As a nation, we have watched the Women’s National Basketball Association establish itself over the past 16 years.
We have followed Mia Hamm, Michelle Akers, Abby Wambach and other women as they have done more to develop soccer interest than any American man ever could.
We have cheered Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Bonnie Blair and Dara Torres at the Olympics.
We have marveled as Lisa Leslie, Cheryl Miller and Lindsey Vonn have proved that there is a place for women in sports that extends well beyond gymnastics, figure skating, tennis and golf.
In Pennsylvania, we have seen the emergence of state championships for girls, beginning with basketball in 1973 and rapidly expanding in many different directions.
Here in Susquehanna County, we have been blessed by being able to witness the marvelous individual talents of Susquehanna’s Teresa Covert and Montrose’s Julia Koloski, who used their abilities to claim state titles and collect medals in track while also excelling in other sports.
We have seen an abundance of dedicated and decorated distance runners, including a state championship group at Elk Lake.
We have annually witnessed softball at its highest level, including multiple state titles for Blue Ridge.
This past winter, we saw a special Montrose basketball team reach the state semifinals with a series of clutch performances.
In my own life, I have had the fortune to be able to coach many talented young athletes on the high school and youth levels in just a few years of slowing down my professional work on athletes in that age group.
In three years of field hockey, basketball and soccer, I had the chance to work with two dozen girls who eventually played at least one sport in college.
Those girls included my daughter Bridgette, who I now get to watch as the captain of her field hockey team at Oneonta State.
Without Title IX, most – if not all – of that would be missing.
Girls obviously can play sports, too.
It seems so obvious now that it can be difficult to believe that for much of the history of sports in the United States, the extent of participation by female athletes was restricted.
Sometimes as a society, we need laws to force us to start doing what we eventually realize was the right thing all along.
That is what Title IX did, beginning when Congress passed it June 23, 1972.
Before Title IX, the lack of opportunities restricted the impact girls made in sports and, as a result, in their high schools and on their college campuses.
“Sports” are not specifically mentioned in the wording of Title IX. Equal access to all educational programs was the key. Athletic programs were deemed to be part of the educational experience and after 1972 it was no longer legal to limit the number of available programs and the chance to obtain athletic scholarships to male athletes.
“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation under any educational programs or activity receiving federal financial assistance,” according to Title IX.
Public schools immediately had to show they were progressing toward gender equity in the sports they offered. The progress sometimes moved slowly but it was guaranteed to happen unless schools wanted to risk the loss of funding and/or potential lawsuits.
Title IX improved access to higher education, financial aid and housing for female students often with the help of its profound impact on athletics. It was the action responsible for removing barriers to courses like criminal justice and industrial arts for female students as well as allowing male students to take home economics.
Before Title IX, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association was not yet conducting girls’ state championships.
On the national level, about one in 27 high school girls, fewer than 300,000 total, were involved in sports, according to the Associated Press. Less than 32,000 played sports in college and the National Collegiate Athletic Association ignored many of them, leaving it up to the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women to produce the biggest events.
Less than two years later, high school sports participation by girls had more than quadrupled to 1.3 million.
Resistance remained, leading to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare being assigned to task of developing the guidelines for how changes would be implemented and adherence to Title IX would be assessed. Many of those regulations specifically addressed athletic programs.
Progress continued with more sports being added and more girls’ programs catching up to their boys’ counterparts with the addition of junior varsity and junior high feeder programs.
There are now more than 3 million girls playing high school sports, nearly one in every two. There were 190,000 playing on NCAA women’s teams in the 2010-11 college year.
Giving the opportunity, female athletes have shown that they are interested in and capable of excelling in the athletic arena.
TOM ROBINSON writes a weekly local sports column for the Susquehanna County Transcript. He can be reached online at RobbyTR@aol.com.
BOWYER WINS CALIFORNIA ROAD RACE
SONOMA, Calif.- Clint Bowyer powered his way to victory Sunday in the Sprint Cup SaveMart 350, ahead of Tony Stewart.
“I knew it was a huge risk switching teams during the off season, but it has sure paid off,” said Bowyer. “It’s all about working together, and this team has really put it all together.”
Even though Stewart finished second, it was Kurt Busch, the third-place driver that pushed Bowyer the most. Busch stayed on Bowyer’s rear bumper, even giving him a nudge several times.
The race’s second caution came on lap 107 of the 110-lap race, sending it into a green-white-checkered finish.
“It was an amazing day,” said Busch. “I tried to be considerate of the way I drove Clint. I hit some speed bumps on the restart that weren’t fastened down, and broke the pan hard bar on the car which allowed Tony to get by me.”
Clint Bowyer, Sunday's Cup winner at Sonoma (Furnished by Toyota)
Brian Vickers and Jimmie Johnson were fourth and fifth, respectively.
Even though Jeff Gordon finished sixth, he continued to experience problems. He ran out of gas on lap 73 and had to coast about one-half mile into his pit stall. He was third at the time, but dropped back to fifteenth.
Near the end of the race, he had the fastest car, but ran out of laps.
Greg Biffle, Marcos Ambrose, AJ Allmendinger, and Joey Logano were the remaining top-10 finishers.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. never ran up front, and on the last lap, he and several other cars got together, and he wound up 23rd.
Top-12 Chase contenders after 16 of 36: 1. Kenseth-596, 2. Biffle-585, 3. Earnhardt-582, 4. Johnson-571, 5. Stewart-533, 6. Harvick-532, 7. Bowyer-529, 8. Hamlin-523, 9. Truex-520, 10. Keselowski-490, 11. Edwards-479, 12. Kyle Busch-459.
NELSON PIQUET IS NATIONWIDE WINNER
Nelson Piquet Jr. of Brazil won Saturday’s Nationwide race at Road America in only his third series start.
“I knew I could do it,” said Piquet. “It was a matter of getting the right people together.
“Once I opened a little gap over the second-place car, I knew it was my race. I was in control.”
He started on the pole and led the most laps. In addition to running selected Nationwide races, Piquet is a regular in the truck series.
The remaining top-10 finishers were: Michael McDowell, Ron Fellows, Max Papis, Sam Hornish, Jacques Villeneuve, Brian Scott, Kurt Busch, Cole Whitt, and Justin Allgaier.
Villeneuve collided with Danica Patrick on the last lap as the two drivers were battling for a top-five finish, causing Patrick's car to spin out. Villeneuve finished sixth, while Patrick recovered and finished 12th.
“Where Villeneuve goes, there tends to be cars that have problems, whether it's his fault or the other car's fault or (just) stock car racing at the end of the race,” Patrick said.
Top-10 points leaders after 14 of 33: 1. Sadler-517, 2. A. Dillon-507, 3. Stenhouse-494, 4. Hornish-483, 5. Whitt-442, 6. Allgaier-441, 7. Annett-414, 8. Bliss-364, 9. Scott-339, 10. Patrick-337.
GORDON AND EDWARDS IN BIG SLUMP
Until the checkered flag was dropped on the last lap of the 2011 Cup season, Carl Edwards was in contention to win the Sprint Cup championship. Instead, he lost it to Tony Stewart by only three points.
But the 2012 season is a different story.
Edwards is 11th in the standings, 11 points outside the top-10. But the fact is he has not been the same racer who led the standings for 21 weeks last year and had a record average finish of 4.9 in the Chase.
“I can’t really tell you what our problems are,” said Edwards. “It’s not that I’m not trying, or the team doesn’t want to win. A lot of folks have said because of the intensity of last year’s championship drive, it has deflated us this year. But that’s not so.
“I look forward to each race, and I can honestly say that my heart is as much in it as it ever was.”
Edwards has just two top-fives and eight top-10 finishes. He’s led just only races and struggled to finish in the top-10 in most races. He’s also been in a couple of wrecks and suffered the kind of misfortune he managed to avoid last season.
While Edwards is in line to make the Chase, Jeff Gordon is having his worst season ever.
After 16 races into the season, Gordon is 18th in points. His sixth-place win at Sonoma moved him up two spots. The four-time Cup champion has never been this low in points at this point of the season in his 20-year career, not even as a rookie in 1993.
Gordon’s luck has perhaps been worse than any driver this year, miring him in the standings and leaving him desperate for wins just to earn a wild card into the Chase. If not, he will miss the playoffs and finish outside the top-10 in points for only the second time in his career.
Gordon, who has 85 career victories, could still reel off a couple of wins and make the Chase, but the way this season has gone, it’s a long shot. Not only have he and his Hendrick Motorsports team made critical mistakes and been the victims of horrible luck, he has been inconsistent and has not run up front as he usually does.
And it’s very ironic that Gordon’s other three teammates are in contention for the Chase.
Does he have some type of “monkey” on his back? If something doesn’t happen, and soon, he is going to be on the outside of this year’s Chase.
Weekend Racing: All three of NASCAR’s major series are at the 1.5-mile Kentucky Speedway.
Thurs., June 28, Camping World Trucks UNOH 225, race 8 of 22; Starting time: 7:30 pm ET; TV: SPEED.
Fri., June 29, Nationwide Feed the Children 300, race 15 of 33; Starting time: 7 pm ET; TV: ESPN2.
Sat., June 30, Sprint Cup Quaker State 400, race 17 of 36; Starting time: 6:30 pm ET; TV: TNT.
Racing Trivia Question: Where is Carl Edwards’ hometown?
Last Week's Question: Which Cup team does Greg Biffle drive for? Answer. The No. 16 Roush Fenway Ford.
You may contact the Racing Reporter at hodges@race500.com.
