What Happened Yesterday in NCAA Women’s Basketball?

Golf. Tennis. Battle of the Sexes. What Happened Yesterday in NCAA Women’s Basketball?

Tennis Ball

Do you remember the Billie Jean King – Bobby Riggs match?

Yesterday, (I’m writing this on November 15, 2011), the 11^th-ranked Maryland women Terps’ 72-53 defeat of the 10^th-ranked Georgetown Hoyas made the front page of the Sports section of The Washington Post.

They didn’t get their picture on the Sports’ front page, but a blurb about the win made it to the front page of the newspaper.

When Did the Role of Women in Sports Change?

When I was growing up, women’s team sports largely stopped in elementary school.

Sure, I took high school physical education and we played volleyball.

I took a doubles tennis class in college.

I didn’t get into the co-ed college canoeing class, always oversubscribed on the river that wound through our beautiful, wooded campus.

But sports, especially team sports, largely ended with softball and kickball in sixth grade.

The Next Generation

By contrast, one generation later, one daughter-in-law went to school on a swimming scholarship; the other is training for a tri-athalon.

My granddaughter’s school has a climbing wall, and birthday parties at a local indoor sports facility has their climbing wall booked weeks in advance.

What Is Title IX?

Title IX, guaranteeing equal access to sports to women, was passed in 1972.

It said that no educational opportunity could be denied to women in programs getting federal funding.

“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 any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance…”

—United States Code Section 20

Designed to stop discriminatory hiring practices of college professors, its real significance came in its application to public schools with huge football programs that had to start developing sports programs for women.

King Steps Up

A year after Title IX was passed, professional women’s sports started getting notice when Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in tennis’ “Battle of the Sexes,” in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.

Sure, she was 26 years younger than her 55-yeare-old competitor. And, she used that advantage to run him all over the court.

But, he was a guy, and that made all the difference in the public’s perception about whether women could be taken seriously in sports.

Since Title IX, women’s participation in high school sports has increased nine-fold.

Women’s participation in college sports has increased 450%.

Women Go Pro

Now, there is a professional women’s basketball league (the WNBA was launched in 1997), a golf league (Ladies’ Professional Golf Assocation/LPGA, founded in 1950), Women’s Professional Fastpitch softball league (1997) and a licensed female jockey (Kathy Kusner, 1968).

Do your granddaughters play lacrosse? Softball? Basketball? Soccer?

Did you?

What was your favorite sport? Solo or team?

What did you learn from playing it?

To you and throwing a ball with your grandchildren.

Carol Covin, “Granny-Guru”

Author, “Who Gets to Name Grandma? The Wisdom of Mothers and Grandmothers”

http://newgrandmas.com

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