Hope Solo, Gabby Douglas and Allyson Felix never met Patsy Mink, but more than anyone else the trio of American sports stars owe their gold medals to the petite Hawaiian Congresswoman who unleashed a revolution.
Mink’s landmark legislation, the Equal Opportunity in Education Act of 1965, sparked the greatest change in women’s sports ever seen. An amendment labeled Title IX fired the starting gun for American women and they have been off and running ever since. Female coaches, however, are still trailing in the race.
Title IX is short and straightforward. It reads: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” Title IX made sure that women were able to receive the same opportunities as men in the classroom and eventually in sports.
Title IX changed everything. Since it was signed into law by Richard Nixon in 1972, nine times as many girls play high school sports. Over the same time there has been a 450 percent increase of women in collegiate athletics.
Four decades later and for the first time in history, women were represented in every Olympic competition in 2012. Young girls have many more athletic role models to look up to such as gold medal gymnasts Gabby Douglas (two gold medals) and Aly Raisman (two gold medals), swimmers Missy Franklin (four gold medals) and Allison Schmitt (three gold medals), and track star Allyson Felix (three gold medals).
Let’s not forget about gold medal skeet shooter Kim Rhode who hit 74 of 75 flying targets. She is the only American to win five consecutive medals in an individual sport. This traditionally is a men’s sport.
Women’s soccer is soaring in popularity and women of all ages can look up to gold medalists Abby Wambach, Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, Solo and every female athlete on the roster for the U.S. national team. This stellar team was coached by former women’s soccer player Pia Sundhage.
Unfortunately, though, female coaches are still too few and far between. One vestige of the Old Boys Club is still packed with boys.
“In the Olympics it was sad to see that the only female coach for women’s athletics was the women’s soccer team,” said Southwestern College head softball coach Yasmin Mossadeghi. “All the other women’s sports were coached by males.”
There is a need for more female coaches in the Beautiful Game, said SWC women’s soccer coach Karyna Figuero. Title IX, she said, has definitely opened doors for her.
“Due to the rise in number of female soccer players around the country, female coaches are in higher demand than ever before,” she said. “Women’s teams of all ages and playing level are turning to female coaches to lead their young players. I never had a female coach growing up and now I see the new generation is growing up with a female coach at every level. Times have changed and I believe for the better.”
At SWC 54 percent of all students are female. Lady Jaguars are able to participate in half the sports SWC offers. SWC volleyball coach Angela Rock, an Olympic gold medalist, said she owes her athletic and coaching career to Title IX.
“Without Title IX the opportunities for women would not have been there for me or the women who have played after me,” she said.
Mossadeghi said she would not have a career without Title IX.
“None of my accomplishments would have existed if (Title IX) did not exist back (when I was in college),” she said. “Cal State Fullerton may not have had a softball program, and I would not be here today coaching at Southwestern.”
Figuero said she is grateful for Title IX as well as all the female coaches and athletes that paved the way for her.
“I do believe it was because of their fight for equality that I am lucky enough to have achieved all that I have thus far in my career,” she said.
In 1971, the year before Title IX became law, about 294,000 high school girls competed in sports. In 2011 the number was nearly 3.2 million, an increase of about 980 percent, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation. The year before Title IX became law less than 32,000 female athletes participated in sports at the collegiate level and today “more than 191,000 females played NCAA sports in 2010-11, according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association,.”
Inequalities still exist, however.
Girls, according to the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education, have “1.3 million fewer chances to play sports in high school than boys. Opportunities are not equal among different groups of girls. Less than two-thirds of African-American and Hispanic girls play sports, while more than three-quarters of Caucasian girls do.”
There are not many female head coaches in the sporting world, especially at the college level. SWC has four female head coaches. Rock said the next revolution needs to be led by women coaches. Title IX may have caused one unfortunate unintended consequence.
“If you look at the Pacific Athletic Conference, all of 12 women’s volleyball coaches are male,” she said. “In the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference, our conference at SWC, 6 of 7 coaches are female, yet at the highest levels there are very few women as head coaches.”
Rock said men are reluctant to let go of the reins.
“I think this is because the majority of athletic directors are male and they see the men as a better coaching option,” she said. “Research has shown, however, that prior to Title IX there were more women coaching women and once women’s sports reached more equality, men became coaches due to the rise in pay.”
Mossadeghi said coaching is not a level playing field in terms of salary and hiring because “both male and female are applying for women’s sports where as you do not see the same for men’s sports.”
Rock said the gym floor is not level, either.
“The most common [issue] is gym time,” she said. “At the four-year university level men’s basketball always had first priority with the main gym, even when (SDSU’s women’s volleyball team was) ranked #1 in the nation and they were unranked at SDSU. Football, baseball, basketball and soccer take so many of the ‘male’ spots for sports that most colleges and universities do not have men’s volleyball. That forces men that love the game to migrate into coaching women’s volleyball, just because they love the sport. This is where I see the unintended down side of Title IX, the reduced amount of opportunities for boys and men to play volleyball.”
Mossadeghi said she often experiences unequal treatment in women athletics, especially when she goes to neighboring high schools to recruit.
“There are still programs out there where male facilities are far superior to females facilities,” said Mossadeghi. “For example, I will go out to recruit and the softball team doesn’t have a ball field on campus whereas the baseball team has one on campus, or the softball team has to put up their fences and doesn’t have covered dugouts where the baseball team has covered dugouts and a permanent fence.”
Rock said it is important for young women to have women as role models and she tries hard to be a good one.
“I only had two female head coaches and that was in high school,” she said. “My track and volleyball coaches were very good role models and really helped me develop as an athlete and as a young person.”
Being female has never stopped Figuero, she said. It only made her work harder and determined to always do the best she could. This is the reason, she said, she has been able to get where she is today.
“I try to instill that same message to my players,” said Figuero. “We can’t live in the past. It’s hard at times because it is in our culture as Latino women to feel the need to stay at home and raise the kids, but now we have to strive for more. We can achieve all that we desire as long as we believe and act on our abilities as the new generation of female athletes, coaches, mothers and career women of today.”
Mossadeghi agreed.
“I probably would have never thought about being a collegiate coach if it wasn’t for my female coaches in college,” she said. “It’s easier to visualize yourself doing something if your gender is doing it and accomplishing it already.”
