Spot News 04
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — Thu., August 3, 2006 — 1E
Budget cuts, Title IX in play at Slippery Rock
By Michael Phillips
Jim Yeamans was on vacation last week; when he got back, things were not quite the way he left them.
Yeamans is the women's swimming and water polo coach at Slippery Rock University. The school had cut those sports in January, but last week a judge ordered them reinstated under Title IX, federal law that requires equal opportunity for men and women in athletics.
He'll have his work cut out for him this week. The team needs to refill a roster that lost some players to graduation and some who transferred to other schools amid the uncertainty of the sport's future.
Of the two Pittsburgh-area athletes on the swimming team, neither will be competing for Slippery Rock next year. Jen Zuzack of Latrobe used her final year of eligibility in 2006. She was named an Academic All-American as a senior.
Alana Galvin, a sophomore who attended high school at Chartiers Valley, decided to transfer to Washington & Jefferson after learning that the program was cut.
"I made some really good friends on the team, so when I found out that they got it back, I was excited for them. But I'm happy to move on," she said.
Galvin said that after hearing of the decision to cut the sports, she was in tears, and started to become more discontent at school.
The administrators at Slippery Rock, including school president Robert Smith, came to talk to the teams, but Galvin wasn't satisfied with the answers they gave.
"He wasn't really giving us specific reasons. He said it wasn't about the money, but it seemed to be about the money," she said.
In the coming weeks, athletes from the eight sports that were cut met together, staging rallies and raising a petition. That eventually led to the women's swimming and water polo teams filing a lawsuit against the school.
By Easter, Galvin had decided that she wanted to transfer to another school. She decided on Washington & Jefferson, but waited to make her decision until she was accepted in June.
Yeamans told her that she could come back if the program were reinstated, but Galvin said Sunday that she was going to compete for W&J next year.
"I think educationally and athletically, that's the better place for me to be," Galvin said.
The remaining swimmers at Slippery Rock will begin practicing in the coming weeks. Yeamans said he urged the athletes not to feel any bitterness toward the school.
"It wasn't personal. They did what they felt was right, and we don't have any animosity toward those folks," he said. "We were all working toward what we thought were Slippery Rock's best interests."
He said the hardest part was that the cuts were announced on January 30, near the end of the swimming season and the start of the water polo season. Both teams were allowed to finish their seasons.
Before the lawsuit was filed, the school reinstated women's field hockey, and recently women's lacrosse was added to the list of varsity sports. Five men's sports were cut, which will not change.
The lawsuit will still continue into next year as the judge looks into other aspects of Title IX at the school, including facilities and the funding that men's and women's sports receive.
Yeamans said he views this as an opportunity for Slippery Rock to become one of the few schools that is in full compliance with Title IX. He added that he was proud of the way his players rallied together in the months following the decision.
"We did this for the right reasons," he said. "We felt that we needed to stand together, and we did."