A TIE DOESN'T MEAN EQUAL.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

Given an opportunity to clear up the confusion left in Title IX's wake, 15 of the finest minds in our collegiate system got together to determine how it could be improved and came to the conclusion that they couldn't agree.

Who needs symbolism when we have Dubya's advisory committee on opportunity in athletics voting 7-7 on its own major recommendation?

How something as well-meaning as Title IX could become so completely muddled is a slice of genuine Americana.

Let's see, is it boys vs. girls? Big sports vs. minor sports? My dollars vs. your dollars? Liberals vs. conservatives? Wrestlers vs. the world?

We can all agree on one thing here, I think. Women's athletics is dramatically better off since the passing of Title IX in 1972. Female participation in high school sports has skyrocketed from 294,000 at its passage to 2.8 million in 2002. At the collegiate level, women's participation has increased five-fold.

The sticky part is ... at what cost?

There were 400 men's athletic programs cut at the collegiate level in the '90s. Men's sports such as gymnastics, swimming, volleyball and wrestling all have been hit hard and are fading before us.

The guys typically blame Title IX. It can bring out all their nastiest chauvinist-pig qualities. Women don't care as much about sports. Women really go to college to meet a man, then waste their education when they quit to raise a family. Women play from the red tees.

Athletic directors speak of ``compliance'' as they typically hack another male sport. Years rushed by, and male Olympic-style sports diminished at the collegiate level until the wrestling coaches - fearing the only place left for them would be Iowa - finally cried ``quota'' and filed suit.

Into the fray entered Duyba and his blue-ribbon committee that was to make recommendations on how to overhaul or improve Title IX.

The major area of concern, and confusion, is the first of the three prongs schools must meet under the congressional law if they're to receive federal funding - the proportion of male athletes to female athletes must be equal to that of male students to female students.

Women make up 56 percent of college enrollment, but have 42 percent of its athletes. The men, still trembling from the '90s, can see this isn't over yet.

Maryland athletic director Debbie Yow, trying to get all logical about what is often an emotional issue, reasonably suggested the athletic ratio be a simple 50/50 split, allowing a 2-to-3 percent fudge factor.

And when the big moment came in Washington for the vote Thursday, the commission split 7-7, with Lisa Graham and her swing vote apparently out taking in the monuments.

``A conclusion can be drawn that there are mixed feelings about the status quo and where we go from here,'' said Dick Dull, Cal State Northridge athletic director. ``It is a very emotional issue, a very complex issue. I don't have a solution. Wiser people than me sit on that committee.

``I have no wisdom. The issue seems to get cloudier.''

The committee played with some minor numbers, and then sent it all onto Education Secretary Rod Paige, who can't change the law but can alter how schools must comply.

Our confused little commission was only acting in an advisory capacity but couldn't even manage that without mucking it up.

``I think it sends a clear message that's it's just a very difficult thing to sort out,'' said Betsy Stephenson, UCLA assistant AD and senior women's administrator.

``I'm very concerned. I know almost all the people on that committee. I trust their expertise and their thoughtfulness. They're all colleagues and friends. It's frustrating for them. It's almost like they were cursed before they began.''

Dull scrapped football last year, freeing $1.3 million and erasing a $700,000 deficit.

``It was either that or nine other sports,'' he said.

UCLA has cut men's gymnastics, swimming and wrestling, adding women's soccer, water polo and rowing.

``Is a university's mission about participatory opportunity, or is it about the quality of that opportunity?'' Stephenson said. ``Personally, it saddens me when these programs are dropped.''

In the end, like so much else, it's all about the money.

Football and basketball are the only sports with a real opportunity to generate funds. But football, with its 85 scholarships and arms race over facilities and millions paid out to head coaches, can also suck a program dry.

These competitive, high-profile programs aren't what college sports are supposed to be about, but you have a better chance of restructuring Title IX than to get Nebraska and Texas and the rest to agree to scale back football.

The women are naturally suspicious about letting up on the pressure and giving up anything that might hint at sending them back to their athletic '70s.

So unless Paige just ignores the committee's nonrecommendations - a distinct possibility - we go on as we have. No consensus for change, no fresh direction for equity in the new millennium. More wrestlers vs. the world.