In the past 20 years college wrestling has been devastated by the elimination of over 350 programs.  In addition, gymnastics, golf, tennis, swimming , baseball and other men's Olympic sports are disapearing at an alarming rate.  Swimming and diving at UCLA, baseball at Iowa State, wrestling at Marquette and Louisiana State- the list goes on and on!!!  Though there are a variety of reasons, the general consensus is that the main resaon is the proportionality prong of Title IX.  Ironically, this prong was never a part of the law passed by Congress, but is an enforcement tool thought up by the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education.  Few people saw the consequences of proportionality, a quota system demanding participation by equal numbers of men and women on college campuses.  Instead of increasing opportunity for women, colleges have often chosen the elimination of men's non-revenue sports to meet the quota and have equal numbers.  This prong of the enforcement policy does not take into consideration interest levels and ignores other areas such as dancelines, band, engineering, medical and other areas where disparities between men and women exist.  Strong feminist interests like the Women's Law Center initiate lawsuits that are incredibly lucrative to the plaintiffs and terrifying to the colleges involved.  The ex-OCR Director, Norma Cantu, enforced the quota with a vengeance.  The other huge factor is that football is counted in the equation.  With football's large numbers in the equation, schools must drop men's sports or create women's sports like bowling, rowing etc.  The whole situation defies common sense and logic.  Presently, George Bush has stated we need to bring the situation away from extremist views.  We must protect women's rights while at the same time save our men's Olympic and college sports.  He has nominated Gerald Reynolds to be the new OCR Director.  Mr. Reynolds is an Afro American with a strong history of constitutional civil rights.  The wrestling leadership strongly believes Mr. Reynolds will help wrestling.  Senator Paul Wellstone a former wrestler, is on the Education Committee that votes on this nomination.  Let Senator Wellstone know this is important to wrestling and to vote yes for Gerald Reynolds.  The Senator is up for reelection and needs to know how the wrestling community feels!!  651 6450323 is his number.  If you ever made a call that was important to wrestling, this is the one.  Please call now and help save our great sport.