Let’s go back 50 years to 1972. Title IX had just weeks earlier become the law of the land. To paraphrase Bob Dylan: The times, they were a-changin’.
I was a young sportswriter at the Hattiesburg American, working my way through college. My editor told me to report on a seminar at the university. The federal government—specifically, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW)—sent a representative to explain the implications of Title IX. I went.
But first I had to look up the Title IX legislation. It was a whopping 37 words: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
I didn’t see the words “sports” or “athletics” in the wording anywhere. I wasn’t sure why I was sent to cover it. The answer came quickly.
The woman from HEW did not mince words. She said all public schools — K-12 through universities that received federal funding — would have to spend money equally on boys and girls and men and women — in athletics, as in all other aspects of education. And if they didn’t, they would lose all federal money.
The hands shot up. People had questions. One of the first: How are universities like USM, Mississippi State and Ole Miss, already struggling to make ends meet, supposed to double their spending on scholarships, salaries, expenses, etc. within their athletic programs?
Her answer: It was not the government’s concern. They would do it otherwise.
At the time I mumbled something like, “That’s crazy. It’ll never fly. It’s not fair.”
The man next to me, a professor in the health and physical education department, looked at me and replied, “Obviously, you never had a daughter.” He had three. One became a point guard on the first Hattiesburg High basketball team.
Fifty years, a son and a daughter later, I get it.
Last week, the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics at Ole Miss celebrated 50 years of Title IX with a panel discussion that featured Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter, women’s basketball coach Yolette McPhee-McCuinn (better known as Coach Yo) and Rita Igbokwe, a senior player at Ole Miss women’s basketball team. I moderated. You can find it here.
If nothing else, the discussion certainly highlighted the remarkable change in the American sports scene that those 37 words have spurred. I have lived it. I have it covered.
In 1972, no co-ed Mississippi college or university had a single women’s athletic team. Since then, Delta State has won six national women’s basketball championships. Ole Miss has won a national championship in golf. Mississippi State has made it to the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship twice. Southern Miss made the women’s College World Series in softball. In track and field, USM’s Tori Bowie of Pisgah won NCAA track and field championships and later an Olympic gold medal and three world championships. Last season, Coach Yo’s Ole Miss team won 23 games and reached the NCAA Tournament.
More importantly, over the past 50 years, thousands upon thousands of young women have competed in multiple sports and had their educations funded like never before.
In more than half a century of covering Mississippi sports, the two most significant transformations I have witnessed: One, the widespread racial integration of sports at all levels; two, the meteoric rise of women’s athletics.
50 years ago I think I would have predicted what has happened in terms of integration. As for what has happened in terms of women’s athletics, I didn’t have a clue.
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