The e-mail arrived in a Post editor's inbox like so many other releases from Ohio University Communications and Marketing do every day.
But this one had a strange impact. It said the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights determined that Ohio did not discriminate against men when it unceremoniously cut four sports (including three men's sports) this past January. That an e-mail, a series of coded numbers blinking through cyberspace, would essentially close the book on the nine months of upheaval that followed the athletic department's announcement seemed remarkably anticlimactic.
But that's precisely what the news of OCR's ruling does, as it removes one of the largest platforms those protesting the elimination of men's swimming and diving, men's indoor and outdoor track and women's lacrosse had to stand on in their fight against the administration.
While groups like Save OU Sports and United Swim Parents probably disagree with the findings, there isn't much they can do about it. And as is often the case when schools cut sports, it was unlikely from the beginning that the athletes, parents and alumni who doggedly pursued answers from President Roderick McDavis and Director of Athletics Kirby Hocutt would ever find any that were satisfactory, or achieve their main goal of reinstatement.
Sports cuts ' or anything that take away a person's livelihood, for that matter ' are cold to the people they affect, unavoidable to the decision-makers and will never be a happy occasion.
But regardless of which party was or wasn't justified in their opinion, the OCR response, combined with a new school year, seems to end the cause that prompted rallies, the creation of Facebook groups and the mailing of hundreds of letters to reporters and OU officials.
It was a constant stream of opinion and outrage unlike any this campus has seen in the going on four years that I've been in Athens.
But now there's a new class of students who don't remember the graffiti-wall mural that lashed out at the administration, the T-shirts that displayed athletes' feelings of betrayal or the alumni who mailed their diplomas back in protest.
They don't realize that some of the men's cross country runners who can be seen in and around Peden Stadium most weekdays used to run regular track in the winter and spring and that there was a reason for Peggy Pruitt Field on the athletics mall.
Many of the affected athletes have since transferred and those who remain will probably never feel the same about their alma mater. I can't say I blame them, and perhaps sometime in the future these programs will return, but for better or worse, it's finally time to move on.
17 Archives
Katie Carrera
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