She Shoots, She Scores

Hannah Holmes and her Title IX pioneering mom, Gail.

Pioneers of Title IX

Florence Griffith Joyner (1981-'83): Once dubbed the "World's Fastest Woman," the late Flo Jo was as famous for her flowing hair and glittering fingernails as she was for her five Olympic medals.

Lisa Fernandez '95: A talented pitcher who's now a Bruin assistant softball coach, Fernandez led Team USA to gold medals in the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympics.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee '86: JJK, winner of six Olympic medals, was named World's Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th Century by Sports Illustrated for Women.

Dot Richardson '84: Dr. Richardson, now a surgeon, is one of the stars of UCLA's new ad campaign, won two Olympic gold medals and is commissioner of the ProFastPitch X-Treme Tour.

LaRee Sugg '91: LPGA member Sugg is assistant athletic director/senior woman administrator for the University of Richmond in Virginia. She served as the school's first women's golf head coach.

Judith Holland: In 1974, Holland was named UCLA's first full-time director of the Department of Women's Intercollegiate Sports. In 1981, she brought Bruin women's sports into the NCAA.

The Knock on Opportunity

Unfortunately, little else about Title IX enforcement has been simple. After more than three decades, the nation's premier institutions still struggle with how to remain in compliance with the law and be fair, while athletes still struggle with how they feel about the trade-offs that have to be made when resources are tight and years of inequality beg to be redressed.

At UCLA, a chancellor-convened panel to address a multimillion-dollar deficit in the Athletics Department recommended that men's swimming and gymnastics be cut "so the rest could remain whole and competitive," according to Marc Dellins '76, UCLA's director of sports information. Swimmer Scott Hubbard '95, who swam three years of his four-year scholarship before the men's swim program was eliminated in 1994, said that even though he obviously didn't like the decision at the time, he's gained some perspective on it. "To ask universities to cut into [football and basketball] would be like asking Apple to stop selling the iPod," he says. But he wonders if Title IX could not have been crafted "more carefully so we could still promote women's sports, but not at the expense of men's."

Gymnastics gold medalist Peter Vidmar '83, a father of three boys and two girls, is grateful that his daughters have a range of athletic options open to them and is "incredibly proud" that UCLA was the first to 100 NCAA championships. Title IX, he says, "was definitely part of achieving that milestone." But he regrets that his sport was cut and is "sad that another way couldn't have been found to achieve these same goals."

And yet, there are all those medals won and titles taken that might never have happened without that era-spawning day in June 1972, when the nation's playing fields were leveled for women. "In the last few years, the main challenge has been finances," says Joni Comstock, NCAA senior vice president for championships. "Very few sports have a net profit at the end of the academic year. Another challenge is that state budgets are much tighter, so there's just less money to go around in general. But tight finances do not excuse us from following the law. The law is fair. The law is clear. And when money is tight, we have to stick to our values."

"I remember, in 1975, we were the talk of the tournament," says former Bruin volleyball star Sheila King '79, M.S. '82, who now travels across the country to watch her daughter Kathleen, also an elite-level volleyball player, compete. "UCLA had started putting money on the table for women's volleyball in terms of scholarships, and we were winning it all. It got people thinking and gave other schools the impetus to get serious about volleyball, about women's sports, and about what female athletes could be and do."

Published Oct 1, 2007 8:00 AM