Yet it is vastly easier for a girl to get an athletic scholarship than a boy. According to the Scholarships for Athletes Web site, on the Division 1 level, there are 1,970 soccer scholarships for men, 4,130 for women; in basketball, there are 4,251 scholarships for men, 4,875 for women; in volleyball, there are 103 scholarships for men, 3,744 for women; in track and field, there are 3,855 scholarships for men, 5,778 for women; and on and on it goes.

It has reached the level of the absurd at times. In the '90s, the NCAA began sponsoring women's rowing teams — not in response to interest, but to artificially inflate the numbers for Title IX. To reach their quotas, colleges gave scholarships to female students who had never rowed. Meanwhile, there are only 851 Division I wrestling scholarships available for 260,000 prep wrestlers.

Sadder still, men's teams have been limited even in the number of walk-ons they can place on their rosters — because it skews the proportionality demands of the Title IX beast.

The bottom line: The modern application of Title IX is legalized discrimination, sponsored by the federal government.

Now along comes "sand" volleyball. Anyone who has visited California can tell you there are at least as many male volleyball players as female, if not more. But the NCAA isn't fielding a volleyball team for men; it's another women's-only club.

E-MAIL: drob@desnews.com