Writer's note: As an active participant at these meetings, it is difficult to report completely in news-style on this report. This story will also include my personal reflections on the meetings held, and how they might affect wrestling.    The first morning session at the 2003 NCAA Title IX Seminar in La Jolla, Calif. was packed full of activity, with a major speech by NCAA President Myles Brand and a heated discussion between members of the Commission on Opportunities in Athletics and many attendees who did not support their work.    The scheduled luncheon provided a break for some food, but no letup in the program. A young former NCAA athlete from the Univ. of Wyoming read a proclamation celebrating the life of Rep. Patsy Mink of Hawaii, who passed away during the last year. Mink was credited with helping put together and lead the effort to pass Title IX in 1972. After her passing, President Bush renamed the Title IX legislation in her name.    Then came the luncheon speaker, former Office of Civil Rights Director Norma Cantu. For eight years during the Clinton Administration, Cantu ran the office responsible for enforcing Title IX, including its application in athletics. Cantu wrote the controversial "Clarification" letter in 1996 that established that proportionality was the "safe harbor" for Title IX enforcement. Cantu became a lightning rod of controversy, especially with those who represented men's Olympic sports and wished to see the elimination of proportionality.    It was Cantu's 1996 Clarification letter that is one of the main points of contention in the lawsuit filed by the National Wrestling Coaches Association and the College Sports Council against the Department of Education. Those filing the suit claim that this change in Title IX enforcement was put into effect without following the proper legal governmental process.    Throughout the Commission on Opportunities in Athletics meetings, two of the Commissioners with ties to the Women's Sports Foundation (Julie Foudy and Donna De Varona) continued to request that Cantu testify, to give direct information about the 1996 clarification as well as how she ruled the roost. The Commission resisted that idea, which made sense to me since this was a new administration looking for a fresh view of things. Since the Commission didn't give her a chance to tell her story, the NCAA seemed to gladly give her the platform.    Cantu started by telling everybody that when she took the OCR post she had no knowledge or background in sports, coming into the post with civil rights employment background. As she reached out to others to learn about what she should do in her position, she quickly decided that Title IX was a very important thing to fight for.    "I became a convert. I went from someone who didn't know if Title IX belonged in education to someone who got it," she said.    Cantu's speech was focused on her efforts to find a balance between fairness, flexibility and accountability. "If you try to do one without the others, you don't have an effective civil rights program," she said.    Cantu explained how she modernized the OCR offices, offered additional training, and made strides in creating a more efficient and responsive agency. She was proud that her department had cleaned up the backlog of cases and kept up with the flow of work during the years.    "In my eight years, there was more attention to consistent application," she said. "We wanted fairness for female and male athletes, college administrators and the general taxpayer who was paying for all of this."    Cantu discussed the flexibility aspect of the OCR under her rule. She noted that students had two ways to deal with Title IX complaints - either take it to the OCR or take it to court. She said that the court route was very unpredictable. "We had 100% resolution; we solve problems," she said.    Cantu went on to defend the three-part test as explained in her clarification letter. "If you read the 1996 clarification, in each of the three ways to comply, there was an 'OR' there, not an 'AND.' The OCR disfavors cutting of opportunities. Cutting doesn't help anyone prove Prong 3. Cutting doesn't help anyone meet prong 2. Do you need to cut to comply with Prong 1? No. You can add," she said.    After a discussion of the Cohen vs. Brown case, which reached its conclusion during her term at the OCR, Cantu read a list of "threats to flexibility." They included:  1. Cuts to education funding  2. OCR office backlog  3. Reduction in the number of options to comply  4. Hiding of essential data  5. Make it "divisive. The blame game. Make it acrimonious." Cantu explained this, saying, "you can't solve problems if you are yelling at each other."  6. Elimination of choices.    In discussing her desire for clear standards for Cantu noted that those seeking fairness in civil rights issues can't have a fear of controversy.    "This is about money and about people's kids," she said. "It is inherently controversial. The subject matter is controversial. It is all about people's money, people's kids."    Cantu later talked about some of the meat of the Title IX controversy. "If you think the women's agenda undercuts the men, you are wrong," she stated.    One of her suggestions is to do more brainstorming with the coaches from the sports being threatened.    "I met with some wrestling people," said Cantu. "I didn't know that George Washington was a wrestler, and that Abraham Lincoln was a wrestler. They did. We need to talk more."    Cantu says the work must go on until compliance is achieved. "It's not about a magic number, it is about solving problems, " said Cantu. "At the end of the line, if all male coaches and athletes would accept the problems of the female athletes we would be done. If they were willing to trade places with the women athletes, things would be solved."    At the luncheon, I was sitting with Dan Lewis, a college wrestling coach who is now involved in administration at Colorado School of Mines. Dan and I immediately noted that we would gladly have the men's Olympic sports situations switched with their women counterparts. Those in the trenches know that the pendulum has swung way past center, and that women are getting better treatment when you compare the students in the same sport.    I had an opportunity to discuss this directly with Cantu, at the end of Monday's meetings. She sat through a seminar that I had attended, and at the end of the talk we both stayed after to talk to the presenters. Soon, I was involved in a conversation with Cantu, as well as a Title IX plaintiff attorney (who provided the extreme position of groups such as the National Women's Law Center).    I told Cantu that men right now would readily trade places with women in their sports. I explained that women got more scholarships than men in the same sport, that they often had better travel budgets and coaches pay as well. The men were facing roster caps and constant reductions. I also told her how in sports like swimming and track, the men often didn't even have teams. The schools were cutting the men's team and keeping the women's team, kicking the men out of the pool and off the track just because they were male.    Cantu responded that she did not mean it that way, that she meant in the larger picture, the overall situation.     (Note: I met Cantu at the Washington Commission hearing briefly and found her very pleasant. Our conversation in LaJolla was also very civil and interesting. Cantu contends that she did her best to bring the men and women together to work on this issue. We both noted that that has not yet occurred.)    That conversation with Cantu, as well as an extended and productive discussion with Pam Gill-Fisher, an administrator at Cal-State Davis, pointed out to me one of the biggest problems that men Olympic sports face when dealing with women on Title IX issues.    The women tend to lump all men's sports together, strictly seeing things as a man vs. woman issue. That is why they cling to those big, raw numbers that continue to show how badly women are treated in college athletics. Those of us in men's Olympic sports do not p