Thoughts On Title IX And My Family

Today is the 50th anniversary of the passing of Title IX legislation. I thought I’d share a few personal thoughts on how it has affected my family.

Starting with the present day, my younger niece, Eva, will probably play tennis in college (note to university athletic personnel reading this - she’s good and so are her grades, so you might want to keep an eye on her). My older niece Mia played multiple sports in high school and now has had opportunities to work with the athletic department at UTA assisting the sports information department with communication initiatives related to its women’s teams.

When my sister, Missi, three years my junior, went to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Title IX had been in place for less than 20 years. The idea that a woman could earn induction into her school’s athletic hall of fame, as she did for her play on the volleyball and tennis teams, had barely emerged as conceivable.

It certainly wasn’t on most people’s radars when my mother set the family scoring record for a basketball game. In the mid-1950s, she scored 57 points for Christiansburg High School. They played in the old six-on-six format, with three members of each team on either side of the half-court line. The people who made those rules didn’t think females could handle the rigors of the full-court game. Let me tell you, my 87-year old mom could still get out on the fast break today.?

And, in fact, Frances Smith Olson still has eligibility left, because post-secondary sports opportunities barely existed for women then, even for those capable of putting up a 50-spot. By the time she got to Ohio State to teach and do graduate work in physical education, the Buckeyes had started to gradually involve women in sports and she served as their head tennis coach in the mid-60s. They played mostly nearby schools, but they at least competed.

Athletics has proven the most visible of Title IX’s areas of impact. And certainly that’s been the case for my family. We all played everything we could, and my mom, dad, and sister all coached, too. We even used to have a Father’s Day tradition called the “Patriarch Games,” in which we competed in the likes of pickup sticks, hopscotch, and stoneface - all co-ed events, of course.

My father, Ed, aka “Pops,” initiated more than just backyard egg tosses, too. When he took over as athletic director and chairman of the physical education department at Texas Wesleyan, he realized some of the women in his PE classes had athletic talent and would benefit from an opportunity to utilize it. So he started the first women’s athletic programs at a four-year co-ed college in North Texas prior to the passage of Title IX. The school began with basketball and volleyball (he coached them himself in the early days) and later expanded to tennis and other sports.?

We think of Title IX as legislation that helped women, and certainly it did. But the men in our family have also benefitted from increased acceptance of women on fields and courts. My brother-in-law, Alex, met my sister playing co-ed volleyball. My dad formed lifelong bonds with women (and men) he coached at Wesleyan and now finds great joy in watching Eva frustrate her opponents with drop shot winners like the ones he used to hit.

For me, I loved having a sister with whom I could play two-square in the garage any time (we beat the heck out of the washer and dryer - sorry Mom and Pops). Taking her to the Y for pickup hoops always paid off, because the other team would have their weakest guy guard her and she would drain jump shots on him. I, like the rest of the clan, have always enjoyed watching my nieces play. And I even got to participate with my sister’s dachshund mix, Otis (yes, Otis was a girl), in wiener dog races at Billy Bob’s. She didn’t win or even actually finish, but doggone it, at least she had a chance to compete. R.I.P. Otis, who, unlike the rest of the family, admittedly preferred snoozing to sprinting.

My career has largely revolved around sports, and through it I have worked with many, many women who show every day how greatly the sporting world benefits from their presence in it. The idea that barriers to their participation, advancement, and, indeed leadership within the industry ever existed (and, to be sure, still exist) seems preposterous based on my own experiences. I started trying to make a list of the highly competent women with whom I have collaborated. It got way too long and I realized I would leave someone out. So I’ll just have to say that I, too, have benefitted from Title IX and the talent it helped introduce to my field. I get to interact with them every day to my betterment and that of the projects on which I work. In fact, it’s a lot like being part of a team. Or a family.

Rush Olson?creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities and brands through Rush Olson Creative & Sports, Mint Farm Films, and FourNine Productions. He co-writes an occasional?blog series?on the intersection of diversity and sports with his friend?Catalina Villegas. Read their work in Spanish on Catalina’s?LinkedIn profile?or in English on?Rush’s.