If Mr. Dodson's conference has a problem with schools awarding academic aid to unqualified athletes as a means of circumventing the 'no consideration' rule, it should deal with it by raising conference standards. But rather than denounce the standards as too lax or cynical, I would hope that Dodson would be equally concerned by a bylaw that deprives students of the opportunity to receive the same aid any other institutional applicant can receive, solely because those students seek to represent their colleges athletically. That is the true absurdity of Bylaw 15.4.9. As a Baltimorean, athletics director and sports information director at a woman's college, it was impossible to read Donald Fritz's letter in the December 2 issue of The NCAA News and not wonder with true amazement what version of the Baltimore Sun he reads. While the Sun does an exemplary job of balancing coverage between boys' and girls' high-school sports, I have been told point blank by a female sports editor at the Sun that women's college sports simply do not have the readership base to warrant the type of coverage given to men's college teams.
Horses get more column inches in the Sun than women's college sports.
I'll never forget the day I searched the Sun sports pages for any article on women's sports of any kind. The closest I found was a story on a filly that pulled an upset in a feature race at Pimlico. The only time I lament not fielding a football team is on Sunday mornings, when the college results clog a minimum of two full pages of ink. Women are badly under-represented in the sports pages, and the Baltimore Sun is no exception. Just think about it.