MINNEAPOLIS — This year marks the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the landmark legislation banning gender-based discrimination at schools receiving federal funding. The law sparked a revolution in women’s sports, but issues remain a half-century later.
USA Today researched data on athletic spending and published its findings this week. The report shows many schools still spent significantly more on men than women — 71 cents on women’s sports for every dollar spent on men’s sports.
“It’s really discouraging to think that 50 years after Title IX, the law is not being enforced,” Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer said Thursday. “I think it’s sad for the women and the programs. …
“We all have sisters, daughters and nieces who are not getting the support they deserve. I call it hot dogs for the girls and steak for the boys. It will be a great time when you don’t need Title IX, but unfortunately there’s still discrimination and we need to keep battling.”
Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma preferred to focus on another equity issue. He’s unhappy men’s teams had at least five days off before the Final Four, while his team has only three before facing Stanford on Friday night.
“The swag bag and weight room and all that other crap we talked about last year, that doesn’t help these kids get ready for Friday night’s game,” Auriemma said. “An extra three days would help. We should be talking about that stuff.”
Brink, Jones, Hull honored: Stanford’s Cameron Brink and Haley Jones were among the 10 players named to the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) All-American team. The organization honored South Carolina’s Dawn Staley as national coach of the year.
Also, Stanford’s Lexie Hull won the Senior CLASS award recognizing the most outstanding Division I student-athlete in women’s basketball. Hull carries a 3.90 GPA and will graduate this spring with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in management science and engineering.
Media matters: South Carolina had the first news conference, and Staley fielded questions from many of her local reporters. At the end, she asked the South Carolina local media to raise their hands. Nearly 20 hands went up.
“We fielded a lot of questions about being No. 1 in attendance in little ol’ Columbia, South Carolina,” Staley said. “This is why we’re able to create it. We have people who are in our hometown, pushing narratives to raise up women’s basketball in a place where it’s known as a football school.”
Overshadowed: Louisville coach Jeff Walz wants to point out this is not the Final Three. He’s heard plenty of talk about how the winner of UConn-Stanford will play No. 1 seed South Carolina.
“I don’t know if they’ve seen a women’s basketball tournament or not, but we actually have four — and we are the fourth,” Walz said. “So let’s roll the balls out and see what happens. When it’s that blatant, yeah, I would say we’re the underdog.”
Ukraine donation update: This week, VanDerveer announced she has a website to go along with her pledge to donate $10 for every 3-pointer made in the tournament to causes for Ukrainian relief: taras3ptchallenge.com.
As of Thursday, the website had more than $200,000 in pledges, including a $75,000 pledge from Nets guard James Harden, though VanDerveer had not talked directly to Harden. Charles Barkley also donated $25,000.
VanDerveer is encouraging all basketball fans to chip in with whatever they can. She continues to lobby for other men’s and women’s coaches to donate, but the only ones tracked on the website so far are Georgia Tech coach Nell Fortner and USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb.
VanDerveer plans to split her donations between Save the Children, Americares and Global Giving.
Ron Kroichick is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer and Ann Killion is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: [email protected] and [email protected] Twitter: @ronkroichick and @annkillion
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