Editorial: Marin girls sports landscape a reflection of Title IX success

With girls athletics booming across Marin and a healthy number of tenured, respected women working as high school sports administrators all over the county, it’s hard to remember that it hasn’t always been equitable for female athletes.

History should tell the important story of fairness-based change in bold letters, but sometimes the best way to know a platform is working is to no longer notice it was ever needed at all.

The 2022-23 Marin high school sports campaign recently drew to a close, but the 50th anniversary celebration of the Title IX federal civil rights law included as part of the Educational Amendments of 1972 should continue.

The amendment reads that no person “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.”

For athletic programs on every school campus it meant striving for equal support and opportunity for female athletes. It initiated earth-shaking change.

According to 2019 data from the Women’s Sports Foundation, more than 3.4 million girls participated in high school sports. That’s more than 11 times more girls than the year before Title IX was enacted.

It’s clear that the law made a difference in the lives of nearly 100 million women competing in high school sports over the last 50 years.

Sports teams and individual athletes representing Marin schools competed in all 14 girls programs offered by the California Interscholastic Federation’s North Coast Section. Programs and variety continue to expand. This fall, girls flag football will be added to the list.

Marin’s numerous and talented female administrators have long been tapped as important decision-makers for the NCS and the CIF.

Marin County Athletic League Commissioner Susie Woodall has more than 23 years in the office. Woodall, who is one of only two female commissioners in the 14-league NCS, is chair of the section’s Sports Advisor Committee. Her work on the CIF state faculty for coaching education led to a seat at the table with the America Sports Education Program.

The MCAL’s 33% rate of female high school ADs puts it far above the 20% average for the rest of the state.

Redwood Athletic Director Jessica Peisch and former Tamalpais High AD Christina Amoroso both have 14 years experience and have accumulated numerous honors in the process. Michelle Brovelli Smith, herself an outstanding athlete at San Rafael in her day, is completing her third year as the Novato High AD following many years of work in the athletic department at The Branson School. These three women alone impacted the lives of thousands of Marin high school athletes.

In college sports, only 14.8% of athletic directors are women. But here in Marin, the lone NCAA athletic program has been led by a woman the last eight years. Amy Henkleman is credited with keeping the Division II athletic program at Dominican University on track as it competes in the Pacific West Conference.

The Women’s Sports Federation urges all of us to continue pushing for equity. According to the group’s 2019 data, girls had approximately 1 million fewer opportunities to play high school sports than boys. Fifteen percent fewer girls than boys participated in high school athletics that year. The numbers for opportunities to participate in college athletics are similar.

Clearly, the work needs to continue. But the changing face of athletics in Marin and across the country deserves to be celebrated.

Careers for women in sports and on women’s teams (including professional sports like basketball, soccer, tennis and golf) are no longer a possibility “sometime in the future.”

It’s happening in Marin and it’s happening thanks to a big boost from work by elected officials and others in 1972.