ESPNU -- College Sailing -- USF in the lead, Boat 11

[TailGateBull08]

Looks like we finished 13th in the Nation.

[ctbrown24]

Has anyone been down to the Waterfront at the St. Pete campus? It's pretty cool. They're out there a lot working on the boats. I go kayaking a lot down there since it's free. Great area.

[sailinggirl]

so how is USF in this? we have a women's team, but all these teams are coed.

You only hear about the women's team because that's the only one that Tampa campus funds, so that's the only one that they advertise.  We do have a co-ed team, but it's funded by the St. Pete campus.  We all practice together, though, and all of the girls on the team are interchangeable between the two "teams" - I've sailed at both women's and co-ed events.  (As TailGateBull08 pointed out, there is no "men's team," because there are only a couple of men-only events in college sailing, and they're all in Lasers.)  It's kind of silly that you don't hear more about the co-ed team, though, since they're ranked higher in collegiate sailing, but it's all politics.

You can see our rankings here: http://collegesailing.org/rankings.asp  The women's team hasn't actually been ranked this year, but co-ed has been in the top 15 (sometimes top 10) all year.  And we were ranked 8th last year.

We also did much better at Team Racing Nationals than at Fleet Racing Nationals (which I believe is what was shown on ESPNU) - we came in 7th out of 14 teams, whereas in fleet racing it was 13th out of 18.  And our women finished 16th out of 18 at Women's Nationals.

If anyone's interested in joining, we do take walk-ons, and a lot of our crews have never had any sailing experience prior to joining.  It's easier if you're not too big, though, since we do sail SMALL boats.

[TailGateBull08]

Hey Nicki! Welcome to the board, and thanks for the info.

[twillybull]

USF has a women's team that is an NCAA funded team (thank you title 9).  The coed team is not an "official" NCAA sport at USF however we have always done statisitically well since there has been a team.  A lot of the schools up north HATE USF because we could practice at times their boats are covered in ice!

I sailed with the coed team back in 99-00.  I got to foredeck at the Kennedy cup at Navy for us my senior year 00... that was a BLAST!!!  Those Navy boats (30ft?) are nice.  Small boats are fun, but for big guys like me unless there's a hefty breeze the sloop team was the way to go.

Hey Tailgate, where do you take the Hobie 18 around here?  We stick around picnic island when we use my pos `79 Hobie (submarine) 14. 

[Velcro]

Does title nine prohibit adding COED teams?  that shouldn't offset any balance, you should be able to add as many coed teams as you want!  or do the consider the ratio of males to females within that team? 

::sigh::

[Joe]

Usually proportionality of the school to the makeup of the student athletes. Just depends on how your school elects to comply with Title IX (there are three ways)

The NCAA doesn't run sailing, they gave their own intercollegiate organization.

[twillybull]

No it does not prohibit adding funding to the coed team... however because it requires an equal number or ratio of scholorships between the sexes at the school, adding a female sailing team was a great option for USF to meet compliance.  Funding the female team also (in)directly benefitted the members of the coed team through the addition of facilities, equipment and boats for the female team.  There really weren't any complaints from either side as it was a win-win situation for both. 

Prior to the scholorship funding of the female team, there really wasn't much funds to support either team (although both were still very competetive back then).