ATLANTA — The members of Georgia State’s beach volleyball team attended virtually every one of their university’s home football games last fall. It was a gesture of support, but also of gratitude.
“We wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t started it,” the senior Alexis Townsend said.
What she meant is that when Georgia State created a football team in 2010, that put an immediate strain on athletic department finances but also required a rebalancing to comply with Title IX, the federal law mandating gender equity in higher education. A result was that Georgia State dropped its men’s cross-country and track and field programs, and added one in the nascent women’s sport of beach volleyball.