Top leaders within the U.S. Olympic movement along with Athletics Directors from major colleges and universities voiced their opinions on Title IX to a commission at the Title IX Town Hall Meeting on Tuesday morning at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort in Colorado Springs, Colo.    Established by Secretary of Education Rod Paige on June 27, the Commission's mission is to collect information, analyze issues, and obtain broad public input directed at improving the application of current Federal standards for measuring equal opportunity for men and women and boys and girls to participate in athletics under Title IX. The Commission must report its findings, in a written report to Secretary Paige by January 31, 2003, as to whether those standards should be revised and, if so, how; also, to recommend other steps that might be taken to improve the effectiveness of Title IX and to maintain and build upon the extraordinary progress that resulted from its progress 30 years ago.    After the Commission's co-chairpersons, former WNBA Houston Comets star Cynthia Cooper and Stanford University Director of Athletics Ted Leland, opened the meeting with introductory remarks, three panels of invited speakers presented remarks.    Panel 1 included Marty Mankamyer, President of the USOC, Gary Abbott, Director of Special Projects for USA Wrestling, Carol Zaleski, former President and Executive Director of USA Swimming, and Bob Colarossi, President of USA Gymnastics.    Panel 2 included Charles "Rick" Taylor, Athletics Director at Northwestern Univ., Col. Billy Walker, Athletics Administrator at the Air Force Academy, Peggy Bradley-Doppes, Athletics Director at the Univ. of North Carolina at Wilmington, and Rondo Felberg, former Athletics Director and President of Brigham Young Univ.    Panel 3 included Brian Snow, General Counsel at Colorado State Univ., George Schur, General Counsel at Northern Illinois Univ., Bob Chichester, Athletics Director at California State-Irvine, and Josephine Potuto, Professor of Law at the Univ. of Nebraska.    Each panel member was allowed ten minutes to speak before the panel was addressed questions by the committee.    Although all panels were pro Title IX, it was evident and overwhelming that most of the panel members agreed that some kind of change needed to be to the way in which Title IX is enforced at colleges and universities.    Following is a recap of each panel's discussion:    PANEL 1  Mankamyer began the panel discussion by voicing her support of Title IX, but also voicing her concerns over how the enforcement of the law has affected Olympic sports at the college level.    Abbott then wowed the audience, committee and his fellow panel members with his speech. Abbott began by stating that one of his proudest moments was in Sep., 2000 when women's wrestling was added to the Olympic program. He then spoke about a new kind of discrimination that has begun to plague college athletics - discrimination against men. He continued by stating the football is not to blame for the loss of so many men's college programs, but if the current trend continues, entire sports could be wiped out. Wrestling is growing at all levels except for in college. Abbott proposed to the committee to abolish the proportionality quota. "We will not return to the stone age. Soccer dads and wrestling moms will not allow it. One gender does not care more about their sports than the others," Abbott said at his conclusion.    Zaleski reiterated the points of Abbott, while also stating that she has a personal interest in opportunities for both sexes. Her greatest concern is for Olympic programs, and the loss of men's programs at the collegiate level is a large threat to the USOC's efforts to build Olympic champions. Zaleski backed up Abbott's statement that the number of male athletes has actually decreased in the past 20 years, contradicting the statistics released by the NCAA. Zaleski was also able to show that interest in swimming has not decreased. 73 NCAA Division I schools have dropped swimming in the past 20 years, yet age-group participation has grown from 60,000 to over 80,000 in that same time period. She feels that the U.S. Department of Education needs to find a better way to measure athletic interest, such as looking at past participation or using questionnaires. "Under no circumstance should Title IX be allowed to eliminate programs for males or females," Zaleski added.    Colarossi strengthened his argument to change Title IX right away by stating that he was a walk-on athlete in college, but with the way in which Title IX is enforced right now, he would have a tough time learning the lessons in which he learned from athletics since rosters are capped. He stated that Title IX has been a great mandate and that nobody can argue its benefits, but that the supply does not currently meet the demand. He used the statistics that from 1980-2000, hundreds of men's and women's gymnastics programs were dropped, while participation nearly doubled during the same time period. The number of athletes being reduced also means that the number of coaches who can make a difference in someone's life will also be reduced. He offered the following solutions to help save Olympic sports at the collegiate level: a) look at participation numbers in intramural and age-group programs; b) look at the possibility of excluding football players from the total of male athletes counting against proportionality, yet their revenue would still be dispersed evenly among the other sports; c) legislation to provide advance notice to the possible elimination of a sport; d) Title IX education programs.    PANEL 2  Taylor continued the flood of support for change of Title IX in his speech, saying that he supports Title IX as it is written, but he does not support its applications. He felt that the basis for determining what sports are on a campus should not include the using the same percentage of males and females on a college campus. Taylor cited many ways to study interest levels: magazine subscriptions, intramural participants and television demographics. "More men watch women's sports than women," Taylor stated. He asked the committee to tell him how to tell a man that is paying money to go to his school that he is not allowed to try out for an athletic team. "It is philosophically impossible to defend preventing men from trying out for a team," Taylor said.    Walker stated some of the same points as Taylor, adding that collegiate-level athletics should not be considered an entry-level sporting concept. This was an obvious remark to some of the schools who have added sports that are not offered at the high school level, such as crew, synchronized swimming or equestrian.    Bradley-Doppes started her statement by saying that Title IX is a federal law. "It is fair and should be enforced." Bradley-Doppes added that during her tenure in the Univ. of Michigan Athletics Department, the school was able to avoid dropping men's gymnastics through careful financial planning, while at the same time adding three women's sports and two more men's sports. She used a survey over 5 years old that showed 79% of the population was in support of Title IX and that those same people were in favor of dropping a men's program if it meant advancement for women. "There is much fat that can be trimmed from any athletics department," Bradley-Doppes stated. She felt that there needed to be more education at all levels about Title IX and that there should also be stronger enforcement of the law. Bradley-Doppes proposed a tiering system where certain sports would be offered a certain level of scholarships but full university support, or cutting scholarships from other sports to help relieve the financial burden on the Athletics Department.    Felberg spoke mainly of his previous experience at BYU, when, as the Athletics Director and President, he had planned to add women's sports. During a time when money was tight, he was instructed to drop men's wrestling. Felberg also felt that there needed to be a change in the way in which