Lady Tigers to remove 'Lady'

Melissa McFerrin has big goals for her team this season. The University of Memphis women's basketball coach wants to make a number of changes, ranging from winning NCAA titles to rebuilding the team.

And there's one more.

She wants people to leave out "Lady" in "Lady Tigers" when referring to her team.

"It's not an attempt to quash any sort of term," she said. "It's really just to identify ourselves as The University of Memphis."

Men's basketball coach John Calipari supports her move, and in the spirit of election season, said, "Melissa...I say she's a little Sarah Palin-ish, and I mean that in a very positive way.

"She understands what she wants, and she has a great vision of what she wants. She's not afraid to reach out and ask. She has strong convictions and opinions," he said. "It's what she wants, and she wants the program to be thought of as one of the best."

While the men's basketball team is showing support, some bloggers, in response to McFerrin's idea, showed they weren't crazy about the idea. Some said they need to earn it before they eliminate "Lady" from their name.

"I think it should be taken out too...IF they can prove that they can win," one blogger wrote. "They have had 30 wins in the last four years, which is how many regular season wins the men had LAST year. You have to earn what you want."

Removing "Lady" from the women's basketball team's name also removes the sexism resulting from that nickname, said Sally Ross, assistant professor for sports and leisure.

"By adding 'Lady,' it's making the women's team less authentic, and so you're normalizing men in sport, but you're putting a qualifier on women in sport," Ross said. "It's like they're sort of secondary or an afterthought."

McFerrin's choice in the word-removal is a step in the right direction for women's athletics and against sexism, Ross said.

"I think this is something very courageous, and I'm sad that it has to be something that has to be courageous for a women's coach to say, 'I'd like to get rid of Lady from the Tigers,'" she said.

Women have been doing what they can to eliminate discrimination against women in sports since Title IX was passed in 1972.

The act's goal is to stop discrimination against women in federally funded educational institutes, including with athletic programs. Since then, women have been bringing their influence to athletics.

Colleges and universities can comply with Title IX by providing equal opportunities for both genders and providing women's sports.

When the act was put in place, universities began adding women's sports to fulfill Title IX requirements. Two years before Title IX passed, there were only 2.5 women's teams per school for approximately 16,000 women athletes. As of 2006, there was an average of 8.45 for about 180,000 women athletes.

After Title IX passed, the office of Civil Rights, who handles the act, understood that colleges couldn't meet the requirements overnight, saw they were making an effort by adding women's teams and gave them credit for doing what they needed to do.

"What's kind of catching up with people now is it's been several years since they added women's sports, and now that can only buy you so much time," Ross said.

So is the The University of Memphis in compliance?

"The way that you can really tell, like the litmus test as far as if Title IX is working, is if you flip flop and you gave the men all the resources that you're giving the men and you're giving all of the resources you're giving the men. Would everyone be happy?" Ross said.

The men's basketball team plays in Downtown Memphis in the FedEx Forum, while the women's basketball team plays on campus in the Elma Roane Fieldhouse. So if The University did as Ross suggested, switching the facilities the teams use, would both teams be satistfied?

Women's basketball forward Ashley Thornton said, "It doesn't even matter where you are, just as long as you have a goal and a floor and a ball you can practice on."

Ross, on the other hand, thinks there would be some disagreements between the men's and women's teams.

"On this campus, when you're looking at the 'Big Two'-basketball and football-no, I don't think that people would be happy. I don't think the men would be happy with what the women are getting. The women would probably be ecstatic, but I don't think the men would be happy," Ross said.

Funding from athletic departments in colleges show some inequalities as well, according to research in the book "Sport and Society" by Jay Coakley. In 2007, men received more funding for athletics.

Men's teams received 67 percent of recruiting money, leaving women's teams with 33 percent. For operating budgets, men's teams had 66 percent of the money and women's teams had 34 percent.

The trouble with funding athletics comes in how to distribute money, said Ross, including with travel.

"Certainly it'd be great to spread the wealth and to allow everyone to take charter flights to places that are certain hours away," Ross said. "But there's a limited amount of money. So it's really up to the athletic director and sport administrator as to how they want to spread that money to the different sports teams,"

This season, a little more of that pot of money that doesn't go to the "Big Two" might be going to the women's basketball team.

"Since I've come to the University of Memphis, our funding has increased, the commitment to our women's program has increased from our department and from our university," McFerrin said.

When The University shows "equity in opportunity and people are being supported the same way" despite gender, including with funding, that's when people will know Title IX is working, according to Ross.

McFerrin's goal, along with her desire to leave out "Lady" when referring to the Memphis Tiger's women's basketball team, is to unite The University.

"We're not competing against our men - we're competing against other Conference-USA schools and what we need to do to be successful against them," McFerrin said.