A Moment of Thanks

I just want to take a moment to recognize Senator "Ted Kennedy" whose legislative support of Title IX greatly impacted my life and many of my female friends. We are the generation of children that grew up reaping the benefits of his constant championing and development (and consequential push for reinstatement) of Title IX. I'm pretty certain my mom could have been a wicked basketball player, but she didn't have the opportunity that I did. Without Title IX, my high school basketball coach may not have won the fight to have equal gym time for our basketball team (yes, he had to fight for this in 1994). Or, our complaints might not have been heard in track to allow the girls to have more than 2 out of 8 lanes during track practice. When I was in college, I had the privilege of sitting on our intercollegiate athletic board for a semester where they were still struggling to meet a 40/60 female to male monetary support of sports.

Did you know women were not allowed to run the Boston Marathon until 1972? Funny to think about the need to keep people from running 26.2 miles, but they did. One of my favorite stories of a woman (helped by her male coach) staking a claim in sports is the one of Syracuse college student, Katherine Switzer, "illegally" running the Boston Course in 1967 with a number she obtained through just registering under her initials. A course manager was so mad about it he tried to rip her numbers off while she was running. Check out her site and look at the pictures at the bottom showing that cooky guy and his actions and her coach defending her.

I just want to say that I'm not for taking sports opportunities away from boys; I think athletics offer so much to both genders; just want to keep equal options for both!

I may never be faster than Kris or Darren, but I sure am happy that I can run beside them. While girls/women aren't currently as fast or as strong as their male counterparts, who knows what will happen in 50 years...We have a lot of missed time and catching up to do.