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Wooing women

Schools now pick up the tab for visiting female recruits. But they still spend more on men -- especially in football.

By Dave Benson of The News-Sentinel



News-Sentinel photo
Playing the gameTonya Burns-Cohrs currently coaches the girls basketball team at Woodlan High School. As a player, she had to pay for her campus visits when she was recruited out of Leo High School.

Tonya Burns-Cohrs had big plans for spring break during her senior year of high school that included a trip to Florida with a group of friends.

But this trip wasn't going to be all about pleasure. Burns-Cohrs had just finished her final season of basketball at Leo High School in 1981 and was in the process of making her college choice.

"When I was recruited, we had to pay our way to visit schools," said Burns-Cohrs, now the girls basketball coach at Woodlan High School.

To make the college visits affordable, Burns-Cohrs had to combine her spring break trip with a college tour.

"I wanted to visit six schools, but I visited four. Iowa State was the fourth, and after my visit, I knew that's where I wanted to go."

She never made the visit to the University of Florida, but had she gone there, it would have been at her own expense.

"That's the way you had to do things. You had to piggyback your trips and do a couple of things on each trip."

Female athletes now receive paid visits to colleges. But recruiting equity remains one area where Title IX -- the federal law that requires women and men to be treated equally in education programs -- has had inadequate impact.

Big Ten universities spent $7.4 million recruiting student-athletes in the 2000-2001 school year, with women's athletic teams receiving only 32.3 percent of that total. Women's athletic teams at Indiana's other Division I schools received 32.5 percent of recruiting expenditures, while locally only 25.3 percent of recruiting dollars were spent on females.

The rules of recruiting are the same for male and female athletes. Each athlete is allowed to make five official visits to schools. Schools pay for the athlete's transportation. If it takes a plane ticket, the school springs for it. If a school is within driving distance, the school reimburses athletes for gas money. If a parent wants to go along for the visit, the school can't pay for the parent's transportation but can pay for the parent's lodging and meals.

Once on campus, the prospective athlete is usually paired with a current athlete at the school. This athlete acts as a host for the recruit. Often, recruits will stay at their host's dorm room or apartment for the duration of the visit. The host is also given money for dinner, a movie or other entertainment for the athlete.

"When I went on my official visits, I stayed with one of the players on the team," said Concordia Lutheran High School senior volleyball player Carolyn Farny, who will attend the University of Washington.

"They were given maybe $20 a day for entertainment, like taking me to a restaurant, or if they took me to see something, admission to get in. If I was with the coaches for dinner, they would put it on the school's bill."

Northrop High School senior softball player Amy Kendall had similar experiences when she visited Michigan State, Purdue and Kentucky universities.

"If you want to go to movies, they pay for that. If you want to go bowling, they pay for that," she said. "The host can only pay for the student athlete. They're given a specific amount they can use on you. Whatever they don't use, they have to return. They can't say, 'Hey, want to go the mall?' They can't buy you shoes or T-shirts. A lot of universities are strict on that."

Athletes are also allowed to make unofficial visits during which they have to pay for everything themselves. They can make as many unofficial visits as they want.

Since the rules are uniform for both male and female recruits, what accounts for the difference in money spent? It may be the number of athletes recruited.

Kendall's visits to colleges coincided with visits by male athletes. She noticed that there were many more males than females visiting the campuses while she was there.

"They came in huge numbers," she said. "Usually, there were five to 10 guys in a group. The most I had in my groups on any of my visits was three."

Another factor that tilts recruiting dollars toward the men's side is football. A football program can sign up to 25 recruits in a single incoming class. Because a school is not going to sign every athlete it recruits, many visits are required to get the best 25 each year.

"There is no equivalent on the football side. Where do you compare those recruiting dollars?" asked Sandy Barbour, senior associate athletic director at the University of Notre Dame.

"It's very easy to match up men's and women's soccer. The basic structure of how you recruit a high-profile soccer player is the same in women's and men's soccer."

Notre Dame's football program spent almost half of the school's recruiting dollars -- 47.1 percent -- in 2000-01. Its men's and women's basketball programs spent 10 and 8.2 percent of the recruiting dollars, while all other men's and women's sports spent 17.6 and 17.1 percent, respectively.

"There is no justification for men's and women's recruiting budgets to be different," Barbour said. "They have the same number of days to be out on the road. Ten years ago, recruiting wasn't as intense among women's basketball programs. But women's basketball has made up that gap."

While some contend there are differences in the way male and female recruits are entertained during recruiting visits, Kendall dispels that notion. The biggest difference she saw was the attire.

"They were more casually dressed. I was more business-like. They were coming in jerseys, while I wore a nice sweater."

However, there is a difference in the sales pitches schools use on male and female athletes.

"With girls, they focus more on team and 'this team is a family,' " Farny said. "They're like, 'We're here for you.' With guys, it's different. They pump up the ego."

But the type of sales pitch she received didn't matter to Farny, because unlike Tonya Burns-Cohrs, she didn't have to pay for it.