When I started writing this commentary on Title IX, I intended a brief history, a few anecdotes, statistics, headlines, and a mention of the landmark Cohen v. Brown case from the early 1990s.
But then I realized something that should have been obvious from the beginning. I can see the impact of Title IX in my own family. Three sisters. Two daughters. Two granddaughters. Four nieces. Four grandnieces.
Fifteen female athletes and budding athletes in my family. Five mothers of seven daughters who are following in their athletic footsteps.
Thank you, Title IX.
Fifty years ago — June 23, 1972, to be exact — President Richard M. Nixon signed Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, one of the few positives to come out of his presidency. Title IX prohibited sex discrimination at institutions that receive federal funds.
Nobody predicted the seismic shock waves that eventually jolted elementary, secondary and higher education in America. Title IX’s intent was to eliminate discrimination in education. Title IX did not mention athletics. How ironic given its impact on sports.
In 1975, Congress expanded Title IX to include intercollegiate and interscholastic sports programs, just in time for the Szostak girls at Methuen High School.
Janie had to use equipment primitive by today’s standards, but by her graduation in 1977 she was a three-sport all-conference athlete and a co-captain. She did not play in college, but she had paved the way for Kathy, a record-smashing star in field hockey, basketball and softball, and still among the greatest athletes in the history of the Merrimack Valley Conference. Kathy graduated in 1979 with an athletic scholarship to Ohio State, a first for the MVC, where she played field hockey and lacrosse. Nancy followed and was an all-star in field hockey, basketball and softball. An outstanding pitcher, she was the conference MVP in 1980. She accepted an athletic scholarship to the University of Maine, played field hockey and pitched for the Black Bears softball team.
All three of my sisters are in the Methuen High School Athletic Hall of Fame. Upon her induction in 2017, Janie commented that even after 40 years she still felt like an athlete.
My older daughter Brooke played field hockey for three years and ran track at Cape Elizabeth High School in Maine. She has passed those genes to her kindergarten daughter Sienna. My younger daughter Kate played field hockey, basketball and lacrosse for four years at Moses Brown. She was a captain in each sport and second-team All-State in field hockey. Her daughter Wetherly plays soccer and lacrosse and skis black diamond trails. She is 6 1/2.
Amanda, my brother Paul’s daughter, played field hockey and was a lacrosse star for Pinkerton Academy in Derry, N.H. She helped her team to the state championship as a junior in 2014 and the state final as a senior, when she was a captain. Her contributions on and off the field earned her a scholarship from the minor-league New Hampshire Fisher Cats, which helped defray her expenses at the University of New Hampshire.
Kaleigh, Nancy’s daughter, was a star goalie for the Westborough (Mass.) High School lacrosse team. An honors student, she was an All-America as a senior She also played soccer, field hockey and basketball and was a French horn player in the Massachusetts All-State Orchestra. Her lacrosse skill earned her a partial scholarship to Stonehill College, where she was the backup goalie.
My nieces Whitney and Erin were athletes at Veterans Memorial High School in Warwick, R.I. Whitney was a runner, and Erin was captain of the field hockey team. Whitney has three school-age daughters, all athletes. Erin’s daughter is toddling her way toward sports.
Title IX is not perfect — the Women’s Sports Foundation notes in a current study that boys and men still have more opportunities to participate — but the landscape for girls and women has improved dramatically since 1972. Fifty years ago, 294,015 girls played high school sports in the U.S., according to the WSF study. In 2019 the total was 3,402,733. In 1972 at U.S. colleges 29,977 women played sports. In 2021 the total was 215,486.
That growth did not occur at the expense of boys and men, as Title IX critics predicted. Yes, some schools dropped wrestling, swimming, gymnastics and tennis programs, an easier move than trying to stretch athletic budgets, but in 2019 4.5 million boys were on high-school teams, about 870,000 more than in 1972. At colleges the increase was about 100,000, to 275,769, according to NCAA statistics.
Using numbers much easier to digest, here’s one more example of Title IX’s impact. The 1968 edition of the Warwick Veterans Memorial High School yearbook contains 31 pages of photos of boys sports, three pages of girls sports. The 1999 edition of the Moses Brown yearbook has 17 pages for boys, 15 pages for girls.
But I do not need such statistics. I just have to look at the athletes in my family. The female athletes.
