Let me first start out this column by saying it is not meant to offend anybody. This is just meant to bring light to something interesting I just found.
On the DePauw website, the university lists its female to male ratio as 57-to-43. I never really thought about the comparison of males to females on campus until I read two headlines on a sports page of The DePauw: "Women win by 34 strokes…" and "Men win by four strokes."
Is there really this big of a difference between the success of male and female sports on this campus?
After looking at it, I would have to say, for the most part, yes. Just looking at the rankings and finishes of our teams, four of the six are women sports. Women's golf is ranked No. 2, and let's not forget that in 2007 our women's basketball team won the NCAA Div. III National Championship.
Looking at the records for comparable sports, we see that softball is 17-7-1 while baseball has been struggling at 12-17. People may say that this difference is just a one-year thing, but softball tied for fifth at the NCAA Div. III Championships last year, and baseball was in a bit of a playoff drought.
Last year, women's golf brought home a Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference championship and placed sixth at the national tournament. Meanwhile, the men failed to place at conference and did not qualify for nationals.
In track, the women have had dominant competitors and all-Americans — Lauren Reich '10 and senior Courtney Lauer — the last two years.
It is a hard to pick the most accomplished women's sport because so many of them do well in conference and qualify for the postseason year in and year out.
I am not trying to say that women are superior to men on this campus or even the other way around. I am just bringing up a trend in DePauw athletics I feel goes unnoticed. The majority of the time the men's basketball crowd is larger than the women's. In baseball, there is really not that much comparison just because Walker Field has nearly triple the spectator capacity than DePauw Tigers Field.
I can't tell you why the DePauw women athletes so dominant; maybe it is because there are 14 percent more women on this campus. All I know is that all sporting events should have a larger audience, especially women's teams.
So next time you have some down time on campus and are debating what game to attend, try out a women's event. Who knows? You just may like it.
— Brown is a junior from Poway, Calif., majoring in communication.
sports@thedepauw.com