James Madison University students protesting when men's swimming was cut in 2007 (photo courtesy of Jacob Torok).
Many have lamented the elimination of dozens of college swimming programs over the last two decades, but Jacob Torok, a hard-working swimmer out of Newtown, Pa., lived through an experience he described as nothing short of a nightmare — twice.
Torok was a freshman on the swim team at the University of New Hampshire in 2006 when the men’s program there was eliminated. Torok transferred to James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., so he could continue swimming the next year. Within months, that program was cut, too.
“I never thought it could possibly happen to me again,” Torok said. “I was angry, depressed, every negative emotion you can feel inside.”
Torok, grudgingly and gradually, moved on. Disgusted with what had occurred, he gave up the sport for months, then eased back into the pool with JMU’s club team. Now, more than two years later, he is approaching his graduation in December. He has secured a job with EMO Energy Solutions in Falls Church. He still shares rent with two former swim teammates. Despite the pain, his college career worked out fine.
But Torok can’t shake the regret. Years of toiling earned him the right to swim at the college level, but he had a pair of opportunities yanked out from under him. He couldn’t change his own circumstances despite arranging a face-to-face meeting with James Madison President Linwood Rose, but he realizes that as a central character in a heart-wrenching tale, he can affect the future.
“I swam for 15 years,” Torok said. “I didn’t really know what to do without swimming. Swimming taught me more than any textbook or any class.”
Unlike many angered by recent cuts of men’s Olympic sports at the NCAA level, Torok does not blame Title IX, the 1972 law put in place to ensure collegiate opportunities for female athletes. But he says the law is outmoded and needs to be updated, and he chides the administrators for the approaches they have taken to meet the law’s requirements. Title IX demands that participation for men’s and women’s sports be proportionately equal to enrollment.
But when the numbers are skewed, the small, non-revenue, men’s sports are often the ones to go, and out-of-the-box solutions are rarely sought. College swimming lost more than 15 percent of its programs between 1995-2005.
The situation has rankled the U.S. Olympic Committee, the College Swimming Coaches Association of America and others who have urged college administrators to take more equitable steps to ensure the preservation of valuable programs while achieving adherence to Title IX.
USA Swimming National Team Director Mark Schubert, the former head coach at the University of Southern California, recommends adding women’s sports rather than cutting men’s to boost ratios. Former CSCAA Executive Director Phil Whitten, meantime, said he suspects some schools have overcompensated in their efforts to ensure compliance, and now inadvertently discriminate against men.
Torok humanizes the endless intellectual debates on the topic, bringing a powerful emotional element. No amount of explaining or rationalizing changes the fact that he lost an essential element of his collegiate experience.
“I still love swimming, regardless,” he said. “I would love to get back into it. I missed it the last couple of years.”
He learned New Hampshire was cutting its men’s team three weeks before that season’s conference championships, an announcement that fueled the athletes with motivation: they wanted to swim well to make their administration look bad.
About eight months later, he was on the way to a September swim practice with his new teammates at JMU when they were redirected to the school’s convocation center. At first happy about getting an apparent day off from training, Torok got a sick feeling in his stomach when he saw the men’s track and wrestling teams filing in simultaneously.
In moments, his premonition was confirmed: ten sports were being cut.
“My head just sank,” he said. “I was horrified.”
Said Torok’s former coach, Chris Feaster: “It was a roomful of tears.”
Two athletes transferred, but most, including Torok, remained. Feaster gave up on the sport, moving to Tampa where he became a pharmaceutical sales representative.
“I wanted no part of coaching after that,” Feaster said. “It was the worst situation I had ever been involved in in athletics.”
Torok was angry. He wondered why no one gave him a heads up when he was transferring. He wanted an explanation, a formal apology. He couldn’t get back in the pool. He attended a women’s swim meet, to support some good friends, but had to walk out of the building.
“I was just depressed,” he said. “I was about to break down in tears.”
Life looks much better now, two years removed from the pain, and with an impressive job in Fairfax awaiting him. Torok, however, doesn’t want to get over what happened. He intends to do everything he can to make the loudest statement to those he considers responsible.
What happened “does impact how I view JMU and UNH,” he said. “I still have school pride; I’ll wear my jacket at events, but I have a bad taste in my mouth at the athletics department, upper management. I really don’t think I will donate back to the school. I’ll always have that pride, but I wouldn’t financially support the university.
“It’s absolutely still upsetting.”
stats corner
This is the legacy of Title IX……..I’m sure NOW would be proud. Title IX supporters are bull headed and won’t even discuss modifying it. Very simple, either add spots to womens sports or give football with it’s 85 man roster a free pass so those spots are not counted.
There are better ways to balance the needs of the budget and the Title IX requirements. Unfortunately, the sacred cows can never be touched. Our local “big time” college football team stays at a nice hotel, in town, before HOME games. The cost of those hotel rooms alone would fund another sport.
Law of unintended consequences rears its ugly head again. Kinda like voting with the Christian right only to find that they would insist that poor be without health insurance. The Good Samaritan did better than this… I digress…
My son was also affected. Only way to avoid is may be to have single sex schools which is the way it once was too. That couldn’t fly today as females make up the majority at virtually all schools (Hamden-Sidney, Morehouse, and Wabash not withstanding…) Yes, men are a minority at virtually all colleges and universities. Marry wisely son…
Some school will try the same way around the law that some colleges/universities are trying to avoid state and federal restrictions on paperwork/oversight – by relying on other sources for funds. Someone will create an athletic program “independent” from the university with goal of making $ i.e. to highest bidder for this contract) with negotiable participation goals, lease the facilities back, and avoid the blindly numeric requirements of title IX. We just haven’t seen it yet…
This approach is kind of like what has happened on the current “cross” issue in the Death Valley desert — sell/trade a part of a national park to an non-government entity because the government can’t show support for a specific religion. Needless to say, if non-university groups begin the arrangement I described, they would manage for $$$ so necessarily the whole bowl/playoff process is suddenly seriously considered along with far more aggressive management of tv/cable rights. Yep, things would sure change….
Those 10 sports were not cut for Title IX reasons, they were cut to help balance the budget. The BoD originally voted to cut them back in 2003 but were persuaded to continue to sponsor them until 2006, when they were cut under the guise of Title IX violations. Our student groups went to the Supreme Court to no avail, the school just couldn’t afford to sponsor so many sports (27 at the time, 2nd most in the nation). Whether Title IX needs to be amended is a separate debate, and one where our situation does not apply.
And Jack, we at JMU play at the FCS or IAA level, where there are 63 scholarships for football. Clearly Title IX is just a hotspot for you and prevents you from knowing the whole picture.
We really shouldn’t be surprised that schools left and right are dropping smaller profile men’s sports. When Title IX was becoming a law, school after school argued that it would mean the end of small men’s sports teams. They cried that they would be forced to cut men’s swimming, and crew, and gymnastics, and wrestling, and track in order to be in compliance.
Now, that Title IX is law, schools had two choices. A) Admit they were wrong, and find a way to provide equal support towards both men and women… WITHOUT cutting men’s programs left and right. Or B) Make a point to show us that they were right all along, cut the programs that don’t raise them any money anyway (and therefore didn’t care too much about in the first place), and blame it all on Title IX. “See! We told you we’d have to do this.”
You figure out which path the schools would take. It’s far more surprising to me that some schools are actually choosing to find ways to add opportunity for women rather than take it away from the less influential men’s programs. Then again, these probably are the schools that didn’t have the bigots out front arguing against Title IX in the first place. Maybe we should have a study comparing which schools took a public stance against equality to the schools that have cut the men’s programs. I bet we’ll see a pretty nice overlap.
What might make this change? Perhaps if enough Alumni to get involved and put some $$$ weight behind doing the right thing for both women AND men! Withhold regular donations and/or condition them on reinstatement of cut programs. Maybe that will work.
Josh, unless JMU started a womens football team with 63 scholarships you just made my point for me, thank you very much. The fact that schools are using Title IX as an excuse to cut sports they feel like dropping from their budget is a problem in itself. And yes, I do have a problem with Title IX. I’ve seen it kill programs, disrupt young lives, and crush the dreams of people I am close to, but I don’t feel it should be dropped. It needs to be modified, but the protectors of Title IX wont even hear it, and see any talk of fixing it as a step towards dismantling the whole thing as though we are discussing Roe V. Wade. The so called “bigots” on one side are just as bad as the NOW organizers on the other side who can’t see outside their own political prism.
I agree with Jacob and do not send money to JMU anymore. There is no reason to keep 63 or however many football scholarships and cut other sports. Div 1-AA or FCS is minor league college football and should not be getting so much attention at JMU.