50 years of Title IX celebrated
Federal law opened the door for girls to participate in interscholastic sports and widened the opportunities
This past Wednesday I drove over to the Fowlerville High School where a track meet was going to be held, but my purpose was not to cover the competition between the Gladiators and visiting Mason. Rather it was to do a story on a special event, namely celebrating 50 years of Title IX—the federal legislation that opened the door for the participation of girls in interscholastic sports.
I had received an email two days earlier from the head track coach, Aaron Rickens, asking if I would do a story. I replied “yes,” with the follow-up question: “What did you have in mind?”
“A photo and maybe I could interview some of the girls” was his response.
Well, that was pretty open ended; however, I was familiar with Title IX and the significance its had, and continues to have.
Title IX was passed as part of the Education Amendments of 1972. The gender-equity law banned sex discrimination in federally-funded education programs in
public schools and colleges. Its protections would open doors for girls and women in admission, academic majors, teaching positions, vocational programs and individual classes and help ensure equal access and treatment once they got in.
While the law would have a broad effect, it’s perhaps best known for giving girls and young women opportunities to participate in competitive sports that they rarely had before. Interestingly, there’s no mention of athletics in its provisions.
How those opportunities have altered lives, widened horizons, and provided depth of experience is an intangible, impossible to measure, but the numbers, alone, are a testament to the impact. Pre-Title IX, fewer than 300,000 girls played high school sports across the nation. Now it's more than 10 times that—around 3.5 million—who take part each year.
Pre-Title IX, of course, is an important part of the story. In Fowlerville and other Michigan high schools, there had been interscholastic competition for girls in the 1940s, although the number of sports and how the games were played was limited.
In the 1950s and ‘60s and into the start of the ‘70s, the only opportunities were intramural competition in the Girls Athletic Association (a club) and cheerleading. As I recall, the Fowlerville GAA would visit a neighboring school for a game or meet, but there were not any leagues, season-long schedules, or post-season play, or any keeping track of school records as there were for the boys’ sports.
At the college level, depending on the size of the institution, there were certain sports available for the women athletes; however, nothing comparable in the number of options available to their male counterparts. Or the resources invested.
While Title IX went into effect in 1972—June 23rd being the date that President Richard Nixon signed the measure—the implementation was phased in.
At Fowlerville, the first organized girls team that competed against other schools was for track & field and that occurred nearly a year later in the spring of 1973—hence the 50th-year anniversary celebration I was asked to cover. There were 12 members on the inaugural squad and they took part in eight meets. One of the members reached the state finals in the 200-yard sprint.
Next came basketball, then softball, and finally volleyball in the winter of the 1975-76 school year. This line-up didn’t exactly mirror what was offered to the boys as they had football, basketball, baseball and track as well as cross country and wrestling.
Still, it was far better than what was available before Title IX and the line-up would be expanded over the years. Along with the four sports that were stated in the mid-1970s, girls at Fowlerville can also take part in cross country, golf, gymnastics, competitive cheer, tennis, soccer, and most recently wrestling.
And the sport opportunities are not limited to high school and college. There are organized teams at the junior-high level and in the recreation leagues for elementary-aged kids.
* * *
My first reporting job was in 1976, with high school sports at Fowlerville being part of my overall assignment. Boys-only coverage was not an option, so my weekly list of ‘things to do’ included phone calls to the coaches of both the boys and girls teams to get game results and going to their contests to take photos.
A couple of years later, during a brief stint as the sports editor of the Livingston County Press, I was totally immersed in what the young ladies were doing as well as the young gentlemen. Besides reporting on the game results of the various teams in each of the sports, a tall order with there being five school districts in the county, as editor I put together the all-league teams at the end of each season and, while employed in that role, the newspaper added a county softball tournament to the baseball tournament it already sponsored and then, for good measure, we put on volleyball and hockey tournaments.
By way of perspective, I had attended Fowlerville High School in the late 1960s (Class of 1969)—that pre-Title IX era where my female schoolmates and tens of thousands of their contemporaries had only GAA as an outlet. I was oblivious to the situation at the time. But then, witnessing the sea-change that came a few years later, the eyes were opened and I’ve always thought of what was lost to those schoolmates and other female athletes.
I’ve thought of all the possible life-changes, widened horizons, and depths of experiences—those intangibles that participating in sports can potentially offer and ‘why’ it’s provided to young people at schools and colleges—that were never realized. No recognition on the record board in the gymnasium, no news stories to be clipped out and put in the scrapbook, and no photos in the yearbook of their team, with their name under it.
They were victims of the cultural (which means human) tendency to stereotype, categorize, and pigeon-hole people based in all manner of categories and criteria—gender being among them.
Discrimination, whether benign or overt, unintentional or calculated, the result of unquestioned social norms or planned intent, is as much about lost opportunity as it is of unequal treatment. It denies that person the chance to realize their full potential and, in doing so, lessens the contributions they and their counterparts might provide to the larger society. In diminishing their horizon, it lessens the greater good.
* * *
When I reached the track, Coach Rickens wasn’t around and there weren’t any girls waiting to be interviewed. But I noticed a large group of boys and girls huddled across the field. I surmised they were getting a pep talk or last-minute instructions.
Sure enough, they broke up and I saw that the girls, followed by a pair of coaches, were headed my way. Accompanying them was Judy Recker, a retired physical education teacher at Fowlerville and current junior high athletic director. She had been the coach of that first girls track team in 1973 and of other ones—basketball, softball, and volleyball— during the early post-Title IX years.
They were all wearing a commemorative Title IX tee-shirt, celebrating 50 years of girls sports at the school.
I took a team photo and then interviewed, one at a time, the six seniors on the team as well as Mrs. Recker.
“What do you enjoy about sports?” was the final question I asked the girls.
Among their answers: “…having fun, working hard, and learning some great life lessons”… “making close friendships and also getting to push myself”… “working towards a common goal.”
As for Judy Recker, she mentioned “the humble beginnings” and how girls sports has grown over the years, along noting the many outstanding athletes that have been part of the program.
I took their photo as well and wished them “Good luck” in the upcoming meet.
Later, in my article, described the six seniors as “the latest in a long list of Gladiator girl athletes who have wore the ‘Gold & Purple’ colors of the school.”
Thanks to Title IX they have had this opportunity. As have all those girls and young women who preceded them—in Fowlerville and elsewhere.
The legacy of what this law has accomplished over the past half-century. . . its stated intention to provide equal treatment. . . the example it has set and the promise it offers. . . are indeed worth celebrating.
Steve Horton is a mid-Michigan journalist and editor-publisher of the ‘Fowlerville News & Views’—a weekly newspaper.
Great review of the law and benefits that have ensued. As a girl who played basketball in high school the late 1950s and a Detroit nursing school league in the early 60s I believe I missed out on alot but very happy for those who came after.