Delaware State University (DSU) is adding a new women’s sports that will play a major role in making its sports gender equity shortcomings a thing of the past, and at the same time establish a distinct athletics program that will set it apart not only from every school in the MEAC and the state, but in the entire Mid-Atlantic Region.

The University will take advantage of the resources and partnerships of its College of Agriculture and Related Sciences and establish a Women’s Equestrian Team, giving DSU a new and exciting NCAA niche in the world of horsemanship competition.

The University’s Department of Athletics will construct a facility that will be located on a plot of land at the College of Ag’s 192-acre farm property located just outside of Smyrna as the home of the horse operation that will conduct the equestrian program.

Last year, the university and the NCAA entered into an agreement that DSU would establish a new sport for women to move the university into closer compliance with Title IX, which requires that universities and colleges provide equal opportunities for women to compete in collegiate sports competition. The DSU Board of Trustees passed a resolution earlier this year that committed funding to address the pressing need for gender equity in the institution’s athletics programs.


The advantages that come with an equestrian program include:

• The Equestrian Team – which typically has 45 to 100 members – could bring DSU under Title IX compliance. Because the other options are smaller teams, it would take three or four of those other sports to add enough women student athlete participants to comply with gender equity requirements.

• With no other collegiate equestrian teams in the Mid-Atlantic region, it would provide a closer-to-home institution for young women in this part of the country who would like to compete in this sport – and a university where they can even bring their horse.

• The cost per student athlete is attractive, including low start up cost.

• The NCAA allows an equestrian team to implement an equivalency scholarship system. This allows a school to split the overall amount of the sport’s available scholarship money among as many student athletes as it wants.

• It will be the only institution in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference to have an equestrian team – and give DSU the distinct edge in the establishment of the emerging sport among historically black colleges and universities and regional universities.

DSU will immediately commence its search for equestrian head coach and assistant coaches. He added that the university’s goal is to have a team developed in time to compete in the fall of 2006 and that an additional women’s sport could also be added in the future.


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