On day of its historic passage, CCCAA Executive Director Jennifer Cardone reflects on the importance of Title IX in her life
(The following column appears in the latest CCCAA Newsletter, available here. To nominate someone for Title IX recognition, please visit the CCCAA Title IX Nomination page here.)
By Jennifer Cardone, CCCAA Executive Director
Pitcher, Middle Island Youth Athletic Association
I was born in 1968, four years before the passage of the law and I’m not sure of when I first became aware of Title IX. I’m almost positive I had no idea of its existence when I started playing organized baseball for the then-called Middle Island Youth Athletic Association at the age of seven, along with a handful of other girls. The community where I grew up was very diverse, so it’s not surprising to me that they allowed girls to play sports, even on boys teams. I don’t know if Title IX was the impetus, or if it was just forward-thinking parents who made it possible, but I’m infinitely appreciative.
I played a lot of different sports with the neighborhood kids such as football, hockey, tennis, and basketball. I played three sports in high school – soccer, basketball, and softball – and as you know, I played softball in college. I also played one tennis match for Adelphi University, but my softball swing got in the way of me having any chance of being successful in that match! The athletic opportunities I was given gave me the confidence to know that I could do anything a boy could do and it taught me to deal with adversity. Aside from the usual things that sports teach us like accountability, winning and losing with grace, trying your best and still making an error or two, teamwork etc., it gave me a thick skin since not everyone was as accepting of a girl on a boys baseball team, especially after that girl struck them out.
As I’ve said many times, I went to college to play softball. My parents didn’t graduate from high school and most of my sibling didn’t attend college. Had I not had the opportunity to play softball, I’m positive I wouldn’t have gone to college either. I can’t put into words how pivotal attending college was for me and it’s all because of Title IX, which I didn’t even learn about until I reached Adelphi.
I’m certain that my college coach, Janet Ficke, spoke to us about Title IX but I was concentrating on being a student-athlete and didn’t give it the respect it deserved. My first memory of hearing about Title IX came when I entered my professional life at the University of Nebraska in 1994 and worked for Dr. Barbara Hibner (Associate AD/SWA). Dr. Hibner constantly told me the history of Title IX or some part of it, weekly, if not daily, but I still don’t think I understood its magnitude and importance until I became involved with the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators (now Women Leaders in College Sports).
My introduction to this organization, whose focus was to help advance women in intercollegiate sport administration, occurred when the modern-day pioneers of women’s athletics descended on Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1995 to host the first NACWAA Fall Classic Women’s Volleyball Tournament in 1995. I had heard their names from Dr. Hibner, and I remember feeling fortunate to be in the same room with them, and very thankful to each of them for paving the way for me to be in a position to get paid to work in sports!
Fortunately, my boss at UC Davis, Pam Gill-Fisher, made it a priority for me to attend NACWAA’s convention and related events during the 10 years I worked for her. Those events allowed me to interact, engage and learn from them, especially about Title IX. I was exposed to the likes of Jane Betts, Marcia Saneholtz, Marilyn McNeil, Jennifer Alley, Christine Grant, Sharon Taylor, Karol Kahrs, Peg Bradley-Doppes, Charlotte West, Judy Sweet and many others. That exposure, those conversations, and the time and passion they gave to us, has been instrumental in my development, not only as a person but as a woman in college sports.
I don’t think anyone is surprised that athletics have been central to my career, and I know that I have Patsy Mink, and other legislators and trailblazers, to thank for providing the opportunities that I and millions of other girls and women in sport have been given.
We still have work to do! It’s our job, our responsibility to make sure that we continue our work in ensuring that no person is excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination, based on their sex. We owe it to those who worked tirelessly to enact the law. We owe it to those who created the opportunities because of that law, and we owe it to those who come after us, to make sure that those opportunities remain and that they improve.