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Report card

By Dave Benson of The News-Sentinel



News-Sentinel photo
Opening doorsThe music world's loss was the sporting world's gain. Northrop High School softball player Amy Kendall would have concentrated on the piano instead of softball if it weren't for Title IX.

Amy Kendall's answer came as swiftly as her fastball travels when pitching for Northrop High School's softball team.

The question: How different would your life be without Title IX?

"I had a choice between playing softball and playing piano and continuing ballet," she said. "If it weren't for Title IX, I'd probably be heavily into choir, ballet and piano right now."

Before the passage of Title IX, many female athletes would have had to take the ballet route.

The Indiana High School Athletic Association, like many state athletic associations, did not sanction girls sports.

But nudged along by Title IX and separate court cases lodged against it, the IHSAA began sanctioning girls sports during the 1972-73 school year.

As it did for female collegiate athletics, Title IX, which celebrates it 30th anniversary Sunday, opened doors for female athletes at the high school level.

While athletic gender equity at the high school level in Indiana is excellent in some areas, a News-Sentinel study shows other areas need improvement.

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Areas of excellence

Girls' athletic participation has boomed nationally since the passage of Title IX. Only 294,015 high school girls played sports the year before Title IX's passage in 1972. The number of participants rose to 817,073 the following year and is now at almost 2.8 million.

Indiana currently ranks 15th nationally in the number of female participants at the high school level with 62,445, compared with 88,463 male participants.

Locally, the numbers show there are 5,024 girls athletes and 7,603 boys atletes. Girls receive 40 percent of the participation opportunities in the area. Ideally, the percentages of male and female athletes would be equal. But that may be impossible to accomplish because it's a matter of individual choice.

"The opportunities are there, and they're still growing," IHSAA Commissioner Blake Ress said. "But there comes a point where schools do all they can, and there is a limit."

One recent development that has had a profound effect on gender equity in Indiana has been the decision of some schools to practice equity in the scheduling of boys and girls basketball games -- girls will play on Friday night one week while boys play on Tuesday night. The teams swap game nights the next week. Other areas of the state have opted to play boys and girls doubleheaders.

Former East Noble Athletic Director Thomas Crist spearheaded the drive for gender equity in scheduling.

"We wanted to come up with a solution before the Office for Civil Rights got involved telling the programs how to make a plan," Crist said at the time. "We want to be proactive, not reactive in northeast Indiana.... This is the right thing to do."

Area school athletic directors met with Crist in January 1998 to discuss his plan. Once it met the approval of the athletic directors, a timetable was set and the plan went into effect during the 2000-2001 season.

"The girls are getting good crowds," Carroll High School senior basketball player Andy Papagiannis said.

"The band is coming to the girls' games now. We're sharing weekends now with the girls, and that's better. I liked it a few years ago when guys would play Friday-Saturday. I have to concentrate more on homework now, but it's changed and you have to adjust."

Another change has been increased revenue for girls basketball. The sport is reaping the benefits of playing on a prime night.

"That's because of the popularity of girls basketball," Snider High School Athletic Director Mike Hawley said. "The girls are drawing more now on Friday night than they would have on Saturday afternoon. Traditionally, our boys' gates were not that big on Saturday, about the same as they are now on Tuesday. Friday night is the big night, and girls were never a part of that."

With gender equity in game scheduling has come equity in other areas, such as practice scheduling, facility quality and equipment purchasing.

Boys and girls teams at the high school level often share facilities, so questions of facility inequity rarely come up.

Scheduling problems are solved by having teams practice on an alternating schedule.

The boys team may practice early one day while the girls team gets a later practice. The order is switched the next day.

Schools with two gymnasiums have different problems, but solve them the same way. A boys team may get to use the main gym one day while a girls team uses the less-spacious auxiliary gym. The practice sites are switched the next day.

Uniforms and equipment are purchased in the same manner.

"What we did with boys and girls basketball this year is we bought home jerseys for both boys and girls," Adams Central High School Athletic Director Rick Minnich said. "Next year, we'll buy the away jerseys for both teams. We try to do that with every sport, but we base it on need."

"It's more of a constant," South Side High School athletic director Jerry Amstutz said. "You're looking at scheduling of practices and games and purchases. You're constantly aware of trying to keep things on an even keel... The goal is to treat all athletes the same. You have to have the same type of practice equipment and game equipment, especially in the sports that parallel each other."

Pay for male and female coaches is relatively equal at the high school level. High schools in the Fort Wayne Community Schools system pay their coaches the same amount for the same sport.

For example, boys and girls basketball coaches were each paid $5,817 last year. Boys and girls golf, soccer, cross country, swimming, wrestling, gymnastics, track and tennis coaches made $3,163 in 2000-2001.

All head football coaches were paid $5,857 in the 2000-2001 school year. The amount paid may vary among school corporations.

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Areas needing improvement

There is a profound lack of women in positions of coaching and athletic administration at the high school level. The News-Sentinel covers 44 high schools in a multi-county area with a total of 717 boys and girls athletic teams. Only 116 -- or 16.2 percent -- of those teams are coached by women. Of the 44 schools in The News-Sentinel's coverage area, just three have a female athletic director.

Area schools have acknowledged the problem and think the coaching situation will improve.

"I hadn't really thought about that. But as I think about it, we only have one woman coach coaching a girls team," Minnich said. "The younger ones are coming. Women's sports are becoming more prevalent to the point that more and more women will want to become coaches."

Hawley would also like to see more women in coaching.

"I wish I could answer why there haven't been more women in coaching," he said. "It's not that I would rather have ladies working with girls sports. I would rather have the best person for the job. Our best scenario is to hire the best coach in the building. But I don't know if enough women who are getting into education want to coach to have that happen."

A second area where gender equity at the high school level could improve is its monitoring.

The Department of Education and the Office for Civil Rights have issued policy interpretations and clarifications in regards to Title IX and intercollegiate athletics. This has not been done at the high school level.

The Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act, which was passed in 1994 as a Title IX enhancement, requires schools to report data on their enrollments, number of student-athletes, amount of athletic financial aid, number of coaches, coaches' salaries, revenues, expenses, recruiting budgets and athletic department budgets.

There is no one requiring high schools to provide such information. Many high schools contacted by The News-Sentinel were unable and/or unwilling to compile such data, though all schools are supposed to have a Title IX coordinator.

Donna Lopiano, Executive Director of the Women's Sports Foundation, would like to see a change in this process.

"One thing the (Office for Civil Rights) can do is collect the same data at the high school level and post it online so people can see what's really going on."