A Connecticut university made a decision to cut women’s volleyball in favor of a competitive cheerleading team last year. That volleyball coach and five of her players sued the school on the basis of a Title IX violation. That case has reached the U.S. District Court in the form of a class-action lawsuit, one that could set a jarring precedent for the future of women’s sports! Or not…

Linda Carpenter, a professor emerita at Brooklyn College and co-author of the book “Title IX,” said the women’s sports community is watching the case closely.

“These are significant issues and a significant case,” Carpenter said. “It provides a case, whichever way it goes, that can work its way up the judicial food chain, and ultimately provide a precedent.” –KENS 5.

Although cheerleaders at the college level do participate in rigorous national competitions, cheerleaders are not subject to NCAA regulations like, um, real athletes. And fielding a cheer team is obviously cheaper than, um, running an actual sports team. Look, I’ll give credit: those flips and herkies are serious business. If we can refer to figure skaters, gymnasts, curlers and baseball players as athletes, I can certainly give cheerleaders the same due.

HOWEVAH, as a pig-headed chauvinist, I have to admit that it’s nice to finally see a women’s team get the shaft in the face of Title IX, which is…let’s say…not one of my favorite things. The idea of equal funding for athletics along gender lines–when so many more men care about sports more than women–seems faulty to me. Where are all of these women athletes supposed to be coming from? Even after modern-day superstar lady jocks like Flo-Jo, Mia Hamm, that one tall chick with the teeth, and Marion Jones, there still aren’t as many female athletes as male. If we really want more money for women’s sports, we ought to just ban men’s lacrosse.

ASYLUM POLL: Should cheerleading be considered a sport?

Nominate this photo for Sports Image Of The Year [scratch that, it's 30 years old; the cars in the background should have been a clue]. And then call Border Patrol. It’s a volleyball game being played over the border…literally. These people are using the fence separating the border between Mexico and Arizona as the net.

Alex Webb, people playing volleyball using the border fence between Arizona and Mexico as the net, 1979. Naco, Arizona. –from Bears In Human Suits.

Pretty awesome, and somewhat disturbing, especially if that volleyball rolls into America and tries to get a job.

The blonde in this photo, whose name you can find here, once played varsity volley for Tennessee-Martin, and then eventually transferred to Ball State and played club ball there. Don Chavez found some just-barely-safe-for-work images and assembled them for the good of mankind. You can see my faves here, which are much less suggestive.

When people talk about allegations of “hazing,” it makes one typically think of some poor asshole’s house getting toilet-papered or maybe having to scrape shaving cream off the front of his locker. This latest incident involving the Woodland Hills (CA) Taft High School boys’ volleyball team…this doesn’t really sound like hazing. From KTLA:

Eleven students claim they were hazed by their peers, but none sought medical treatment.

[M]any students outside the school Tuesday said it involved suggestive acts with a sex toy….Some students told KTLA they’ve heard rumors that a freshman player was held down in the locker room and sodomized with an object.

The LA Times had an update yesterday:

Six employees at Taft High School were reassigned Tuesday while school district and law enforcement officials investigate an alleged hazing incident in the boys locker room on the Woodland Hills campus…[D]istrict sources said Principal Sharon Thomas and volleyball coach Arman Mercado were among them.[...]

[They] were disciplined because they allegedly did not report the hazing in a timely manner. The incident, which only involved students, was reported to the Los Angeles Police Department on Jan. 30. But top school district officials said they were not aware of the incident until Feb. 17.

Freshmen? I guess they like ‘em older. Once a girl turns 14, she’s totally past her prime. Maybe it’s different with guys. I wouldn’t know, but then I was never as maniacally sexually frustrated at that age. In other words, I never played boys’ volleyball in high school.

Today in Japanese sports cinema: Oppai Volleyball will star Haruka Ayase (pictured, plus bonus gallery below the trailer) as a high school teacher who takes over the school’s hapless volleyball team.  Twitch describes the key plot device:

She does what she can to get you and your teammates producing results but nothing seems to work until, finally, in desperation, she one day plays her hidden ace.  If you and your teammates can get it together and win the upcoming tournament she will show you her breasts.  Will it work?

I have to assume that that’s a rhetorical question.  That would be the easiest volleyball tournament victory ever.  With a promise like that, she should really ask for a lot more from her students.  “Okay, by the end of the week I want a perpetual motion machine and the secrets to cold fusion unlocked.”  The kids would get that shit done by Wednesday.

Read the rest of this entry »

This undated photo of members of the ASU volleyball team comes via creepy yet efficient Don Chavez, and from it we can draw a stunning revelation: some undergraduate college students may imbibe alcohol.  If you can call Sour Apple Pucker alcohol.

Ever the inquisitive gumshoe, I went looking for the ASU volleyball roster to try to determine if these are current members of the team or former members or just random girls who happen to be decked out in ASU volleyball gear.  And after a lot of clicking back and forth and careful examination, the answer to whether they’re on the team is a resounding maybe. I dunno.  Some of ‘em look like matches, but they do things like hold their heads at different angles and wear their hair in different ways, so it’s hard to tell.  And of course all white girls look the same.

Anyway.  It’s hard to get riled up about some ASU coeds drinking when Matt Leinart’s not involved.