School president Joe Pickens will be asking the Board of Trustees to consider several options at a Wednesday meeting on the McClendon campus to keep the college in compliance with Title IX regulations, including the controversial measure of dropping basketball, which has been in place at the Palatka school since the early 1960s.
Pickens says his presentation to the board is not designed to eliminate basketball, but opponents believe the president and athletic director Ross Jones, who also coaches baseball, are quietly pushing for its removal. The big issue of contention is how much SJRSC is in danger of non-compliance with Title IX, a federal law that mandates schools offer scholarships to women in proportion to the percentages of student attendance.
The college, which is approximately 60 percent female, has had the same four sports for nearly two decades (baseball, basketball, softball and volleyball). With 38 scholarships for women and 30 for men, that translates to about a 56-44 percentage split in favor of the women. As long as schools are within 5 percent of the male-female student breakdown, the federal government considers them in compliance. For schools in danger of non-compliance, the governing bodies of all college athletics usually allow a grace period of at least two years to meet federal guidelines.
“As it stands, [SJRSC] is not out of [Title IX] compliance,” said Wanda Young, coordinator of Access and Civil Rights for the Florida college system. “The school has been working back and forth with us to see where they are.”
Pickens contends that the actual roster spots taken up this year for the four sports, as opposed to scholarships, is only 38-37 in favor of women. “So we’re out of compliance for the proportionality,” said Pickens, adding there were 25 roster spots in baseball and 12 for basketball. “If we dropped basketball, we’d achieve proportionality automatically.”
Pickens added he’s outlining to the board his concerns about whether funds for basketball can be better served by other student activities, including those outside athletics.
“I respect that some people see this as a conversation only about eliminating basketball,” Pickens said. “As a president, I have to ask my board to look at a bigger picture. I have to look at the use of our resources.
“They’re going to be given options of retracting a team, adding a [female] team or doing something in-between. I’m trying to present as global a picture as we can.”
With an enrollment of 12,000 students on campuses in St. Augustine, Orange Park and Palatka, SJRSC will have a projected budget of $28.5 million next year, among the smallest for state colleges formerly known as junior colleges. The Vikings play in the Mid-Florida Conference in all sports, but not all of the other schools in that league field a men’s basketball program.
Joe Ambersley, a former SJRSC baseball and basketball player living in Pensacola, has offered to donate $12,500 annually over the next four years to preserve the basketball program. In addition, Ambersley says members of the 1967 basketball team have a fund attempting to endow a scholarship and are willing to add $16,000 total over four years. Both proposals are contingent upon the school matching those funds, but Ambersley says Pickens has been ambivalent about accepting the offer.
“[Pickens] hasn’t refused my money, but he hasn’t accepted it either,” said Ambersley. “I never had this much difficulty giving away $50,000 before. I’m astounded that it’s not enough to make a difference. I believe the Title IX reason [for possibly dropping basketball] is a smokescreen. ”
The sensitive issue of dropping basketball has become more contentious in recent weeks. Former SJRSC athletic director Joe Asher, now living in Melbourne, wrote a critical letter to the Palatka Daily News, saying he felt “this exercise is all about enhancing baseball and has very little to do with gender equity.”
Asher also expressed concern that dropping basketball would make it harder for the school to recruit African-American males and eliminate “most, if not, all diversity that now exists in the athletic department.”
Asher was hopeful that one of Pickens’ options, adding a smaller female sport like tennis or golf, would be more acceptable to the board.
Pickens says he understands the emotional nature of the situation, but remains adamant that Jones, who did not return a message left with his office last week, had nothing to do with the proposal of eliminating basketball.
“There’s no conflict of interest,” said Pickens. “This is a recommendation made by the president, not the athletic director. I took it to the AD and vice president of student services a year ago. They convinced me to not have this conversation as far as retracting the basketball program. People that are suggesting that Ross Jones has been anything other than professional or supportive of basketball are just wrong.”
SJRSC basketball coach Buster Harvey, who has been at the school for seven seasons (109-104 record) after coaching a combined 26 years at Edward Waters College, Jacksonville University and Florida State Community College of Jacksonville, is trying to avoid the controversy.
“The administration has been good to me,” Harvey said. “This is a tough spot. That’s about all I care to say.”
