For the fifth consecutive year, the Quinnipiac women’s tennis team is the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference champions. The Bobcats defeated the Marist Red Foxes 4-1 on Sunday to seal their fifth title in as many years as they’ve been in the MAAC.
After shutting out Niagara University yesterday 4-0, Quinnipiac was able to hold on to beat Marist in New Jersey at Mercer County Tennis Center.
Although dominance has become a normalcy for the team, Paula Miller, the director of Quinnipiac tennis and the women’s team’s head coach, says it never gets any easier.
“Everyone always talks about the success,” Miller said. “But every time we come out here to play I feel the nerves and every year the teams actually compete harder against us.”
Miller added that nerves aside, she will always believe in her team.
“I’m always worried but I have the faith in my girls to come out and win,” Miller said.
For this team, faith and trust is a necessity due to the youth of the roster since all of the starters were either juniors or freshmen.
The younger teams came through today when the team needed them most, even after a tough start.
“Payton (Bradley) at number three was down five-one in the second set and ended up coming back and winning the set so my freshmen are tough,” Miller added.
However, the success was not held to only one freshman.
Moments before Jennifer Lu’s clincher, this was Dominique Vasile’s match point at 1 to give the Bobcats a 3-1 lead – Vasile and Lu at 1 and 2 had simultaneous set points and simultaneous match points. pic.twitter.com/C5gbtvfchP
“Two of three (freshmen) ended up winning singles matches for me that so that tells you right there how they are under pressure as freshmen,” Miller said.
Without one senior on the roster, it is important that you build a foundation for a team right from the bottom.
For Quinnipiac, the future looks bright.
“You always think its something you’re gonna have to build,” Miller said. “But then they come in and they grow. But to have that coming as freshmen, I think they’re just going to get tougher and tougher as the years go on.”
On Thursday, December 1, 2016, Quinnipiac women’s rugby players were celebrating their second consecutive national title in the cafeteria of Quinnipiac’s main campus. Joy filled the room-they had done it again with a victory over Central Washington to bring the title back to Hamden. Everything was good, except for one thing: John Lahey, current president of Quinnipiac, was nowhere to be seen.
“He said he shook hands with us and everything but he wasn’t actually present,” said Flora Poole, a senior at Quinnipiac who played four years of rugby. “It’s [President Lahey’s support] that is like one extra thing we haven’t gotten or accomplished yet.”
President Lahey’s office could not be reached for comment.
Hillary Haldane, an anthropology professor with a focus in gender studies, echoed this same sentiment.
“All the things that women do and get no credit for, it’s no different with sports. You hold up and value what the people in power hold up and value,” said Haldane. “The fact that our president goes to the men’s games and doesn’t go to the women’s games is appalling. Your job as the president his to simply act like you care about something.”
Other female athletes say they feel the same way – regardless of success or accomplishment, the lack of recognition for women’s athletics at Quinnipiac will continue.
“In my almost four years of being here there has definitely been a blind eye to the success of the women’s teams,” said Mackenzie Merkel, a senior member of Quinnipiac women’s indoor track and field. “There have been national champions, records broken, huge upsets, but the cycle continues as none of it gets the recognition it truly deserves.”
Despite the victories and consistent success inequality prevails when it comes to women’s athletics at Quinnipiac. There is an argument to be made that women’s rugby is the most successful sport at the school. However, the exposure the team gets and the following it attracts do not reflect that.
Image via Quinnipiacbobcats.com
“The coverage of the sports are different,” said Taylor Schussler, another senior who has played her last rugby game for Quinnipiac. “I think if you’re breaking down coverage it shouldn’t be based off of what’s the most popular sport.”
What Schussler is saying is that although the women’s rugby team is more successful than most sports here, it does not get the coverage that the others do. Lack of recognition and support for women’s athletics is not limited to Quinnipiac, it also extends to the rest of the NCAA.
This inequality stems in part from a lack of opportunity to compete in the first place. Without the opportunity to play, a lot of these women athletes do not even get the chance to earn support.
“Even though female students comprise 57 percent of college student populations, female athletes received only 43 percent of participation opportunities at NCAA schools which is 63,241 fewer participation opportunities than their male counterparts,” according to an NCAA publication cited by the Women’s Sports Foundation from 2014.
Graphic by Bill Ruocco
Even with Title IX in place, there is still a vast discrepancy in the opportunities that men get in sports in comparison to women. And even when women get the opportunity to play, the amount of financial aid granted to men and women athletes remains unequal.
Graphic by Bill Ruocco
“Although the gap has narrowed, male athletes still receive 55 percent of NCAA college athletic scholarship dollars (Divisions I and II), leaving only 45 percent allocated to women,” the 2014 NCAA publication stated.
Title IX implies that men’s and women’s athletics will receive the same opportunities both financially and substantially. That is not what the report reveals.
According to Attorney Felice Duffy, a New Haven attorney specializing in title 9 suits, it is not uncommon for schools to not fully comply with Title IX.
“I don’t think any school has ever had to fully comply with what Title IX needs, they just come up with some type of settlement. I mean, you’re familiar with the situation at [Quinnipiac],” said Duffy.
Back in 2009, a lawsuit was filed by members of the women’s volleyball team after Quinnipiac announced that it would eliminate the team in favor of competitive cheer, which since has been renamed acrobatics and tumbling. Quinnipiac ended up settling after the judge ruled competitive cheering to not be a sport and the school agreed to spend more money on facilities and equipment for women’s “sports of emphasis.”
Differences in finances for men’s and women’s sports, Title IX or not, have always been a problem.
“There is no clause in Title IX that says ‘except if one gender generates more revenue than the other,’” Andrew Zimbalist pointed out in a 2016 New York Times article.
A very good example of gender disparities in athletics is a comparison of the University Of Connecticut men’s and women’s basketball programs. The women’s basketball program at UCONN is one of the best, if not the best, women’s basketball team ever, winning four consecutive national titles from 2013 to 2016 and 11 altogether. The women’s program also owns the two longest win streaks, irrespective of gender, in college basketball history.
The men’s program has won four national titles total in its existence. Nevertheless, the men’s team still attracts about 2,000 more fans than the women’s program to every home game.
In the 2014-2015 season, the UCONN men’s basketball program averaged 10,687 fans at every home game. The women, on the other hand, averaged 8,216 fans per home game.
All together, in the 2016-2017 season, NCAA Division One women’s basketball had an average attendance of 1,538 per home game. NCAA Division One men’s basketball had an average of 4,633 fans in attendance per home game. The disparity is not lost on women athletes.
Graphic by Bill Ruocco
“It is obvious that there is a big difference in attendance between men’s and women’s sporting events,” said Mackenzie Merkel, a senior on the women’s track and field team at Quinnipiac.
Haldane compared the difference in interest in men’s and women’s athletics to the attitude of the restaurant industry.
“I look at sports as no different. Women are good and competent.. can make a mean stew, but it doesn’t come out of that five-star restaurant,” Haldane said.
Though the difference in attendance is glaring, the female athletes here have learned to focus on the task at hand rather than dwell on the negatives.
“We get a lot of support from the people that we care about,” Schussler said. “In my time here I have learned to not put a lot of emphasis on the outside support of the people that we don’t care about.”
Attorney Duffy believes that no matter how much we worry about attendance or financial attention, the problem is deeper with women’s athletics.
“All these things you’re talking about, we don’t pay as much attention, we don’t need a new stadium because of lack of attendance, is all putting the cart before the horse because if they actually supported them the way they supported men’s, it would change the culture and people would look at them the same way,” Duffy said.
This inequality is a problem that players say still bugs them. But some players say that hope is on the horizon for their beloved sport and women’s athletics in general.
“You can see the following grow, even how small it was, incrementally over the years,” said Tricia Fabbri, head coach of the Quinnipiac women’s basketball. “With the platform that social media has, it has allowed us to grow our fanbase … At each home game it has gotten better and better.”
Even locally the support has picked up, with someone noticing this billboard on 91 this past November.
Haldane believes that journalism is a great starting point to attack this problem.
“I think student journalism can help a lot, you create the news that’s fit to print,” said Haldane. “If women’s lives and stories and women’s sports gets printed, it sets a tone for what people are going to think is normal.”
Women athletes are waiting not only for steady attendance, but also the attention and support from their school that they think they deserve. Incremental growth in both attendance and support is key for women’s athletics at Quinnipiac, according to women’s athletes and coaches. It is on it’s way, but just at it’s own pace.
“There has definitely been a great improvement this year with getting the other sports event out there via Instagram,” Merkel said. “I just think its not much of an interest to the students who come out to those things because there isn’t as much hype around it … I hope [recognition] happens sooner rather than later but I do think it will take some time.”
Early Wednesday morning Quinnipiac University students received an email informing them that all classes after 12 p.m. would be cancelled due to the impending snow storm.
Snow has yet to fall in a heavy manner today. However, www.weather.com is remaining steady in predicting that the surrounding Quinnipiac area will receive snow this evening and through the night.
All Quinnipiac University offices will close at noon. This story will be updated as it develops.
Late Monday night, residents at Quinnipiac University’s Mount Carmel campus experienced power outages that lasted into Tuesday afternoon.
Students first received an email at 11:27 p.m. on Monday with an update regarding the power outages.
As the severity escalated, students in both the Hill and Village resident halls were instructed to evacuate for the night in the event that the power was not returned to them by morning.
Today just before noon, students received an update on a possible solution.
At approximately 2:40 p.m on Tuesday students received another email that, in summation, stated that the problem was not yet dealt with.
This story will be updated accordingly as more details emerge throughout the day.
The Connecticut Citizen’s Defense League logo, courtesy of the CCDL official website.
By Bill Ruocco
On Wednesday, Feb. 28, both Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods made efforts towards slowing their sales of firearms. Walmart, America’s largest gun supplier, adjusted the age requirement to 21 in order to buy any firearm. Dick’s made the move to completely cease the sale of any assault rifles.
To learn more about the situation with Dick’s and Walmart, click here.
There is no shortage of these super-stores that sell firearms in Connecticut. Take a look for yourself, the map below contains every Dicks Sporting Goods and Walmart in Connecticut that sells firearms.
Locally this announcement did not send shockwaves of any sort given Connecticut Dick’s Sporting Goods have not sold assault rifles since the tragedy of Sandy Hook.
“So-called ‘assault rifles’ have been banned already in Connecticut back in 2013,” said Scott Wilson, president of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League. “The policy to up the age to 21 years on up was more of a surprise.”
Members of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, or CCDL. Photo courtesy of the CCDL official website.
Wilson is not the only individual who commonly puts the words “assault rifle” in quotations these days. In the gun community, a lot of the frustration is geared towards the broad definition of an “assault rifle” that is quickly placing bans on many firearms that seemed relatively tame and very safe in their eyes.
The remaining frustration is a driving idea that most gun enthusiasts share.
“Our job as a gun rights organization is to educate the public at large about how little more laws would have little effect on such outcomes,” said Wilson. “Remember, criminals bent on murder do not really care about the laws.”
In the minds of most who are passionate about firearms, the recent laws and bans are virtually pointless.
Leaders in organizations specific to gun rights are not the only local individuals who have grown weary of regulations on firearms.
After a quick visit to Blue Trail Range Gun Store in Wallingford, Conn. it was quickly apparent how people feel.
“The key word in the Second Amendment is infringed,” one anonymous individual stated, “That means it cannot be touched at all.”
The man also said, in so many words, that once we give up one of our rights, we are vulnerable to give up everything else.
