The LSU men’s soccer program has been stuck in neutral for a few years now, and top coaches around the area think they know why.

“It’s got to be Title IX,” said Liam Rennie, technical director for the Storm program at Mandeville Soccer Club. “It’s holding back programs all throughout the Southeastern Conference.”

The answer, however, seems to be more complicated than that.

Title IX was created in 1972 to give women the same participation opportunities that men received. Most of the focus is given to the athletic funding side of Title IX, but the law ensures women are not excluded from receiving benefits in any form.

Title IX requirements are met through one of three prongs: participation, continued history of expansion, or judging the level of interests and abilities through monitoring processes such as surveys and group studies.

LSU chooses to comply with the Title IX law through the latter method, monitoring interests and abilities.

LSU does not meet either of the first two prongs because the University’s participation rate for women’s sports is below 50 percent and a fully funded women’s sport has not been added since 1996.

“Statistically speaking, more men walk onto teams than women do through a four-year period,” said Associate Athletics Director and Senior Women’s Administrator Miriam Segar. “We constantly monitor sports to see if the interest and ability on campus will allow us to add more women’s sports.”

The monitoring process at LSU includes surveys to gauge interest in sports throughout the area, looking at other SEC schools’ women’s programs and keeping tabs on several NCAA emerging sports.

If LSU added another men’s sport, it would widen the gap in participation between male and female student-athletes.

The addition of a men’s sport is handicapped by the Title IX requirements. If LSU added a men’s program, it would limit its options of significant interest in another women’s sport developed at the University.

Solutions to the Title IX “problem” do exist, though.

“There are aspects of Title IX that I think could be re-written,” Segar said. “I don’t think it helps increase participation to limit a man’s [participation].”

Segar said by reviewing Title IX with a modern perspective, the law could keep its core principles — promoting and developing women’s sports — and also take out the negative aspects of the law such as limiting men’s participation.

The football team at LSU makes up a majority of the men’s participation, fielding more than 85 scholarship players. With the exception of football, every men’s sport at LSU has a female counterpart.

If football was taken out of the Title IX equation, participation levels in universities across the SEC would balance out.

Football is not treated differently than other sports at LSU. Title IX has a provision that ensures every sport is given the same benefits, including travel and equipment.

“It used to be that the men’s basketball team would be flown to their game and the women’s team would travel by bus,” Segar said. “With Title IX, that can’t happen anymore.”

LSU could offer a competitive men’s soccer team with just a few revisions to the Title IX legislation.

Men’s soccer programs throughout the country are allowed a maximum of 9.9 scholarships per team, though many teams use fewer.

“Most programs around the country only use four or five full scholarships,” Rennie said. “With the appeal of LSU in combination with TOPS scholarships, LSU could use less than that and field a competitive team.”

“One of the big problems is funding,” said Bo Cassidy, marketing director for the Baton Rouge Soccer Association. “All those costs make it difficult for LSU to justify adding two sports to an already successful program.”

LSU’s club soccer team has proved that even without scholarships it can be competitive with the top teams in the nation. It traveled to compete at the National Championship for club teams after winning the regional competition.

The club team has achieved success primarily through the talents of in-state players.

“Of the 24 players on our team, 18 of them are from Louisiana,” said June No, LSU club soccer captain.

Even without college soccer programs in Louisiana, the state has produced some of the best talent at the college level throughout the nation.

“Jason Garey and Joseph Lapira both won the Hermann Award [National Player of the Year in men’s Division 1 soccer] in 2005 and 2006, respectively,” Cassidy said. “They’re both from the local area and could obviously make a difference at the college level.”

By instituting a men’s soccer program, LSU could recruit the immense talent base in the state while taking advantage of the growing fan base within Louisiana.

“LSU is a very attractive option for high school players,” Cassidy said. “You can get a great education while attending a nationally known university that keeps you close to your family.”

By modernizing the law, schools would be able to field competitive men’s and women’s sports based on interest level at the university. The law would change at its core, but the development of sports — both men’s and women’s — would be allowed to continually grow.

“By changing the law to become more flexible, we could add programs purely based on interest,” Segar said. “The law is good at its core, but there have been unintentional effects on the growth of men’s sports.”