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E-mail StoryAthletic fields crowded with just as many girls as boys
| Friday, Mar 10 2006 5:53 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Mar 10 2006 5:51 PM
A generation of girls who grew up under the well-established auspices of Title IX don’t just hope for, but expect, to have the same sports opportunities as boys.
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Why wouldn’t they? Isn’t that the way it’s always been?
“I have a passion for volleyball,” said Rachel Cox, a Bakersfield Christian High School senior. “I don’t think I want to play any more after college. You have to be at this super amazing level to do that. I do want to coach, though.”
Thirty-four years after Congress passed laws mandating public schools provide athletic and educational opportunities to girls on par with the boys, coaches and players say the goals of the law have nearly been met.
There are at least four times more women college athletes today than there were in 1971, the year before Title IX was adopted. Of the approximately 678,000 California high school athletes, almost half are girls. The number of younger girls playing is even higher. Many of them have never even heard of Title IX.
Today’s high school seniors were in the second grade when the WNBA was formed. They were still in diapers when the first professional female volleyball teams walked onto the court. For the modern girl, athletics usually isn’t a cause to fight for or a way to prove something to the world as it was for their mothers and grandmothers — it’s just sports.
“I want to play in the WNBA and make some money,” said 13-year-old Fruitvale Junior High basketball player Haley Huntington. “If I make it that far I think I’ll be just as good as the men.”
The massive increase in athletic opportunities in the last few decades has led millions of athletic girls across the country to abandon toe shoes and uneven bars for muddy cleats and scuffed-up knee pads.
Local girls are no exception. Coaches say the number of clubs offering year-round girls sports has ballooned in the last 15 years as more people move to Bakersfield and girls playing sports has become commonplace.
That’s because women’s sports are no longer a dead-end road. There are countless high-profile professional women athletes to look up to; basketball players, soccer players, tennis players, even ice hockey players who struggled to gain a place among male athletes.
“It shouldn’t all be about the men,” Haley said. “You should have the women in there because there are some real athletic people out there.”
College coaches say the female athletes chosen for top college teams these days have skills and talent they would hardly have been able to find in a handful of girls 20 years ago. With so many girls playing sports, the competition for a spot on a college team is just as fierce as it is on the boys’ teams.
“I think the big difference in youth sports that affects us here in Bakersfield is the number of groups (playing) at high levels,” CSUB softball coach Kathy Welter said. “It makes the elite level and the elite athletes better.”
Welter is one of thousands of women athletes who hit their prime as Title IX was being passed.
“I was a college athlete at that time and so I saw first hand what was happening to the teams I was on and then later when I started coaching,” Welter said. “It’s a huge difference. There’s millions of girls who play now who wouldn’t have been able to before.”
Ridgeview sophomore basketball player Tianna Ware says she’s thankful there are now so many opportunities for women, especially in basketball, but can see there’s still more to be done.
“We’re just about even with males but a lot of people are saying there should be professional female hockey,” she said. “I think there should be a pro softball league. Women should have as many opportunties as men.”
Experts agree that women athletics aren’t out of the woods yet. Female professional athletes don’t make anywhere near the salaries of star NBA, NFL or NHL players. Most count themselves lucky to have teams.
To make women’s sports truly viable, they’ve got to make more money for themselves and their sponsors. The problem lies in misguided marketing strategies, according to David Carter, an expert on sports marketing at USC’s Marshall School of Business. The money is there and with millions of girls playing sports, the interest is too. The problem? Women’s sports have been packaged as a cause. In advertising, women’s leagues almost always point out that they’re just as good as the men, instead of focusing on just themselves and the entertainment they provide.
“Corporate America doesn’t care what is the right thing to do as far as sports,” Carter said. “Sponsors are looking for return on their investment.”