For girls, Title IX brought about more than just the opportunity to play. It disrupted many ways of thinking that had harmed girls for centuries.

For my blog last week, journalist and sportscaster Melissa Isaacson talked about her childhood, one that straddled Title IX. Girls sports teams began to sprout up while she was in junior high school. The change was not only on the field, but in people’s minds.

“Before Title IX, people wrote off athletic girls as tomboys, even as lesbians, because of their interest,” Melissa says. “Girls who were interested in sports were considered manly. Society said, ‘Oh, you must be gay,’ and it wasn’t a compliment.”*

I’ve heard this idea about girls and sports from everyone I’ve interviewed. Girls dropped out of athletics in droves — or never even gave sports a try — for fear of being called gay.

And the fear of being stigmatized only grew stronger the older a girl got.

“Girls wouldn’t play in college because they were afraid they wouldn’t get a boyfriend,” Melissa says. “And if a girl was gay, she wasn’t talking about it. She was confused and wondering whether she just had girl crushes that would pass.”

Finally! Legit uniforms

But by the time Melissa began playing basketball, the idea of athletic females was evolving.

“We were not just okay, we were pretty good. We didn’t get picked on, although we were still kind of self conscious about our image,” Melissa says. “And, today, it’s not just okay,  it’s cool for a girl to be an athlete. Athletes are the popular kids.”

Of course, part of anyone’s image is what we choose to wear. And girls wanted uniforms!

At first, as girls stepped onto the field, the court and the diamond, they had to cobble together what they could for uniforms.

“There were no shoes for girls; we had to wear boys shoes. There were no sports bras, no pinnies, no school uniforms,” Melissa says.

Girls stuffed extra socks into boys basketball shoes and baseball cleats. They wore boys tennis shorts. They ironed numbers onto t-shirts. If girls had school uniforms, they had to share them from one seasonal sport to the next — soccer to basketball to softball. In some cases, they were given cast-off boys uniforms.

And, of course, there was the added complication of a woman’s menses.

“There were no such things as ultra-thin maxi pads or super-plus tampons,” Melissa recalled. “There were tampons and there were sanitary pads, which were roughly the width and thickness of your average hand towel and which did not fit inconspicuously in our teeny-tiny uniform shorts.”

Even so, Melissa was overjoyed when at Niles West High School in suburban Chicago, her basketball team finally got uniforms. The shirts weren’t cut for a girl’s shape, and she and her teammates struggled to pull on and move in the stiff, badly cut polyester shorts. But none of that mattered to Melissa.

“To be important enough to represent our school was staggering to me,” Melissa says. “It was as exciting as if I had Team USA written across my shirt.”

Words to play by

As Melissa entered high school, an invigorating and growing women’s movement was rocking the nation. Women were finding their voice and reveling in it. Melissa’s basketball team adopted a hit song from 1972 for their walk-up music, Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman.”**

I am woman, hear me roar

In numbers too big to ignore….

I am strong

I am invincible

I am woman!

Those lyrics came back instantly to me when I read about the song in Melissa’s book, State. Even though I wasn’t athletic, I’m a product of that time, too!

Those words took Melissa’s team to the state championships in 1979. In that memorable championship, Melissa’s team faced East St. Louis, a team with a 32-1 record and a big-name player — Jackie Joyner. You know, Jackie Joyner (Kersee), who went on to win six Olympic track and field medals.  

They had their work cut out for them! More anon.

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* Quotes in the present tense (says) are from my telephone interview with Melissa Isaacson on April 19, 2022. Quotes in the past tense (said) are from her book, State: A Team, A Triumph, A Transformation (Chicago: Agate Midway, 2019). https://amzn.to/3yBR0cf

** Helen Reddy wrote the lyrics to “I Am Woman,” with composer Ray Burton, who actually had the idea for the song. He said to Reddy:  “After watching and listening to you and your lady friends’ views on equality for all women, I believe this issue is a going to be huge, don’t you agree? Helen said, ‘Of course it is, because it’s bloody well right!’” Robert McKnight, “’Insulted’: Co-writer of  I AM WOMAN angry at rewriting of history in new film.” TV Blackbox (August 9, 2020). https://bit.ly/3PNNdPs