University of Illinois Soccer and Title IX

12/2/08  -  posted by Hogers at 4:47 PM  -  0 Comments

I came across the University of Illinois Men's Soccer Club website today. Brought back memories considering that it's been 13 years since I played at Illinois...hahaha.

It's sad to see that the University of Illinois still has not sponsored a men's NCAA sanctioned program after all these years. You can blame the stupid Title IX which mandates that all colleges must have an equal number of women's and men's varsity sports programs.

I also have a hard time understanding why the school will sponsor men's cross country, gymnastics and cheerleading...but not soccer. Cheerleading?!? WTF?!?!


In the Big 10 conference, only seven of the eleven schools have NCAA sanctioned programs...which is amazing considering that the conference is traditionally one of the strongest in the country for soccer.

Behind the big four professional sports (basketball, baseball, football, hockey), my guess is that soccer is the next largest professional team sport in the US. And I won't even start on the popularity of soccer on the international level...