans is that we need to keep improving so that we can catch up with the Chattanooga area teams; which seems to be the "cradle" of wrestling in this State, and so that we don't face the possibility of losing a talented prospect like Nelson Pinkstaff to one of those teams. Regards and compete hard in the State championships coming up!

BigG I really liked your post. Some of the stuff will help as I approach my own kids' decisions about sport.

Yes thanks DonC. But how is it possible that there are no Notre Dame kids named? Maybe the sportswriters don't know that ND is A/AA? Full disclosure: I am not an ND player or parent, just someone who has a lot of respect for their program and kids.

DonC--thanks, and, I guess, congratulations because apparently one of the girls is your daughter!

Unless my eyes are failing me, Emily Jones is player of the year, but she did not make the first team?

Melissa Morris (Sweetwater/KFC Force, class of '07) comes to Knoxville with her UNC Charlotte team tonight to play in the NCAA tournament. They play Clemson and, if they win, they play the winner of the UT/Furman game Sunday afternoon. Congratulations Melissa. If anyone reading the board has more information about Melissa's seaon, please post it.

By identifying Tullahoma as not deserving, how are you not "diminishing the hard work and efforts of these girls...(who have) an amazing up and coming program with extremely dedicated fans, players and coaches...care(ing) even less for girls feelings than the girls care about the polls"? The point, of course, is that someone is going to be hurt by the polls. In fact, it is arguable that most teams will be hurt by the polls (other than 1-3).

Which team would you recommend removing in order to get SD on the list?

I second the "HATS OFF" to Bearden and Eric Turner; he's proven he's one of the best, if not the best in TN. But you have to admit, it helps when you have Amy Porter, Samantha Turner, et. al. hammering at your opponent's goal for 80 minutes!

Very cool.

Like every other reader of this board, I feel terrible about this tragedy. If permitted by CoachT rules, is there a charity or organization the family would like donations sent to in Jon's memory?

In the East, Oak Ridge probably did better than expected by most, and Catholic held it together pretty well despite graduation losses and several key injuries.

To ND, condolences, you are a great group of players and people. To FRA, congratulations, you beat a good team.