The federal Office of Civil Rights is investigating a claim that the UAA athletic department discriminates against women athletes.
According to a complaint filed this summer, UAA's women are treated unfairly when it comes to:
• Quality of coaching;
• Access to the school's two trainers who provide medical services to athletes. A trainer always attends men's hockey practices and road games, the complaint said, but the women's teams often have no trainers for practice or road games.
• Locker room assignments. The Wells Fargo Sports Complex has five locker rooms for its 11 intercollegiate athletic teams. The men's hockey team and men's basketball team each have their own; the men's track, ski and cross country teams share one; and the six women's teams share the remaining two.
The Office of Civil Rights won't identify who filed the complaint, but confirmed it has triggered an investigation. The office won't comment further.
UAA athletic director Steve Cobb said the university and the Office of Civil Rights are in the process of exchanging information. To his knowledge, Cobb said Tuesday, no investigator has yet visited the university or interviewed members of the athletic department.
But he said he's looking forward to the investigation.
"This complaint is mind-boggling to me," Cobb said. "To tell the truth, I can't wait for them to come up here.
"... The idea that we are disadvantaging our women athletes is absolutely ridiculous."
Gender equity at schools that receive federal funding -- schools like UAA -- is required by Title IX, the 1972 law that revolutionized women's athletics in the United States.
Schools that run afoul of Title IX can lose federal funding, but usually schools found to be out of compliance with the law reach an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education that fixes the inequities.
Cobb doesn't dispute there are problems with the locker room situation.
While the hockey team and men's basketball team each have their own locker rooms, the women's volleyball team, basketball team and ski team are crammed into a single locker room. Every single locker is shared by at least two athletes, sometimes three.
Cobb blames the situation on a department that has outgrown its home. The sports center opened in 1977, when intercollegiate athletics at UAA were in their infancy. Today the school has 11 NCAA teams with about 190 athletes.
"We simply do not have enough space. Eleven teams and five locker rooms just doesn't work out," Cobb said. "It's a bad situation and it has been for a long time. I don't think it surprises anyone."
A new $80 million sports center is in the design phase, thanks to a $15 million appropriation from the state legislature in the spring. When built, it will solve the problem of overcrowded locker rooms, Cobb said.
But it will be at least four or five years before a new facility would open, meaning that unless the university changes its current locker rooms assignments, the six women's teams will spend several more years crammed into two locker rooms.
"I could see where the complaints could come from," said Kasandra Rice, a former skier for the Seawolves. "The women do have to share their lockers."
From what she's seen, though, the men's skiers, runners and track athletes don't have it a lot better. "I've actually seen the guys' once, and they're locker rooms aren't any better than ours."
Rice said it was challenging to share a tiny locker in the women's locker room with other athletes, but she considered it part of the team experience. "That's part of learning how to work as a team," she said.
The hockey locker room is easily the nicest of the five locker rooms, with plush green carpet, eight exercise bicycles, spacious lockers, stick racks and framed team photos adorning the walls. A door connects it to the ice rink.
There are no showers, so players must use public showers in the adjoining men's restroom. If women used the locker room, they'd have to shower in the women's public rest room down the hall.
The men's basketball locker room is the next nicest, with more spacious lockers than those in the two women's locker rooms. No one has to share, although on game nights not involving the men's basketball team, the locker room is used by the officiating crew or the visiting team, Cobb said.
Cobb also doesn't dispute the complaint's allegation that an athletic trainer attends every hockey practice and game, something that doesn't happen for any of the women's teams.
"It's a risk decision, not a gender call," he said. "We have a more pronounced risk present at hockey practice than we do at all of our women's practices."
The exception could be the gymnastics team, which often deals with injuries suffered at practice. But the sports center isn't big enough for the team to practice on campus, so they travel to a private gym each day across town. A trainer doesn't go with them, Cobb said, because the travel time would tie up the trainer for too long and make him or her unavailable to other athletes for hours at a time.
There are two full-time trainers on the athletic staff. If anything, Cobb said, the school may be guilty of being understaffed.
"They're overworked," he said, "but it's not favoring one sport over another."
Cobb completely disputes the third aspect of the complaint, which claims the school gives men access to better coaching.
"All my women's coaches are winners of Coach of the Year awards,'' he said. "I can't say that about all my men's coaches.''
The last time UAA was hit with a major Title IX complaint, in 1979, the university was forced to create a women's gymnastics team and increase funding for women's travel, equipment and coaching in all sports.
Find Beth Bragg online at adn.com/contact/bbragg or call 257-4309.
By BETH BRAGG
bbragg@adn.com