This year marks the 20th anniversary of the passage of Title IX, federal legislation that required schools and universities to provide women`s athletics programs that are on par with men`s programs.
Female athletes across the country will celebrate that
legislation and women`s athletic achievements in general on Thursday, the sixth annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day.
This year`s theme is ”Clearing the Hurdles: 20 Years of Title IX.”
A major observance is planned in Washington, where Donna de Varona, a former Olympic swimmer and gold medalist, now an ABC sportscaster, will give a press conference at Capitol Hill on women`s progress in sports.
Her speech will be part of a day of events in the capitol that will include the 4th annual basketball contest between a team of professional and Olympian female players and a team of congressmen.
De Varona, who lives in Connecticut, said Title IX especially benefited an estimated 150,000 female athletes who have been able to attend college on sports scholarships after the law was passed.
”Many of them were underprivileged, and they have gone on to become professionals,” she said.
Another benefit of new athletic opportunities for women has been improved physical fitness, De Varona said.
”There has been a tremendous change in attitude regarding the female athlete,” she said, because society in general is more accepting of female athletes, and the ideal of female fitness has changed.
Between 1972, when Title IX was passed, and 1990, the number of women participating in high school sports increased by almost 600 percent, according to the Women`s Sports Foundation, a New York-based national, non-profit educational organization.
But according to the organization, male participants in high-school and collegiate sports still outnumber female participants 2 to 1.
In the Chicago area, high schools will be noting National Girls and Women in Sports Day several ways, including holding luncheons for current and former female student athletes.
The Illinois High School Athletic Association has asked high-school sporting-event planners across the state to announce observance of the day at sporting events during the week.
Phyllis Holmes, the first female president of the NCAA, will give an overview on women in sports at a speech at the Aurora YWCA on Thursday.
She will speak at 7 p.m. at 201 N. River Rd., Aurora. Admission is free. Call 708-896-8588.
