Not Softball but Moving to the SEC Requirement

[TropicalSooner]

Didn't know where to post this so I'll start here. I'm sure it would get more traction on the Softball Board-but it's not directly a softball subject.
I saw this on another site--a Softball Site actually--but they ran with it there.

Texas is adding another Women's Sport: Beach Volleyball. Here's a link to the article:

https://www.statesman.com/story/sports/ ... 6nbwll5os1


Texas will add beach volleyball as a new varsity sport starting in 2023

Brian Davis
Austin American-Statesman

In a surprise announcement Tuesday, University of Texas officials said the school will start a varsity beach volleyball program, one designed to complement the indoor program and get the Longhorns involved in one of the nation’s fastest-growing women’s sports.

The NCAA first elevated beach volleyball for the 2011-12 athletic year. The sport’s first national champion was crowned in 2016. There were only 15 Division I beach programs in 2012. Today, there are more than 100.

Current Texas volleyball coach Jerritt Elliott will oversee the start of the new program that will play a limited schedule next spring and aim for full competition in 2024.

Beach volleyball becomes the first varsity-level sport UT has added since rowing was elevated during the 1997-98 athletic year. The Horns will now have 21 varsity-level sports.


When I posed the question "I wonder if this was Title IX related? Maybe having to do with the move to the SEC? another poster there said that the SEC has a requirement that all members have two more women's sports than men's. Here is the quote from " psycHOGlogist (Arkansas) " :
" Yes, it almost certainly is. The SEC requires that member institutions offer 2 more women's sports than they do men's -- to offset the large numerical and financial imbalance associated with having an SEC football program. As of today (right this minute), neither Texas nor OU meets that threshold. UT lists 8 (or 9?) men's teams (baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, swimming/diving (are those the same or separate?), tennis, and track. For women they list 9 (or 10?): basketball, cross country, golf, rowing, soccer, swimming/diving, tennis, track, and volleyball. That's only one more women's team than men's. This announcement will bring UT into compliance with the SEC policy. I would expect OU to make a similar announcement -- whether it's about beach volleyball or something else -- fairly soon. "

OU currently has 10 women's sports and 9 men's.
So the question now becomes, does OU add Beach Volleyball also? - since we will be playing in a "beachy conference"-sort of? Or do we add something else?

What do you think?

What would you want to add?

[OUBeliever56A]

I had first heard that OU would have to add a women's sport when they join the SEC a couple of months ago. I wondered then what sport it might be.

Beach Volleyball would work hand-in-hand with fall Volleyball and might even include some of the same players. I guess the expense to add a Beach Volleyball team outside of scholarships for players would be a beach volleyball court complex which compared to other things would not be a great expense.

I do not know if the pool at OU is capable of being used for NCAA competition, but if it is, maybe a Women's Swimming and Diving team could be another possibility. But a swimming and diving team is a lot of bodies to provide scholarships along with coaches.

I have also thought about a Women's Bowling Team. The Midwest schools have those and they seem to pack it in with attendance. The conference alignment would be different though. It would also be interesting to see if a local bowling alley would be receptive to hosting the events and practices.

[TropicalSooner]

I didn't do this when I first posted about Texas adding Beach Volleyball.....but maybe it would be worth a look. I wonder what the "10th" sport is for other Women's Sports Teams across the SEC. I would think we would need to find something in common with our new fellow conference members for team competition. Do most of the Conference members have a Beach Volleyball sport? After all, all the states in the SEC border on big bodies of water except for the landlocked states of TN, KY, MO, and the future OK. I'm not saying that the schools go to "the beach" for competitions, but they all certainly would have that sport generally built in society wise.

[AustinTXSooner]

Sport	OU	SEC
Basketball	X	X
Beach Volleyball
Bowling
Cross Country	X	X
Equestrian
Fencing
Field Hockey
Golf	X	X
Gymnastics	X	X
Ice Hockey
Lacrosse
Rifle
Rowing	X
Rugby
Skiing
Soccer	X	X
Softball	X	X
Swimming & Diving		X
Tennis	X	X
Track & Field	X	X
Triathlon
Volleyball	X	X
Water Polo

The SEC column refers to whether it's listed on the SEC Conference website, not whether any of the schools have it.

I think only Rugby and Triathlon don't have national championships (40? schools need to have the sport for there to be a championship). The NCAA has designated 5 women's sports as "emerging":

• Acrobatics and tumbling

• Equestrian

• Rugby

• Triathlon

• Wrestling

These are the only two references to Acrobatics and tumbling, and Women's wrestling that I've found.