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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowNCAA basketball administrators apologized to the women’s basketball players and coaches after inequities between the men’s and women’s tournament went viral on social media and vowed to do better.
NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt vowed to do better during a zoom call Friday morning, a day after photos showed the difference between the weight rooms at the two tournaments.
“I apologize to the women’s student-athletes, coaches and committee for dropping the ball on the weight room issue in San Antonio; we’ll get it fixed as soon as possible,” Gavitt said.
During the call, other differences were raised: There are 68 teams in the men’s filed, 64 in the women; and the NCAA pays for the men’s National Invitational Tournament, but not the women’s NIT.
“The field size and NIT, those would be decisions made in conjunction with membership,” Gavitt said. “Those are not decision we could make independently. They are good questions and it’s timely to raise those issues again.”
In a step to solve the weight room issue, the NCAA modified space in the convention center to turn it into a useable workout facility. That work should be completed Saturday. The NCAA had offered ro put a weight-lifting area in the open space next to the practice courts, but coaches didn’t want that because then other teams would be in the vicinity when they were practicing.
“We fell short this year in what we have been doing to prepare in the last 60 days for 64 teams to be in San Antonio. We acknowledge that,” said NCAA Senior Vice President of women’s basketball Lynn Holzman, who is a former college basketball player. “Last night we did have a call with our coaches and team administrators in a way to solicit feedback and their experience thus far.
“Yesterday was the first day our teams had the opportunity to have practice,” she said. “Part of that call was to get feedback on potential solutions to address some of those concerns, including the weight room issue.”
While the difference between the men’s and women’s weight facility was clearly jarring, in the manual that the NCAA had sent to teams before the tournament they specifically had said that no weights would be available until after the second round of the tournament.
This is the first time in the women’s tournament that every game is being played on neutral sites. In the past, campuses would host the opening rounds so teams would be able to schedule weight room times in those on-campus.
Gavitt said that the NCAA will use this opportunity for better collaboration of men’s and women’s basketball.
“What we pull together in months and years, we tried to do in weeks and days,” he said. “That’s meant some shortcomings. I apologize and feel terrible about anything that falls short of our lofty expectations. Some of those shortcomings we’ve seen in Indianapolis as well.”
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That’s some good first world issue right there! I say save the money and get rid of both. Maybe invest in a study table or library to better prepare our student athletes for the real world
If you care that the NCAA women’s teams want a better weight-room, you are a snowflake.
Matthew and Robert,
I suggest you explain your position to your sister, your daughter, your wife, your granddaughter and your nieces.
I am sure they will be understanding if you apply the same principles to pay and benefits, etc, as well.
Michael, explain your position to that same group when they have to start competing against males.
I am on your side. I am trying to say that the people who are so upset that the NCAA women’s team is upset are snowflakes.
The average male model makes a fraction of what his female counterparts make. There simply isn’t the level of interest in men’s fashion. That’s life.
Apply the same school of thought to women’s sports. The number of people interested in women’s basketball/soccer/fill-in-the-blank is reflective of the attendance levels for their events, which averages about one-fifth that of men. No amount of activism is going to make people become interested in women’s sports, especially when the prime ambassador is someone as dislikable as Megan Rapinoe.
One amateur sport were women get undue attention is gymnastics, at least every four years during the Olympics. They dominate the broadcasts, not because it’s being imposed on the public, but because the public clearly like watching women’s gymnastics and their individual stories. It also made them very sympathetic during the scandal with that sleazeball doctor and USA Gymnastics. Do any of us remember the name of even one male gymnast over the past 20 years? I don’t.
I have to admit: it IS amusing watching the NCAA make concessions to woke-ism. As though these people will ever be content. Spend hundreds of thousands improving the weight room, and they’ll immediately start berating leadership for the next petty inequity. Also funny watching the defenders of woke-ism use terms like “snowflakes” and “Karens”, which were first used by the anti-woke, but then, as we all know, the woke can’t create and only destroys. Or, to use their terminology (which I guess means I’m stealing–oh well), “cultural appropriation”.