Henrietta Hay's Column

You can't keep a women athlete down -- wherever she is. The Iranian national women's flatwater kayaking team hopes to qualify for the Olympics. These women do grueling two-hour training workouts daily on a lake near Tehran, completely covered in the required chadors, hooded robes that cover the female body from head to toe including most of the face. According to the Washington Post, modern Iranian women must still follow the strict Islamic dress code. This means no Olympic swimming or tennis or track teams for the women, but they are aiming at the gold in rowing, chadors and all.

In America women's sports are flourishing. In my college days, back in the dark ages, they were strictly intramural. We had one gym teacher who coached everything and acted as a sort of den mother. It had never occurred to the powers that be that women would want anything more. How wrong they were.

Women's sports didn't change a lot from that time until 1972 when Congress woke up and passed Title 9. Title 9 said, "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to any discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance." These are words that school administrators can recite from memory in the nineties, but for the first twenty years, when the change might have been gradual and relatively painless, the schools ignored the law. Money was limited and surely nobody could expect them to cut men's and boys' programs! Watching schools and colleges as they have moved toward equity for women's sports was like watching a snail head for the finish line.

Then in 1992 women's softball at Colorado State University got cut in a financial squeeze, and the athletes sued the University for sex discrimination. The snail got a break. That landmark case went all the way to the Supreme Court, and eventually C. S. U. had to admit defeat and reinstate women's softball. Gender equity it's called in the sports world and, in words the institutions finally understood, it means, "more sports programs for women or no more big federal bucks -- and we mean it."

The weeping and wailing and gnashing of the teeth was heard across the land. And guess who got blamed! The women. The college athletic departments whined, " Don't rush us. This isn't fair. The women don't want it anyway. We can't cut the men's programs and there's not enough money for both." Organizations like the Women's Sports Foundation and the National Women's Law Center got in the act and said, you guys had 22 years to work on it. Now it's time to act. It's the law.

Today school districts and colleges know they have to have programs for women that mirror the student population. Most of them are at least close to compliance. Women and girls are now getting most of the same opportunities as their brothers.

My favorite armchair sport in the winter is watching the C. U. women's basketball team whenever a game is telecast. These women have built a national reputation, consistently win the Big 8 title and usually play in the Final Four. Women's basketball is played by the same rules as the men's with slight variations and it is every bit as exciting. Coach Ceal Barry is one of the outstanding coaches in the country.

And their little sisters young ones are on their way. I watched a game between a couple of teams of 7th grade girls recently. Their legs are not quite as long as Michael Jordan's, so they have to work harder getting from one end of the floor to the other, but they have the extra energy to do it. Ceal Barry does not yet need any scouts at this level, but these kids are learning fast. And they are having fun. Who knows - maybe C. U.'s point guard for the 2004 season was playing that game.

American women athletes have an advantage over the Iranian women in their chadors, although I do wonder about those funny, baggy knee-length shorts the basketball players wear. These women are strong, skilled, highly trained athletes who have reason to thank Title 9.

I wonder -- could I have made the varsity playing by today's rules? Sure, in my dreams.