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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Girls Sports Have Come A Long Way

Pauline Scholten San Francisco Examiner

The headline, “Mustangs On Top Again,” caught my eye. But it was the photograph that held my attention.

It showed two young women in full stride, elbows flying and faces set with concentration as they pursued a soccer ball.

The story related how the Mustang girls of Lincoln High School, my alma mater in San Francisco’s Sunset District, beat Lowell High School’s team 3-0 to win the All-City soccer title.

For the first time in my life, I found myself thinking “Go Mustangs!” - and really meaning it.

Back when I attended Lincoln a little over 25 years ago, no girls were allowed on any of the school’s interscholastic athletic teams: For football, soccer, track, basketball, tennis, baseball and swimming, it was boys only.

If you saw a female on the playing field, she was carrying pompons. We were taught a woman’s place was in the bleachers, cheering when the guys scored and singing the school’s fight song: “We are the Mustangs, the mighty, mighty Mustangs.” But it wasn’t enough that we were banned from the sports program.

During my sophomore year, the school’s football coach decided that girls had a detrimental effect on his athletes. He announced that any player who was discovered to have a girlfriend would be cut from the team.

Girlfriends were forced out of sight for the rest of the season.

Girls were allowed to compete on Lincoln’s playing field but once a year - for the annual Powder Puff Football Game. Seniors competed against juniors in a touch football game before an audience of students and faculty.

During my senior year, I was talked into playing.

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” said my friends.

And it was fun. For the audience. They roared with laughter as we fumbled the ball, crashed into one another, threw pathetic passes and slipped on the soggy field.

Along the sidelines, boys in very bad cheerleader drag led yells in girlish voices. More amusement.

Our coach, captain of Lincoln’s football team, shook his head in disgust every time we dropped yet another pass.

By the end of the game, I felt fairly disgusted too. It was clear the audience had come not to cheer but to laugh at the freakish sight of young women, with no training or equipment, attempting to play a boy’s game.

In 1972, a year after my graduation from Lincoln, Congress passed Title IX of the Education Amendments Act. It banned all forms of discrimination and unequal treatment against females in federally funded education. Including athletics.

Because of Title IX, opportunities for girls and women to participate in athletics have grown steadily during the past 25 years. Nationwide, about 36 percent of high school varsity athletes are female.

More young women than ever before are experiencing the health, academic and leadership benefits of sports. Women have still not reached parity with men, particularly when it comes to athletic funding and scholarships, but compared to 1972, we’ve come a long way.

It also makes me want, finally, to join in the Lincoln fight song: “We are the Mustangs, the mighty, mighty Mustangs!”

xxxx