VOLUME 1, CHRONICLE 6, NATIONAL WOMEN & GIRLS IN SPORT DAY 2024, let me tell you, my granddaughters, a story from the steps: This isn’t meant to be about athletics, though it is about women in athletics. Women who helped pave the way for you to be who you want to be, stay at home mom, teacher, engineer, President of the USA or a global icon in your chosen field of endeavor. This Wednesday, February 7, is National Women & Girls in Sport Day, a day which should be celebrated but I’m not sure any of these ladies will be mentioned. If not, it will be because in today’s age if there’s not video or it happened before the cable TV boom, people think life didn’t exist. Or some of the male species in the media & other places, threatened by the slightest flex of female strength, will ignore the day with all that’s inside them. Or they could even be a Southern Baptist like us & never dare give thought to where our mission efforts would be without indomitable mavericks like Annie Armstrong & Lottie Moon so they never wonder where women’s sports would be without its indomitable mavericks. Ladies like multi sport star Babe Didrickson Zaharias, Patty Berg & 11 others that founded the LPGA golf tour, tennis pioneer Althea Gibson & Wilma Rudolph & the fleet footed Tigerbelles of Tennessee State.
Those nine women in black & white, 7 Americans & 2 Aussies, that had the courage in 1970 to start a women’s professional tennis circuit known as The Virginia Slims Tour. In 1973, it would become the Women’s Tennis Association & give a stage for talents like Evert, Navratilova, Graf, & the Williams sisters. In September of that year, one of the nine, Billie Jean King, faced a man named Bobby Riggs in a nationally televised tennis “Battle of the Sexes”. She kicked Mr. Riggs backside on the court & kicked the backside of some stereotypes off it. Fifteen months earlier, a 1972 law, 37 words known as Title IX, was passed to level the gender playing field. Without it, we’d have probably never heard of basketball coach Pat Summitt, that’s her on the upper left at the 1976 Olympics where she helped our country claim a silver medal. In 1974, she was named the head basketball coach of the Tennessee Lady Vols who competed in the AIAW, the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, because the always forward thinking (sarcasm intended) NCAA didn’t recognize women’s sports until 1983. Summit also drove the team van & washed the unis. The paid attendance at her first game & her age were both 22. She eventually claimed 1,098 wins & 8 NCAA titles. The girl in the pigtails is Kim Mulkey, she competed in the AIAW too. She won a gold medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics & is the only woman to win college championships as a player, assistant coach, & head coach. In 2023, Mulkey became the only NCAA coach, man or woman, to claim a basketball natty for two schools when she led LSU to her fourth title after 3 at Baylor. And then there’s your Jules, Miss Julie to the swim community. Title IX & the fact you could plant her & grow 40 acres of stubborn has allowed Papa to watch her hold her own & claim more than one CASL division swim title on pool decks scented with chlorine & too much testosterone. I’ve seen her, through aquatics, live out singer Jason Isbell’s lyric, “just find what makes you happy girl, & do it ‘til you’re gone”. Whatever you two do, I know you’ll do it well. Remember those that paved the way, find what your Creator made you for & you’ll find what makes you happy & be like Jules & plant a little stubbornness & do it ‘til you’re gone. Love, Papa