Women S Sports

WHAT MESSAGE is the Bush administration trying to send about women in sports? At the same time that it supported an important extension of Title IX - the 1972 law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded schools and colleges - to cover whistleblowers, it seems to want to undermine enforcement. The Department of Education posted a surprise notice on its Web site last month that was called a "clarification" of how schools can demonstrate that they are following the law. Instead of clarity, however, the department has generated unnecessary confusion and could threaten 30 years of progress in expanding athletic opportunities for young women.

Good morning -- Hope Solo -- Player ripping the coach - don't let anyone say women's sports are so different from men's.

Good morning -- Hope Solo -- Player ripping the coach - don't let anyone say women's sports are so different from men's.

The news that the Bush administration is attempting to water down the language of compliance with Title IX, the law that gave women the opportunity to play sports, has me wondering if women's sports have not indeed achieved equity with men's sports -- in every bad way. Title IX was passed in 1972 to address the inequity in hiring, paying, and promoting women professors at the nation's public colleges and universities. It was not until almost six years later that the law began to be applied to intercollegiate sports, and it has been stuck there ever since.

Two years ago, Sports Illustrated launched a new magazine, designed specifically for women, and it landed with a collective thud, leading some to wonder if such a venture might not fly.Well, with some retooling, a new, more manageable title and a better sense of its market, SI is trying again with a quarterly publication, Sports Illustrated for Women, which hits newsstands Thursday.Sandra Bailey, editor of the new magazine, said the period between the last magazine in the fall of 1997 and this week's publication was a time for figuring out what worked best for the audience it was trying to serve.

The news that the Bush administration is attempting to water down the language of compliance with Title IX, the law that gave women the opportunity to play sports, has me wondering if women's sports have not indeed achieved equity with men's sports -- in every bad way. Title IX was passed in 1972 to address the inequity in hiring, paying, and promoting women professors at the nation's public colleges and universities. It was not until almost six years later that the law began to be applied to intercollegiate sports, and it has been stuck there ever since.

ATHENS - As a girl playing youth soccer in New Brunswick, N.J., Heather O'Reilly had a poster of Mia Hamm on her bedroom wall. On Monday night on the island of Crete, O'Reilly, 19, scored the winning goal in overtime after receiving a crossing pass from Hamm, 32, as the U.S. women's Olympic soccer team beat Germany, 2-1, to earn a berth in tonight's gold-medal match against Brazil. For soccer aficionados, the pass was important because of its impact on the game. For supporters of women's sports in the United States, it was even more significant as a symbolic passing of the torch from one generation of highly regarded athletes to another.

WIMBLEDON, England -- They are waiting for Monica Seles.This is the whispered talk in the tea rooms and sponsor tents at Wimbledon, where the crowds flee every time reigning champion Conchita Martinez takes the court and where Steffi Graf is one awkward movement away from having her back give out -- perhaps for good.So much is riding on one woman who has been under wraps since being stabbed by an unemployed lathe operator in Germany on April 30, 1993. Seles, the talk goes, can bring back the sponsors, the crowds and the television ratings.

Donna de Varona renewed friendships at the reunion of past Olympians held at the U.S. swim trials in Indianapolis three weeks ago. She did not get a chance to meet Michael Phelps, but figures that their paths will cross in Sydney, Australia, next month. "I would like to talk to him, share my experiences with him," de Varona said. "With the dynamics in Australia, the importance of the swimming competition, he'll be either inspired or overwhelmed by the Olympics. "If he wasn't overwhelmed by the trials, I suspect that he won't be by the Olympics.

No one whipped off her shirt after the U.S. Women's Hockey Team captured Olympic Gold in Nagano, Japan, in 1998. With all the equipment worn in hockey, it might have taken half an hour to peel down to a sports bra.Still, so much that was exhilarating about the performance of the U.S. Women's Soccer Team during this summer's World Cup was also apparent in 1998, as the American women skated their way to the first gold medal ever awarded in women's hockey.Then...

WHAT MESSAGE is the Bush administration trying to send about women in sports? At the same time that it supported an important extension of Title IX - the 1972 law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded schools and colleges - to cover whistleblowers, it seems to want to undermine enforcement. The Department of Education posted a surprise notice on its Web site last month that was called a "clarification" of how schools can demonstrate that they are following the law. Instead of clarity, however, the department has generated unnecessary confusion and could threaten 30 years of progress in expanding athletic opportunities for young women.

MARCH MADNESS is under way, and once again the University of Maryland basketball team is back at the Big Dance - the Terps' women, that is. Their male counterparts - national champs just three years ago - didn't make the NCAA tournament's 64-team field this year. But the women's team is back for the second year in a row, after a season in which it went 21-9 and packed more than 17,000 fans into College Park's Comcast Center for one of its games, a conference attendance record. All this is a local reminder of the great distance that women's collegiate sports have traveled since the 1972 passage of Title IX, the federal legislation that prohibits educational programs receiving federal aid to discriminate based on sex. Colleges now average 8.32 teams for female athletes, up from just 2.5 before Title IX, according to the most definitive long-term study.

ATHENS - As a girl playing youth soccer in New Brunswick, N.J., Heather O'Reilly had a poster of Mia Hamm on her bedroom wall. On Monday night on the island of Crete, O'Reilly, 19, scored the winning goal in overtime after receiving a crossing pass from Hamm, 32, as the U.S. women's Olympic soccer team beat Germany, 2-1, to earn a berth in tonight's gold-medal match against Brazil. For soccer aficionados, the pass was important because of its impact on the game. For supporters of women's sports in the United States, it was even more significant as a symbolic passing of the torch from one generation of highly regarded athletes to another.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - A World Cup training session for the famous U.S. women landed Mia Hamm and Co. in a scrimmage yesterday against the University of Virginia men's soccer team. Guess what? The highly skilled, experienced and talented women "lost" to an unranked Division I team that had no doubt been warned to not injure the stars, but work them hard. Respectful and obviously full of admiration, the Cavaliers controlled almost all the action, even while extending a hand to U.S. national team stars they had just tackled.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Five days before the start of the event that was to provide a needed boost to the 3-year-old women's professional soccer league, its board of governors announced yesterday that a lack of funding had forced the league to suspend operations. John Hendricks, founder of the Women's United Soccer Association and its board chairman, said he hoped the suspension would provide enough time "to allow a miracle to happen." But chances the league will revive appear minimal. "It's definitely a sad day for women's sports," said Julie Foudy, co-captain of the U.S. women's national team and a WUSA governor.

Women's sports deserve better coverage I would like to see up-to-date coverage of women's sports in the sports section. The NCAA women's college basketball coverage has been poor in the past, but there are always pages of coverage for the men's NCAA basketball. (The women usually get a half page in the back of the sports section.) During the WNBA season, I had to search the sports section for any coverage, and usually the standings and scores from the previous day were incomplete (and I am not talking about West Coast games)

ATLANTA -- As with most female athletes of her generation, Nancy Lieberman-Cline didn't think much about being part of a cause while she was competing. As a high school senior and the youngest player, male or female, ever to play basketball for the United States in the Olympic Games, she was too busy helping her team win a silver medal in Montreal 20 years ago.But now Lieberman-Cline thinks about it a lot."You never know what impact you're going to have," Lieberman-Cline said. "But you see it now because of the money being directed into women's sports.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - A World Cup training session for the famous U.S. women landed Mia Hamm and Co. in a scrimmage yesterday against the University of Virginia men's soccer team. Guess what? The highly skilled, experienced and talented women "lost" to an unranked Division I team that had no doubt been warned to not injure the stars, but work them hard. Respectful and obviously full of admiration, the Cavaliers controlled almost all the action, even while extending a hand to U.S. national team stars they had just tackled.

Donna de Varona renewed friendships at the reunion of past Olympians held at the U.S. swim trials in Indianapolis three weeks ago. She did not get a chance to meet Michael Phelps, but figures that their paths will cross in Sydney, Australia, next month. "I would like to talk to him, share my experiences with him," de Varona said. "With the dynamics in Australia, the importance of the swimming competition, he'll be either inspired or overwhelmed by the Olympics. "If he wasn't overwhelmed by the trials, I suspect that he won't be by the Olympics.

No one whipped off her shirt after the U.S. Women's Hockey Team captured Olympic Gold in Nagano, Japan, in 1998. With all the equipment worn in hockey, it might have taken half an hour to peel down to a sports bra.Still, so much that was exhilarating about the performance of the U.S. Women's Soccer Team during this summer's World Cup was also apparent in 1998, as the American women skated their way to the first gold medal ever awarded in women's hockey.Then...