This year marks the 40th anniversary of Title IX — federal legislation that prohibited discrimination based on an individual’s gender in schools and opened the door for female participation in sports at the high school and college levels. JEFF GRANIT staff Title IX marks 40 years; opportunities for young women have multiplied
There is a new normal in high school athletics as a result of Title IX. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the landmark federal legislation that prohibited discrimination based on an individual’s gender in schools and opened the doors for female participation in sports at the high school and college levels.
Now, because of that legislation, today’s female athletes “don’t know any other way,” according to Kim DeGraw-Cole, who is an assistant director of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA).
DeGraw-Cole is a former athletic director at Southern Regional High School in Manahawkin and a former president of the Shore Conference (an athletic conference made up of high schools in Monmouth and Ocean counties).
St. Thomas Aquinas High School (Bishop Ahr High School), 1974-75 season. She was a pioneer who played basketball, field hockey and softball at Dover High School before Title IX became law and she went on to play softball at Rutgers University (her first two years were spent playing for Douglass College at Rutgers before college scholarships were awarded).
DeGraw-Cole said she was very fortunate in 1968 to attend a high school that offered sports to girls before Title IX was enacted.
“The culture [of girls participating in sports] had not permeated everywhere,” she said. “It was a real transition time. The change that has occurred in a very short time is tremendous. I am hoping it continues to flourish.”
East Brunswick High School field hockey in the fall of 1976. DeGraw-Cole said the most significant difference between high school sports today regarding girls compared to when Title IX became law is that girls and their parents “demand and expect equality to be there.”
As a result of the legislation and its 40 years of implementation, attitudes toward girls and women in sports have certainly changed.
“The expectations are that they [girls] are equal [to boys],” said Elaine McGrath, who is the athletic director at South Brunswick High School. “It’s a whole new way of looking at it.”
One only has to examine basketball, for example, to see a whole new way of looking at the situation.
In high school, before Title IX, basketball was a half-court game for girls with six players on each side. There had to be two girls on offense and two on defense who could not cross half-court. Two girls were allowed to dribble into the offensive end, but they were limited to three dribbles. The thought behind the rules was that girls could not handle a full-court game.
Today, one only needs to watch a girls team such as St. John Vianney High School of Holmdel play an exciting brand of fullcourt basketball to see how wrong that earlier version of the sport was.
McGrath played basketball, field hockey and softball at Governor Livingston High School in Berkeley Heights beginning in 1971.
“I’m a Title IX baby. I started my high school career in basketball,” she said. “[Title IX] has given everyone an equal chance to play and compete. It was all about creating opportunity. It opened doors to new job paths. It created an atmosphere for women to grow professionally.”
Jeanette Bruno, the supervisor of extracurricular activities at Colts Neck High School and a member of the NJSIAA executive committee representing Monmouth County, said she did not believe she would have her position as an athletic director without Title IX.
“The doors are opening for women,” she said. “I’m not sure I would have my job without it.”
Bruno said when she attends National Federation of State High School Associations events each year, she sees more and more women holding administration positions.
“It’s awesome to see,” she said, adding that “the glass ceiling has been broken.”
As more women turn to coaching, that creates a larger pool for administrators to choose from when it comes time to hire a coach.
“The number of applicants is so diverse,” Bruno said. “It’s very encouraging.
Jeanene Healy, who coaches the girls basketball team at Colts Neck High School, is someone who started playing the sport in the early and mid-1980s at Freehold Township High School when it “just started getting serious.”
AAU basketball was starting up at that time and now that organization has taken basketball to a whole new level, just as travel programs in soccer, softball and lacrosse have done for their sports.
“They realize the girls game is just as good as the boys game,” Healy said. “They didn’t see that when we were young.”
Healy said she always wanted to coach, but she did not know if she would get the chance. She started out assisting at Howell High School before getting the position at Colts Neck. Since her days at Freehold Township, she has noticed that more women are coaching. She said she wanted to be a role model for her players and encourage them to get into coaching.
Coleen Weber, the girls soccer coach at Allentown High School, said she “took full advantage” of Title IX.
Title IX “is a success story. It has brought so much joy and opportunity,” she said.
Weber said she often tells her players how difficult it was to watch a women’s World Cup soccer match on television when she was growing up in the 1990s. The games were not on in prime time, if they could be found anywhere on TV. There was no women’s professional soccer league or WNBA to provide the role models that young women have today.
“I think it’s beautiful that they expect those things to be around. It’s the new normal,” Weber said.
On the high school level, Title IX has had a major impact across 40 years. Nationally, 3.17 million girls participated in scholastic sports in 2010-11. Basketball had the most programs nationwide (17,768), followed by track and field (16,143). More girls participate in track and field (468,747), followed by basketball (435,885) and volleyball (418,903).
DeGraw-Cole said New Jersey “leads the nation in state championships [for girls], which is pretty significant.”
The NJSIAA offers state championships in 16 sports for girls basketball, softball, soccer, field hockey, lacrosse, gymnastics, swimming, cross country, indoor track and field, outdoor track and field, volleyball, tennis, skiing, golf, bowling and fencing.
When Title IX became law, starting girls programs was a problem for many high schools. Many girls were being introduced to competitive sports for the first time. Issues involved things like the sharing of facilities, equality of pay for coaches and scheduling, because there were so few teams in some sports.
Now, because of community programs, girls are exposed to sports before they reach high school. Over the years, young women have proved to be just as serious and competitive as boys and just as likely to be in the weight room and gym doing the training they need to succeed.
Looking to the future, Weber said she envisions more women coaching in high school than when she began coaching seven years ago. The “only real gap” for women now is at the administrative level, according to Weber, and she said “that is something that will come in time.”
Bruno said what pleases her the most is when she hears from a Colts Neck High School graduate who tells her she wants to seek a career in athletics, whether that career is in marketing, administration or coaching.
“It’s good to know that athletes who have graduated are getting into athletic administration,” she said. “It’s so encouraging to know that for the girls who will follow me, their opportunities are so much greater.”
That, after all, is what Title IX was all about.