Henrietta Hay's Column

The Sweet Sixteen became the Final Four and Connecticut became the Only One in the NCAA women's basketball championship. Now the excitement is over, but for me it was over on that Saturday night in March when the Colorado Buffaloes lost to Georgia and missed the Final Four again. We came so close!

The Broncos have a new coach and the new Beer Field has been christened by the replacement Rockies. For me, however, those events don't hold a candle to watching that C. U. women's team grow in the last four years into a real contender for the national title.

This C. U. team didn't make it to the Final Four, but they gained national recognition and a lot of credit in their own back yard. This year the women's games have often drawn bigger crowds than the men's games. Of course, the women's games are still on the inside pages of most of the newspapers and they are not televised until they get to tournament level. Even then their games usually come in the daytime rather than on prime time. Oh well!

As a C. U. athlete from the dark ages, I watch this team with fascination. In the thirties there were lots of athletic activities for women, but they were strictly intramural. Basketball was a somewhat more "ladylike" game than it is now. Young women hardly believe me when I tell them that we played six member teams on a three-section court. The forwards stayed at one end, the centers in the middle and the guards at the other, and woe unto her who stepped over the line. That was, I suppose, to protect us from fatigue, over-stimulation and what were euphemistically called the "vapors." Now it would probably be called PMS. I assume men made the rules, because the women certainly were as capable of running the length of the floor then as they are now.

The picture is changing, but all too slowly. In 1972 Congress passed Title 9, and women's athletic programs started to grow. Title 9 mandates that, "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." That sounds quite reasonable to me, but it was taken about as seriously as spitting on the sidewalk or jay walking.

Most schools pretended it wasn't there. A policy, which could have been implemented gradually, was virtually ignored until women started suing -- and winning. Now the colleges and universities are being forced to add women's sports and to support them with scholarships. The men are crying, "Foul. How can we finance a winning sports program if we have to let the women play too?"

But the women are playing, and their little sisters are too. For several years I have watched one of the local girls' soccer teams, starting when they were second graders. When they started, the little girls were hesitant, timid, and afraid of physical contact, much too polite to battle for the ball. In fact, they really didn't much want the ball to come their way at all. Each year they grew in skill and confidence. Now they are in middle school and they are learning sportsmanship, how to work together, to back each other up, to be a team. They are not afraid to be knocked down and they may even do a little knocking when it is unavoidable. And they are learning a physical skill. They are learning to be, if I may use the word, assertive, maybe even aggressive. That's a good thing for a little girl to know about in the modern world.

There are a lot of ways to build self assurance - or the buzz word, self esteem - and one of them is the discipline and the satisfaction of team sports. Men have known that for generations, and it's only fair that women should have their share.

Title 9 has opened the doors for women's sports, and the women are pouring through. I hope the C. U. women's point guard, class of 2005 is shooting hoops in Grand Junction today. And I am still looking for a bootlegger who will sell me one of those banned T shirts that say, "C. U. - Where men are men / and women are champions."