From the article. Its not going to be soon.
Believe they have to add a men’s program if they add women’s gymnastics. Men’s soccer is the talk but who knows?
https://twitter.com/ShockTheWorldPC/status/1008064779775340544
1 Like
The PAC and the BIG are both very proud of having collegiate gymnastics teams.
May not have to add a sport since you could technically have a men’s and women’s team. Coog Club Gymnastics currently accepts both.
Big problem with adding gymnastics is that there are no teams in Texas which have a D1 program (Texas Women’s College has a D2 program). LSU would be the closest school to have a team with Oklahoma being the 2nd closest.
American Athletic Conference also doesn’t sponsor Gymnastics with only one member that has a gymnastics program (Temple). Temple is part of the ECAC for Gymnastics.
Only 63 D1 schools total sponsor a gymnastics programs - 15 sponsor men’s programs and 61 sponsor women’s programs - Navy and Army are the only schools that sponsor only a men’s program.
Bonuses of adding a program: 1) recruiting Texas talent would be easy…and there is a lot of Texas talent which means that 2) competing for titles would be fairly easy with that talent and 3) if you want to impress Big12, Pac12, SEC, or B1G schools, adding a program would help since those are most of what makes up the D1 membership in the P5.
Negative: Money. This isn’t a revenue sport at all…even with Biles as coach. Means a lot more expenses, especially travel-related. Without a move to a bigger conference, more than likely adding a gymnastics program would mean the elimination of other sports. There’s no room to really remove any men’s sports unless you axe T&F, golf, or baseball…all of which are top programs or have been. On the women’s side, there’s swimming (top program), golf (top program), T&F (rounding into a top program), softball (rounding into a top program), tennis (receives a lot of donor support), volleyball and soccer (both are most likely to go if we add gymnastics). Thing is, all of the sports listed don’t cost as much because travel isn’t as extreme as what it would cost for gymnastics.
Basically, if we wanted to add a program, we’d need enough donor support to cover all the expenses to include facilities, scholarships, travel, and coaching costs.
As much as I would like to see UH add sports programs this is the bottom line. It cost money and we do not have extra money. We are squeezing our pennies so hard they think they are nickles.
1 Like
Another Olympian calling on UH to add Gymnastics:
Why would they have to add a men’s sport? We are still not there yet on Title IX equality. Which is why all the recently added sports have been women’s sports (Golf, Soccer, Softball).
More Olympians joining in:
https://twitter.com/CarlyPatterson/status/1018888616913915909
https://twitter.com/MadisonKocian/status/1018925824924422144
I think this is a wonderful idea. My only question is how are we going to pay for this additional non revenue sport?
I was told by a former Coog men’s tennis player that we had a very strong program until it was cut. Why not men’s tennis?
Let’s add back men’s tennis but the question remains, how would we pay for the non revenue sports. Our athletic department is already running at a deficit.
It would have to be donations.
I wonder how much it would cost to endow a tennis of gymnastics team.
Really interesting breakdown of the situation. Basically, Houston needs to add more women’s programs so gymnastics is definitely on the table as they’ve had a meeting and a presentation for it. Even had Mary Lou Retton send a letter of recommendation. Article said that the decision to add another sport is between Gymnastics and Beach Volleyball, but, with the numbers, I wouldn’t be surprised if both are added.
Interesting thing is that Houston would more than likely join the Big 12 for gymnastics.
To bring Houston into Title IX compliance, Champion Women found the school would need to have had 223 female athletes in 16-17. The gap between male and female athletes was 67. “Courts have already decided if there’s a gap of 16 athletes, it’s not close enough,” Hogshead-Makar said. “[Houston is] way off.”
we have 6 men’s steams and 9 woman’s teams. While I support adding gymnastics, it still has to make economic sense. How are we going to pay for It since I doubt that it will be self funding.
Other schools certainly have an imbalance, for example TCU with 9 men’s teams and 10 women’s. Other possible women’s program could also include rowing, rifle, and equestrian. The AAC also has rowing team competition.