I guess at worst I would think the programs Iowa is offering right now would be safe. I don't know that they would add hockey. IMO, hockey would be yet another out of state tuition subsidy, as there are probably not enough kids in the state of Iowa that play it that could field a competitive team against the likes of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, etc. We have basketball and wrestling in this state in the winter...wrestling is our hockey. I know that Minnesota has been good at both, but they are also more involved in youth hockey than we are in Iowa.
And the Title IX component has to be met.
All very valid, very true, very significant points. Especially the critical impact on Hawkeye athletics of the tuition differential for non-resident student athletes. As by far the smallest populated state in the BT, but sharing the state's pool with three other Division 1 universities (two of them also public) unlike Wisky, Minnesota, Illinoisthe consequence is that in nearly every schollie-supported sport the U of Iowa has to depend heavily upon more expensive out-of-state athletes, putting us at a serious disadvantage to the other BT schools.
Equally significant are the differences in the size of the native Iowans pool from one sport to another. Iowa can (if it wishes) recruit a full roster for wrestling or basketball (either gender), volleyball, soccer, softball, baseball, tennis, golf---all these are varsity sports at a large enough number of Iowa secondary schools. Iowa could/can find a good share of its football roster in state though its competitive position would suffer. Same is true of swim & diving, track & field, cross-country. But field hockey, rowing are not sports offered in Iowa high schools, and that is true of lacrosse, hockey & numerous minor sports that are schollie-based at larger universities in larger states like Ohio State, Florida, Texas, Penn State.
It would be feasible perhaps for the U of Iowa to add men's volleyball, men's soccer, perhaps eventually hockey (both genders) as more Iowa cities add good skating facilities, more high schools have teams...but that would be a long time into the future. And if/when it comes, the U of Iowa will have to decide upon which additional women's sports it will offer: not only because Title IX dictates such an effort, but because the top officials, the views of faculty & regents, the student body itself at Iowa are very feminine-oriented and becoming more so every year.
Simplistically, the U of Iowa athletic department COULD afford to add soccer, hockey, lacrosse even without any increases in TV monies, etc. The money is there--Hawkeye athletics has had a profit in excess of expenditures of about ten million dollars a year the past three years. But the U of Iowa strongly prefers to spend it on higher priorities--one major objective is to use the money to endow the remaining schoolies in football, basketball, wrestling that are not already endowed, and then begin the bigger task of endowing schollies for minor sports (thus reducing the disadvantage of having more non-resident athletes on scholarship); another is contributing to the debt-retirement on new and pending athletic facilities, including CHA & the new rec center. More basic fact of life: not all of the current programs at Iowa are doing all that well competively: and while Iowa has moved to provide new, enhanced quality facilities for field hockey, tennis, soft ball, soccer, golf as well as the CHA addition/upgrade that will provide luxurious facilities for basketball, wrestling, gymnastics, volleyball...nonetheless the U of Iowa athletic dept may conclude that more financial support for recruiting, etc could help the less-successful minor sports at Iowa to compete more strongly.
