By: Ron Hall
As I was riding my bicycle near our local high school on a recent afternoon I saw something I hadn’t seen before. It caused me to slow down and take a second look. Our boys team was engaged in dribbling drills on the field that is also used by our high school marching band for practice as an all-girls team was taking practice shots on goal on the adjacent, freshly mowed soccer field.
A female soccer team at our high school? And practicing on the manicured game field while the boys conducted their drills on the dusty field also used by the band and grade school football teams?
Prior to this fall season we had had only one high school soccer team – a mixed team that had perhaps three or four girls that rarely got into games but cheered on their male teammates during interscholastic play. Now the young ladies had a team of their own, with numbers at least equal to the boys.
Femaie football next?
Curious, I inquired and learned that our high school, with just 609 students, also has a female golf team, which I hadn’t realized. In fact, girls at our school now field teams of their own in nine interscholastic sports at our school: soccer, golf, cross country, volleyball, softball, basketball, swimming, tennis and track. I understand that other schools offer even more interscholastic sports for female students, such as gymnastics, bowling, field hockey and, less commonly, ice hockey. So far, I know of no high school female interscholastic wrestling or football teams.
When I was in high school (we just held our 45th high school class reunion) there was only one sports opportunity for my female classmates, Girls Athletic Association (GAA) basketball. It wasn’t interscholastic. The girls played GAA basketball during gym class. While it didn’t seem strange at the time (not even the baggy blue bloomer-type uniforms they wore), looking back on it, it was bizarre game with some of the players allowed only to dribble to half court and others, in different defined positions, being either defenders or attackers who could drive the basket and score. The game resembled basketball only that it was played on a basketball court, it was played with a basketball and the object of the game was to score shooting the ball through a 10-ft.-high hoop.
Title IX a game changer
That and about every other aspect of female school sports changed in 1972 when the federal government enacted Title IX. That landmark education amendment stated the “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” Title IX did not specifically mention sports. Nevertheless, it initiated a revolution in female sports participation in our nation’s public schools, colleges and universities.
Girls and women wanted to play, too. Now the law said they had to be given equal opportunity in every endeavor, including sport.
I was an editor of a small daily newspaper when Title IX became law. Within months I and several other reporters chipped in to help our sports editor who found himself suddenly overwhelmed with assignments due to the many extra events that the newly formed girls interscholastic teams added to his calendar. The contests attracted few spectators but, when space allowed, we attempted to give them equal coverage on our newspaper’s sports pages.
Looking back on the early days of girls interscholastic sports, few of us realized how significant they would become in our schools and universities. The first femail interscholastic sports in our local schools were basketball, volleyball and track. Other sports were added as student interest grew and our schools could provide adequate facilities for them.
Unforeseen consequences
Title IX, which is rarely mentioned these days because it’s now universally recognized that male and female students should have equal opportunity to participate in interscholastic sports, has had implications behind what many of us imagined 38-years ago. Apart from scheduling challenges and the logistics of moving more students to interscholastic events, the addition of women’s teams has stressed schools’ and communities’ ability to provide facilities, including playing fields, to meet demand. This is not a bad thing, given the life-affirming benefits that sport provides boys and girls alike.
The ongoing balancing act of providing female and male students with equal opportunity to play has also caused schools to drop certain male sports. For example, during my son’s senior year his rowing team at a major state university lost its status as university-sponsored sport while the female rowing team remained a varsity sport. The university, like many others, had to make a choice in adhering to the letter and spirit of Title IX. Fair enough.
Females of all ages – from gradeschoolers to seniors – now participate in sports, both individual and team sports, and at all skill levels. A report in 2008 said that female participation in sports at the high school level as increased ninefold since implimentation of Title IX and by 500% at the collegiate level. That’s great.
When I look across the street and I see my energetic, young neighbor Michelle and her fourth-grade teammates, with the shin guards in place and dressed in their colorful uniforms, pile into her mother’s mini-van, the whole group chattering and eager to take the field, it makes me wonder why it took us so long to realize that sport goes across gender.
