UMaine officials deliver Title IX history lesson

ORONO – University of Maine Athletic Director Sue Tyler said when she was coaching at the University of Maryland back in the 1970s, she crawled through a drainage ditch to unlock the stadium because, unlike the men’s coaches, she was not given a key.

Tyler said her tolerance of the unfair conditions women coaches faced allowed her to find the door to a top job in collegiate sports in the years following the passage of Title IX, the 1972 law that barred institutions from discriminating against women in education.

“Many friends of mine in the ’70s lost jobs because they raised a storm,” Tyler said. “I have a job because I knew it was not good to complain.”

Tyler spoke on the status of Title IX at UMaine Tuesday with associate professor of education Sue Estler, who served as director of equal opportunity at UMaine for 10 years before returning to teach this year.

Both highlighted how far women have come in 25 years since the passage of the law. As Estler discussed the history of women’s sports, Tyler served as a color analyst, sharing her experiences as a collegiate player in the 1960s, a Division I coach in the ’70s and an administrator in the ’80s.

The one area where Tyler could show innovation in the movement of women’s sports was in coaches salaries at UMaine, where the university is ahead of the national trend in the salaries paid to its basketball coaches.

UMaine women’s basketball coach Joanne Palombo-McCallie makes more than Bears men’s coach John Giannini.

When Giannini was hired last year, he agreed to a five-year deal for slightly less than $70,000 a season. Two years ago, Palombo was offered $19,000 in salary increases over three years and is now making more than $70,000. The increase came after Palombo considered a job at Long Beach State (Calif.).

Tyler pointed out that there is a formula involving experience and conference titles that is used to determine a coaches salary… and that everything is relative.

“Our women’s [basketball] coach is the highest paid in the league, but [her salary] is not nationally competitive,” Tyler said. “Our league is very bad. It’s not nationally competitive.”

Estler began the seminar by pointing out the word “athletic” does not appear in Title IX, and that after the athletic regulations were implemented in 1979, nobody liked the regulations.

“Men thought [Title IX] went too far and women thought it was too homogeneous,” Estler said.

Yet Tyler’s personal anecdotes showed how far women have come in sports. While she is one of 16 women athletic directors today, Tyler said in 1990, there was just one. And, Tyler said she “fell” into her position, while today there are many women aspiring to be athletic administrators who call her for advice.

The seminar of about 40 also showed that equity can be a matter of perspective.

When the forum opened up to questions, one woman asked when women’s coaches would be paid the same as men’s coaches. To that, Tyler said the nation is far from it when there are men’s basketball coaches who make half a million dollars, which she thought was outrageous.

To that, Palombo, disagreed.

“Some professors at Harvard are paid that much. If you’re famous and well-published you are making a lot of money,” Palombo said. “And there is the question of job security. If you’re fired, then you’re a fired coach. The market balances out the other factors.”