LatinosUSA

I don’t usually follow the Sports page much, but what I’ve seen since resubscribing to the local papers last year has made me sit up and take notice. I’m speaking of the prevalence of young women of school age–we used to call them girls–who are excelling in organized high school and university sports.

When I attended high school lo these many years ago, sports were for boys–whom we used to refer to as men–leaving the girls without any visible means of support for their athletic aspirations. For the males, there was boys’ basketball, boys’ baseball, boys’ football, boys’ wrestling, boys’ cross country, boys’ track and field; you get the idea. And for the females, there was cheerleading, which was nothing more than a celebration of the boys’ teams, particularly football.

Oh, some women’s P.E. teachers supervised volleyball and even gymnastics, but it was generally intramural, with scant budgets for travel, training, uniforms, or much of anything else. Now girls are featured on the sports pages–not just of the local papers–of but virtually every magazine, newscast, and webcast, attempting and excelling at the sports that were once the province of only the boys.

Non-discrimination against girls’ sports didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen voluntarily. It took Title Seven and Supreme Court action to effect change. And we should be glad it happened. Sports have long been extolled as building character for boys. Well, don’t girls have character that deserves to be developed, as well? I applaud the many media outlets for taking girls’ sports as seriously as they do boys’ sports. It’s only right. It’s only fair.

Previously published in “The Alton Telegraph.”