Title IX has been a mess since the day it was born.

Hold onto your political correctness -- this is not a condemnation of equal opportunity. This is a well-rationalized 30-year view of the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education.

Texas transfer Alan Bomer gets a second chance to participate in athletics; other men aren't so lucky.(AP)

The wrestling coaches have a point. College administrators have been lazy over the years, axing men's scholarships and programs in order to comply with Title IX. It's the easy way out. Those college administrators have acted first out of fear, intimidation and/or ignorance rather than a well-reasoned examination of Title IX.

When it comes to keeping an athletic department afloat, athletic directors almost always will take the path of least resistance. That's why baseball and wrestling have been particular targets in recent years. Hundreds of programs have been cut in order to free up scholarships for new women's programs.

That's why Texas is in the College World Series this week with Alan Bomer, a transfer pitcher from Iowa State, which cut its program. It's also why land-locked Kansas State has a rowing team for women. College athletics has twisted and rearranged itself in strange ways, all because of Title IX.

All because of football.

That's right, college football. There likely would be no lawsuit and certainly less controversy if football wasn't the nerd in the punch bowl. ADs won't say it, but those 85 Division I-A scholarships are a witch when it comes to gender equity. They count against Title IX requirements, and there is no comparable women's sport to balance them out.

Still, football is left untouched on its exclusive, private island. Name, if you can, the number of the 117 I-A programs that have cut one football scholarship in order to get in compliance with Title IX.

That number would be zero.

That's because football is the gold standard. It's not to be touched, even in regard to Title IX. Football coaches routinely pull down at least $1 million a year. Their coaching staffs are needlessly large. Recruiting budgets approach the GNP of third-world countries.

Football can't be touched because of the gold it produces. Football runs through the veins of this country and athletic departments. A BCS bowl berth can be a windfall. Boosters get their identity from State U. Winning and losing in football has a direct effect on fundraising. It is a cycle that keeps feeding on itself.

Isn't it worth it, then, to keep the monster as healthy as possible? To a point. The swimmers, baseball players and wrestlers are no less athletes than football players, but they are perceived as less important when the Title IX is put against an athletic director's head.

The easy way out is still to ax a couple of men's minor sports. They don't produce money anyway. Taken to its extreme, then, Title IX compliance should mean cutting virtually all the minor sports. Athletic departments could succeed sponsoring only football and men's and women's basketball. Throw in a couple of rowing teams, some equestrian, and it's all equal Title IX-wise.

Sound good?

No. No one wants that, but that's how college administrators have interpreted Title IX. Instead of building women's opportunities, they are robbing Peter to pay Paula. It will continue unless the wild-eyed women's advocates, bull-headed football supporters and skittish ADs get together and stop the craziness.

There is a solution, or progress toward a solution. It will require some hard swallowing, but here goes:

Cut 20 football scholarships and two assistant coaches across the board in I-A. Redistribute the money to minor sports overall and women's opportunities in particular.

The first cry will be that men's scholarships are still being lost. No, football scholarships are being lost. Other programs are being saved. Football lives on as healthy as ever, while the athletic department grows and diversifies.

Thirty years ago, there basically were no scholarship limitations in football. Coaches started to cry foul when the NCAA first cut to, gasp, 120 scholarships per program. They cried louder when the number went to 95, 88 and, now, 85.

That's crying wolf a bit too often. Despite those "drastic" cuts, college football couldn't be more popular. Despite the naysayers, the BCS is a hit where it counts -- television, athletic department budgets and ticket sales. The SEC and Big 12 combined paid out $172 million to member schools this academic year.

Don't you get it? Oklahoma and Nebraska could have 22 iguanas facing off against each other, and it would still be a football rivalry.

And don't forget parity. Some of those third-string linemen at Nebraska might find stardom in another program that could use the talent.

The 20 scholarships would be doubly valuable. If the program stayed the same size (I-A programs average more than 100 players), then those 20 scholarships would suddenly become more walk-ons, paying tuition instead of sucking it out of the university on free rides.

The only surprise is it has taken 30 years for an organization like the wrestlers to fight back. Or maybe it makes perfect sense, because the reason Title IX is a mess is no one understands it.

Oh sure, they understand the words, but try to get a clear definition out of this "summarized" definition of Title IX. To comply, schools must ...

• Provide opportunities for the discriminated sex that are "substantially proportionate" to the student body.
• Demonstrate a "history and continuing practice" of program expansion for the discriminated gender.
• "Fully and effectively accommodate" the interests of the discriminated gender.

Got all that? You don't understand it. I don't understand it. Certainly the suits that try to redefine it in every court challenge can't purport to fully understand it.

Because of the confusion, innuendo means a lot. Women's advocates are concerned the Department of Justice moved to dismiss the wrestling coaches' suit not on its merits but on legal technicalities.

To the Women's Sports Foundation, National Women's Law Center and others, this is frightening. They have asked concerned parties to contact their congressmen, asking them to keep Title IX in place. Because of Justice's court maneuver, they worry that a revision of Title IX is coming from the Bush Administration.

They have reason. The chief speech writer for U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, Jessica Gavora, has criticized Title IX in a new book, saying it promotes quotas and wrecks men's minor sports.

Maybe Gavora has a heck of a point. No wonder ADs run for the latest machete at even a hint of the Title IX challenge. The easy way out is as unfair to men as the pre-Title IX days were to women. The best way is to get creative. Market, fundraise, survey. The riskiest way is to go to trial, where a jury could deconstruct a whole athletic department.

But that's the problem, isn't it? To do that would invite lawyers, and to do that muddies the waters of a very confusing law. Title IX definition and enforcement changes from administration to administration. The poorly written law provides for a wide interpretation and empowers athletic bozos.

True story: A women's basketball coach at a major college noticed the size of stalls was different between the men's and women's bathrooms. Can't mature adults work something like that out instead of threatening a lawsuit?

That same coach makes the same base salary as the men's basketball coach who fills the building, wins more and brings millions of dollars into the athletic department. That's another issue for another time but shows how crazy gender equality has become.

Another true story: A couple of years ago, a former Oklahoma male swimmer confronted a Big 12 athletic director from another school at the conference's basketball tournament. The AD had cut men's swimming to save a sinking athletic department. The swimmer had seen enough slashing from his sport.

It has all become too much. The wrestling coaches' suit has opened up a rattlesnake's den of controversy. Women's groups are defending their turf. Men's minor sports are defending their programs.

Football is sitting there, fat and on its throne like Jabba the Hutt. To the satisfaction of all parties, might we recommend a quick weight-loss program?