On Anne's Mind

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It's Time for Gender Inequity in Sports to Stop

March 28, 2021

As a journalist and former TV news and sports broadcaster, I have been covering girls' and women's fight for sports equity for nearly five decades. That's why I was infuriated but not surprised by the disturbing and blatant inequities between the facilities and even food (!) provided for male and female athletes competing at this year's NCAA March Madness college basketball tournaments.  

When female athletes and coaches used their social media power to showcase the differences, the NCAA began scrambling to apologize with excuses.  A "lack of space" was the explanation for female athletes given only a rack of dumbbells and a pile of yoga mats compared with the gigantic, fully-equipped weight room for the men. That was proven to be false, as a dramatically upgraded weight room for women "magically" appeared overnight. 

And how did the NCAA justify the dramatic differences in food, with men choosing from buffets while women were given boxed meals; the gold standard (PCR) of COVID testing for men's teams while a cheaper, less accurate (antigen) testing authorized for the women; and even the pettiness of including a 500 piece puzzle in the men's extravagant "swag bags," while women's much smaller offerings included a 150 piece puzzle? 

They couldn't, other than to admit it was "a mistake" and promise "a full investigation," once their hypocrisy was exposed. 

The disciminatory and disgraceful discrepancies created an uproar, once the athletes took to Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.  But they were not "an oversight," as the NCAA tried to claim.  They were business as usual.  

In 1974, two years after the passage of Title IX federal legislation that required schools to begin offering equal sports opportunities for girls, I reported on Little League baseball coaches, irritated to have to give girls the chance to try out for their teams, who required the girls to wear male athletic cups, claiming, "If you want to play with the boys, you need to dress like the boys." 

That same year, I covered a middle school track meet in Grand Rapids, Michigan where several female students went out for the school's track team, which had previously been only for boys.  I witnessed the determination and courage of the handful of teenage girls who endured taunts and jeers of parents who were terrified that their sons might be psychologically damaged if a girl happened to beat them in a race. 

A few years later, while working for CBS-TV in Detroit, I produced a 30-minute documentary, "Playing to Win, on the status of women's sports progress in Michigan, seven years after the passage of TITLE IX. 

During my research, I discovered that University of Michigan's legendary and powerful athletic director, Don Canham, was using Athletic Department funds to pay for legal challenges against Title IX.  He was furious that a young, female sports reporter dared to question him on that decision during my on-camera interview and called my station management to complain. His on-camera arrogance and irritation at his decisions behing challenged made great TV viewing, but barely budged his resistance to women's sports. 

That same year, the Michigan State Lady Spartans basketball team sued their own university over blatant Title IX violations.  I sat in a Grand Rapids District coutroom, listening as the athletes told of travelling to games crammed into stations wagons, sleeping two to a bed and four to a room and eating at McDonald's because of miserly per diems while the men's team stretched out in chartered buses and individual beds on road trips with generous food budgets. I witnessed the women practicing on a  court with buckets to catch water dripping from a leaky roof. 

The lead plaintiff in the "Hutchins vs. MSU Board of Trustees" lawsuit was Carol "Hutch" Hutchins, now the Hall of Fame women's softball coach at the University of Michigan. 

My memories are just of few of the thousands, probably millions of examples of the inequities, obstacles and resistance that girls and women have faced over our nearly 50 year fight for the equity in sports opportunity that Title IX required.  It is long past time for the pathetic charade of equity to be revealed and ended. Men's sports didn't start out as geese all laying golden financial eggs. Their popularity and fan base and pipeline of athletes have been built over a century of investment, beginning with school teams and coaches and nurtured with scholarships and hundreds of millions in marketing. 

World Cup Champion Soccer Player Megan Rapinoe testified during recent Congressional hearings on Equal Pay Day that we still don't know the real potential of women's sports. "What we know is how successful  women's sports have been in the face of discrimination, in the face of a lack of investment in every level in comparison to men." 

The sports gender inequities that still exist today are gigantic and, according to the sports advocacy non-profit Champion Women, include: 

-- Non-compliance with federal laws by too many high school and college sports programs 

-- Sexual assault issues, as high school and colleges too often are more concerned with protecting athletes accused of sexual assault than ensuring a safe campus environment

-- Women coaches face discriminatory employment practices, particularly in colleges, receiving for less pay than their male counterparts and locked out of the marketplace for coaching men's teams while nearly 60% of women's college teams are now coached by males. 

I applaud the female athletes and coaches who refused to quietly accept second class treatment. They are continuing the work of the of the girls and young women whom I witnessed stepping onto fields and tracks where they were not wanted, ignoring harassment and insults and even suing their own universities all for opportunities our culture teaches boys to take for granted. 

 So let's celebrate how far we've come, thanks to the multitude of leaders who have stood up for decades for the promise of Title IX. Let's keep pushing for the sports equity through organizations such as CHAMPION WOMEN.  And don't forget to thank the NCAA, as Georgia Tech coach Nell Fortner so eloquently did, for exposing its true colors. 

"To the NCAA: Thank you! And thank you to the next generation of female athletes who are unwilling to accept discriminatory and disrespectful treatment and have the social media power to expose it! Thank you for using the three biggest weeks of your organization's year to expose exactly ho wyou feel about women's basketball -- an afterthought. It's time for women's basketball to receive the treatment it has earned. Thank you for exposure."  Nell Fortner

Enjoy this year's women's NCAA March Madness Basketball Championships. I'm picking Baylor to give UConn a run for its money! 

Not Since Billie Jean and Bobby

July 14, 2019

 

Where were you when Megan Rapinoe, captain of the USA Soccer team (let the men use the defining gender adjective), took one deep breath, moved her body to the right and kicked left, powering a penalty kick past Holland's brilliant goalkeeper to break a 0-0 deadlock in the championship game of the 2019 World Cup? 

Where were you a few minutes later when midfielder Rose Lavelle wove her way through multiple defenders to score a legendary, solo goal, putting her team up 2-0 and assuring USA Soccer its 4th World Cup? 

Did you get goosebumps, as I did, listening to the sold-out stadium crowd chanting not just "USA, USA", at the end, but "EQUAL PAY, EQUAL PAY!"

And where were you when pink-haired Rapinoe, captain of this brash, confident team that has strutted onto the world stage and earned a permanent place in our hearts, took the podium, following a ticker tape parade in New York's "Canyon of Champions," and challenged all of us to seize this euphoric national moment as an opportunity to come together and move our society forward? 

"We have to be better. We have to love more. Hate less. We've got to listen more and talk less," she told the cheering crowd. "There has been so much contention in these last few years. . . It is time to come together. This conversation is at the next step."

THE "CONVERSATION" she's talking about is much bigger than sports victories. Rapinoe, Lavelle, Alex Morgan and their teammates all understand very clearly the platform they have achieved and the responsibility they have embraced to use their voices and influence, not only to fight for equal pay, but to hold our culture's feet to a much bigger fire: GENDER EQUALITY. 

As Rapinoe put it, "Yes, we play sports.  Yes, we play soccer.  Yes, we are female athletes, but we are so much more than that. . . We have pink hair and purple hair. We have tattoos. Dreadlocks. We got white girls and black girls and everything in between! Straight girls and gay girls." 

NOT SINCE BILLIE JEAN KING SILENCED Bobby Riggs and his chauvinistic blatherings about male superiority with her 1973 tennis victory in the legendary "Battle of the Sexes, witnessed by millions, has there been a defining sports moment that has so stunningly toppled deeply-ingrained gender stereotypes and instantly changed the conversation about women's place in the world. We are in a new place. 

But there is a critical difference that sets the long-term impact of this 2019 World Cup moment apart from the accomplishment of Billie Jean King, who was also fighting for equal pay for women's tennis. BJK did it alone. She was a powerful and inspiring symbol of possibility for a generation of girls (me included). A solitary, super woman.   

But USA Soccer's achievement was a team victory. An example to the world of what powerful, talented focused women working collectively can accomplish. Black girls, white girls, straight girls, gay girls and everything in between! They are the affirmation, as USA Today sports columnist Christine Brennan put it, of "...all the goodness that comes from raising another generation of strong, intelligent, fearless and successful women through sports." 

If you missed the games, you missed something very special. But you will not miss the cultural impact of what these leaders have done. Because they are as clear about the power of their voices and their right to use them to demand equality as they are about the power of their strong bodies and ability to defeat whatever obstacles are thrown at them. 

AND HERE'S THE BEST PART. USA Women's Soccer is merely a symbol of things to come. The tip of icebergs of new generations of women -- Millennials and Gen Z's and their daughters -- who will not settle for second class status. 

This Baby Boomer is thrilled to pass the leadership torch. But I have no intention of retiring from the fight. I will cover their flanks and have their backs as we collectively move forward toward our shared goal: Equality for all!

The Time is Always Right to Do What is Right

April 6, 2018

On this  50th anniversary of the assassination of American Civil Rights Leader Martin Luther King, Jr, media outlets are replaying segments of his most famous speeches, including the "I've Been to the Mountaintop" prophetic speech he gave in Memphis, Tennessee the night before his death. Listening to his hopeful reminder that "Only in the darkness can you see the stars," I find myself thinking of the new stars that are shining fresh light on today's darkness. 

Today's social justice warriors are: 

Grieving high school students fighting for their lives. 

Outraged athletes taking a knee against racial violence.  

And courageous, young, gymnasts confronting an evil, sexual predator.

I believe that each of us has multiple opportunities throughout our lives to help move humanity forward. Some require only very small steps outside our comfort zones; others, gigantic, scary leaps. I've learned that the important thing is to recognize them for what they are: opportunities to help inch humanity forward on the long,moral arc toward justice.  

We have a magnificent, story-telling event in Detroit -- The Secret Society of Twisted Storytellers -- that was created by storyteller, entertainer and truth-seeker Satori Shakoor, with the goal of "Transforming lives one story at time."

Satori chose Justice & Grace as the theme for last month's stories, and gave me the privilege of taking the audience back to the late 1970's and early 80's when I was one of the first female, TV sports reporters to walk through the doors of professional sports locker rooms.

To come with me, click here. 

When opportunities to make a positive difference knock for you, I hope you will open the door and let them in. And after you do, share your story. Because, it will inspire others to find their courage, as well.  Anne 

The Time is Always Right to Do What is Right

April 5, 2018

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the assassination of American Civil Rights Leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Many media outlets are replaying segments of his most famous speeches, including the "I've Been to the Mountaintop" prophetic speech he gave in Memphis, Tennessee the night before his death. Listening to his hopeful reminder that "Only in the darkness can you see the stars," I find myself thinking of the new stars that are shining fresh light on today's darkness. 

Today's social justice warriors are: 

Grieving high school students fighting for their lives. 

Outraged athletes taking a knee against racial violence.  

And courageous, young, gymnasts confronting an evil, sexual predator.

I believe that each of us has multiple opportunities throughout our lives to help move humanity forward. Some require only very small steps outside our comfort zones; others, gigantic, scary leaps. I've learned that the important thing is to recognize them for what they are: opportunities to help inch humanity forward on the long,moral arc toward justice.  

We have a magnificent, story-telling event in Detroit -- The Secret Society of Twisted Storytellers -- that was created by storyteller, entertainer and truth-seeker Satori Shakoor, with the goal of "Transforming lives one story at time."

Satori chose Justice & Grace as the theme for last month's stories, and gave me the privilege of taking the audience back to the late 1970's and early 80's when I was one of the first female, TV sports reporters to walk through the doors of professional sports locker rooms.

To come with me, click here. 

When opportunities to make a positive difference knock for you, I hope you will open the door and let them in. And after you do, share your story. Because, it will inspire others to find their courage, as well.  

SPORTS INOCUATE GIRLS AGAINST #METOO CULTURE

January 12, 2018

Participation in sports is one of the best ways I know to help inoculate our girls in preparation for the toxic culture they are growing up in. I'm a strong supporter of the Girls Changing the Game program of Detroit's PAL (Police Athletic League), which provides athletic opportunity and character building for 30,000 urban youth annually. Here's a great article in the Detroit News on why the opportunity to compete on sports teams and build confidence through physical activity is so important for our girls.

Gold Medal Sistering

April 13, 2017

If you know anything about construction, you know that beams and joists, be they wood or steel, are fundamental building blocks. But do you also know what the construction term"sistering" means? I just learned that "sistering" is all about making structural elements even stronger, by reinforcing them with additional support.

But sistering isn't just for construction. It's equally important for human progress. Significant social change demands not only individual bravery, the tenacity to stand your ground against inevitable resistance and, when necessary, the courage to fight for what is right. It also requires collective action -- standing shoulder-to-shoulder with others for greater impact and strength.  

If you're looking for modern-day examples, as I always am, look no further than the U.S. Women's Ice Hockey team whose members just taught a master class in the power of "Sistering." You may not know their story because even "big news" made by women is rarely given the media coverage it deserves. But the willingness of these world-class athletes to fight for fair compensation for their skills and to stand together for the development of women's hockey, led to one of the biggest leaps forward in the history of women's sports.   

In a nutshell, here's what happened. 

After years of pathetic compensation and disrespectful treatment by USA Hockey, the governing body of organized men's and women's amateur hockey, the U.S. womens' national hockey team threatened to boycott the IIHF World Championships just a few weeks before teams from Russia, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Canada were scheduled to face off in Plymouth, Michigan. The women took their stand, risking the right to defend their World Championship, after 14 months of negotiations had stalled.  

To no one's suprise, rather than addressing the athletes' very legitimate concerns, USA Hockey tried to form a replacement team, contacting dozens of pro, college and high school players all over the country. But to their credit, women hockey players, who normally would have jumped at such an opportunity, stood with their hockey sisters and refused to play.

Members of the U.S. Women's Soccer team, who've been embroiled in their own compensation fight for years, added their support. Then, new allies appeared. Players' unions from Major League Baseball, the NHL, NBA, NFL as well as the U.S. national men's team and the National Women's Hockey League threw their support behind the women's fight. Even 16 U.S. Senators weighed in with public support.

Because the women stood up and stood together for what they believed was right, just days before the World Championships were set to begin, they won a four-year contract with USA Hockey that was a stunning victory for women's hockey and gender pay equity. Before their fight, America's best female hockey players earned only $1,000 per month in the six-months leading up to the Olympic Games. With their new contract, they will earn $70,00 in non-Olympic years and could earn up to $100,000 for medal bonuses in Olympic years. They also won travel per diems and medical insurance comparable to the U.S. men's team.

But their fight wasn't just about money. It was about the next generation of girls. Your daughters and granddaughters. The new contract requires USA Hockey to dramatically increase its investment in girls' developmental teams, as well as marketing and pr for this growing sport.

“We’re going to be able to grow the women’s game and give youth girls something to look up to, and that’s huge,” team-member Megan Keller told the Detroit Free Press. "It's about the future."

I was lucky enough to be in the sold-out, standing-room-only USA Hockey Arena for the final championship game when Team USA met Team Canada -- their arch rival and the definding Olympic gold medalists. As a former sports reporter who covered the Title IX battles of courageous girls who were forced to wear athletic cups by Little League coaches enfuriated that girls had won the right to compete for spots on their teams, it was a thrill to witness how far women's hockey has come in its 30 year history. The speed of the game and skill of the athletes gave me goosebumps. 

And it's no surprise that the women who achieved this precedent-setting victory are athletes who play a TEAM sport which requires the willigness and toughness to fight for the puck and dish out as well as take your hits along the boards. The Americans had something to prove that night. Their skill, guts and courage were all on display as they won their 4th straight World Championship Gold medal with a 3-2 overtime victory. 

Social progress isn't for sissies. Nor is it for prima donnas or Queen Bees who prefer being the only woman in the room to helping open doors for others. It takes courage, tenacity and collective support -- sistering. As Megan Keller told reporters, "The thing I think of is how everyone stayed together, not just this team, but the college player pool, the younger girls, other sports chiming in. It was amazing to see. You don't think it's that big now. But years down the road, we are going to look back and think, wow, we did that."

This was just one victory in the ongoing war for gender equality in every arena and on every continent. At a time when it feels as if women's progress toward the full equality I dream of has taken two steps backward, it warmed my heart to see young girls at the championship game holding home-made signs up against the glass for players to see which read, "Thank you for being bold."

Take a page from these millenial American sheroes. As the hash tag urges, #Be Bold for Change.  

Onward!  Anne 

NASCAR'S Danica Patrick & Dad's Empower Daughters

February 25, 2013

Did you catch the change blowing in the wind at this year's Daytona 500?

It wasn't just that Danica Patrick shattered two more gender speed barriers. It was also the number of little girls, including daughters of some of NASCAR's most famous Dads, who have caught Danicamania. What does it all mean? Huge impact for our next generation of girls.  Here's what I wrote for Forbeswoman. 

Time For Sports To Stop Limiting Women to Sideline Eye Candy

January 24, 2013

As one of the first generation of women TV sports broadcasters, I had to weigh in on the controversy stirred up by ESPN broadcaster Brent Musburgur's recent on-air drooling over women fans and sideline reporters.  Here's the piece I wrote for Forbes.  

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