Are young athletes today aware how the passage of Title IX paved the way for women in sports?
What Title IX ended up becoming was a calling card for women in sports [who were] trying to have what men and boys have from the elementary level all the way to college and pros—just an equal opportunity to be able to compete. That’s what it is: an equal opportunity. Where boys were getting scholarships all the time, now girls are. I suppose that’s progress. Today, talented young women athletes are sought after to play at the collegiate level and probably don’t give the inequities of the past, or the women who broke the barriers, a second thought. There’s an entitlement, and they don’t understand what Title IX did create. How did you stay in the game at a time when very few opportunities existed for girls to play at the high school level? I’ve been competing against guys my whole life because of my brothers and their friends. The first boys’ team I was on was in elementary school in fifth and sixth grades. [I] played against the guys in junior high and…had an opportunity to play on the
