Title IX: Icons warn of complacency amid law’s success

KNOXVILLE, TENN. » Some of the giants of women’s basketball say if not for Title IX, doors would not have been open for them to blaze trails to Hall of Fame careers on and off the court, but sound complacency alarms when it comes to the future of the law.

Coach Marsha Sharp takes it a step farther when talking about the significance of Title IX.

“I think the Title IX legislation, you could say is the most impactful piece of information in the 20th century,” said Sharp, who guided Sheryl Swoopes and Texas Tech to the 1993 national championship. “And I know the Civil Rights piece was really huge, but you impacted half our population.

“With Title IX, you gave opportunities across the board to women. And it was really an amazing time to watch the growth in sports.”

A 2003 inductee, Sharp joined 2008 Hall of Famer Debbie Ryan and a pair of recent inductees — Debbie Antonelli and Carol Stiff — in speaking with The Associated Press about the 50th anniversary of the landmark legislation. Stiff, a basketball player/coach turned TV executive, called Title IX priceless.

“I don’t know where we would be today without Title IX,” Stiff said.

The icons of the game also agree more work remains even after 50 years.

“There’s a lot of battles, but we’re not fighting them,” said Ryan, who coached Virginia to three straight Final Fours. “And that’s one of the problems. I think because of the money that’s come into the game, it becomes harder for a coach to kind of put themselves out there. And I think even though they know who’s going to win, they just don’t do it as much.”

At least one of Ryan’s former players has been outspoken. Dawn Staley, now the highest-paid coach in the Southeastern Conference, is front and center helping fight for equity while leading South Carolina to two national championships.

For Sharp and Ryan, they worked their way through the nascent days of Title IX to the heights of women’s basketball.

Sharp played at Wayland Baptist, a Texas program giving scholarships in the 1950s with a local company flying the team to games. So while most women’s programs could only dream of flying to road games, it was nothing new for Sharp when she became coach at Texas Tech in 1982. Sharp’s Red Raiders played a national schedule with flights to Tennessee and Stanford.

At Virginia, Ryan had to stay awake to drive the van home from road games. Virginia started with one scholarship for basketball with the first player leaving after a year to care for her sick father. In 1978, Dori Gamble shared that scholarship with Hall of Famer Val Ackerman, currently commissioner of the Big East and the first president of the WNBA.

Using Title IX meant picking battles to get more athletic gear, equipment and facilities for female athletes.

One of Ryan’s biggest battles was for athletic bras.

Virginia cited a price of $32 apiece to avoid buying them for all women’s sports until Ryan pushed back with studies about women’s health along with a petition backed by all coaches, including football coach George Welsh. After she won, Pat Summitt, Kay Yow, Jody Conradt and Tara Vanderveer all called for guidance to help wage their own fights.

And probably surprising to many, the fight for athletic bras continues.

“Still today women athletes are not provided in their regular gear athletic bras,” Ryan said. “They’re not provided it at all, which is ridiculous. And it’s crazy that they’re not provided enough funding to be able to buy them.”

Antonelli, who played basketball for Yow at North Carolina State, started the first TV broadcasts of women’s games at Ohio State as director of marketing in the 1990s that boosted her own 30-plus year career as a broadcaster. She sees plenty of room for women’s sports to grow — as long as the money for diversity, equity and inclusion is used appropriately.

“It should go to women’s sports,” Antonelli said. “There’s more opportunities for girls to play now than they’ve ever played then there’s ever been now. They’re not all playing my sport, but they are playing. And that’s important because we know what value sport brings, what it teaches.”