They’ve played on sports teams since they were little girls, never questioning their right to wear the uniform and compete. They dreamed of playing in college, and they know that once they get the opportunity, they don’t want to squander it with a single-minded focus on athletics. They are irritated by ignorant comparisons with male athletes; they bond with their teammates like family, even though they don’t always like them; and they pay attention to what their college experience is all about.
They are female student-athletes in 2008.
They are radically different from the female student-athletes who charted new ground when Title IX created previously unimagined opportunities in 1972.
They respect their forebears, but they stop short of reverence. They want women to have coaching opportunities, but they want the best coaching they can get for themselves, regardless of which gender provides it. They are comfortable in defining what constitutes a quality athletics experience – and then making it happen.
They are, in many ways, a break from the past.
The next generation
Marie Godwin discovered her love of volleyball through her mother, Stacy Godwin-Lemke, a former volleyball student-athlete at Minnesota. Godwin, like many of her peers, tried every sport she could at least once and settled on volleyball just before high school.
Brooke Baker’s mom coaches volleyball and also played as a college student at Grand Canyon, wearing the same uniform number as her daughter.
Both of Jessica Maier’s parents played sports, as did all of her older brothers and sisters, before Jessica started playing field hockey for Notre Dame (Maryland).
Stories such as these – young women who point to their mothers and older sisters as their sports role models – are only recently possible. In the 1980s and even the early 1990s, women were more likely to be the first females in their families to participate in athletics.
Many young women like Godwin, Baker and Maier can’t remember a time when they weren’t interested in athletics. They played with boys in youth leagues, and many tried a variety of sports before settling on a favorite. Unlike their female predecessors, they never had to fight for the right to play.
Allison Houseal, who plays water polo at Maryland, said it’s almost impossible for her and her peers to picture being denied athletics opportunities because they’ve had so many their whole lives.
The abundance of opportunity has led to a transformation of women’s sports. Competition is keener, women are more specialized and the games are evolving rapidly. As girls play sports at a younger age, they develop skills as elementary school students instead of high school students. With club sports (an increasingly common choice for those who aspire to college careers) making athletics involvement year-round, girls are constantly working, improving and growing as athletes.
When Rutgers second baseman Brittany Loisel first played club softball, there were three teams in her area at her age level. Six years later, a family friend participates in the same league that has grown to 25 teams.
“My old coach would tell us constantly how lucky we were to be in the position we were in and live at the time we were living,” she said.
Title IX brought funding and, more slowly, respect for women’s sports. “I think it had to be extremely difficult, but also somewhat empowering (to be a female athlete before the Title IX era),” said Loisel. “Women had to know what they were doing for women like us. They were paving the way for women like me to be able to participate without any heartache or injustice.”
But the way that was paved has taken a detour. A study on women in intercollegiate athletics done by Brooklyn College researchers Linda Carpenter and Vivian Acosta notes that 42.8 percent of women’s teams were led by a female coach in 2008, down from 90 percent in 1972, the year Title IX was enacted.
Those statistics play out in stories told by student-athletes, too. Erin Wojtkun, a soccer player from Christopher Newport, was part of the search committee formed to help replace her team’s coach. When the school ultimately hired a woman, some of her teammates were nervous. They’d never been coached by a woman and didn’t want to start in college.
“People were concerned about getting along with her, is it going to be different (than with their male coaches),” Wojtkun said. “Sometimes, a male coach will be easier on you because they don’t understand (the female psyche). But it doesn’t matter (which gender coach) is on the sideline.”
Sherraine Pencil, who runs track at San Diego State, has both male and female coaches, and she sees a different coaching style from each. Her female coach is more strict and challenging. Pencil theorized that the coach feels the need to be more severe to be taken as seriously as her male peers.
“I sometimes feel that because our female coach is the only female on staff, she has to show an authoritative image to be respected, especially dealing with an all-female team,” Pencil said. “The male coaches are more laid back.”
Many women, however, say they don’t prefer a coach of one gender over the other, though they do note differences. Kendra Eaton, a basketball player at Western Carolina, had only two female coaches in her entire athletics career. The first was her eighth-grade coach; the second was Kellie Harper at Western Carolina. Eaton said she doesn’t prefer one gender over the other, but she feels as if she can relate better to a female coach.
“Both male and female coaches want to win,” she said. “I like the type of coach who wants to win, has a reputation of winning and can make you better not only as a player but as a person.”
Outside competition
NCAA research shows that Division I female student-athletes are less likely to want to spend extra “found” time on their sport than their male counterparts (see table on page 41) and are more academically engaged than the men.
Loisel said she sees the difference in priorities between genders, but theorized that because men have more of an opportunity to play their sport professionally after college graduation, perhaps the focus on athletics among her male peers is warranted.
“If I was playing football and knew I was going to the (NFL) and would be successful, I’d be more concerned with football than academics,” she said. “For me, my education is more important because it’s going to bring me my career. If you’re an athlete and you’re preparing for a professional athletics career, then that should be your priority in college. But I do think that sometimes there is no balance at all.”
Many female student-athletes strive for balance in their college years. Especially in Divisions II and III, they appear to want to be a part of campus life beyond athletics. They participate in student government and other leadership programs; they find new student clubs to make their campus more unified; and they join sororities, do volunteer work and earn academic honors.
While some women do want to focus on their sport and school, many choose to find the time for a variety of activities that get them involved in the communities and their campuses. They see their sport as the vehicle that got them to campus, and now they are responsible for taking advantage of that opportunity whenever possible. They know that the likelihood of a professional career in athletics is small, and they want to create a broad base of experiences on which to build their futures.
But they still have pride in their athletics skill, want to be recognized for their abilities and believe that sports will always be a part of their lives.
‘You throw like a girl!’
Perhaps for that reason, they appear less tolerant of harsh comparisons with male athletes. The barb can be positioned several ways: that their style of play is not as fast or powerful, or the crowds are not as big. Regardless, today’s women are weary of the comparisons and maybe more willing to challenge outright slights.
“What is so bad about throwing like a girl?” a young Loisel wondered while growing up in Arizona. She could throw pretty hard. And she knew that some of the top softball players could strike out Major League Baseball players. As a youngster, the comment shaped her self-image: that somehow she wasn’t as good as a boy.
Over time, though, her attitude toward the statement – and comparisons with male athletes in general – evolved to become almost like a challenge. She and other girls she knew adopted the taunt. Yes, we throw like girls, they acknowledged, and we can probably throw better, harder and faster than you.
Loisel calls the comparisons with men “ridiculous,” especially links between baseball and softball. To get to collegiate-level competition, an athlete’s talent, commitment and skill must be phenomenal, regardless of gender. That the two genders are even compared could be taken as a perverse compliment, Loisel said. At least, it indicates that people are paying attention.
“Women in general and female athletes have evolved so much and have begun to play at just as high a level as men,” she said. “(The comparison) is almost a tribute to how much we’ve grown.”
But some women would rather avoid the comparison. Chrissy Lewis, a recent Vassar graduate, played soccer as a youngster. But when it came time for her to specialize, she went with field hockey.
She admits that, in retrospect, she did not excel at soccer. Field hockey offered her a chance to start over. No one played the sport until middle school anyway, so everyone was starting from scratch. But she said one reason she pursued the sport past high school was that no male equivalent of field hockey was available. She would never have to be compared to a male athlete.
Lewis also played club rugby in college. Unlike many sports, the men’s and women’s rules are exactly the same. But they don’t present the same way, Lewis said, and people would point that out to her.
“The style of play changed a lot, and we’d always hear that the men’s game is just more interesting than the women’s game,” she said. “Not having that comparison (in field hockey) was, I thought, freeing.”
But many female student-athletes do have to live with that comparison, and they are frustrated by what they see as a lack of acknowledgment and appreciation for their effort, their talent and their own style.
“We work just as hard as the men’s team, and yet people say, ‘This is how girls play basketball. This is how girls play tennis. It’s not as good as the guys,’” said Jennifer Chow, a tennis player at Cal Poly Pomona. “The way we work is no different than the way the guys work. Just because our style is different when we step on the court on game day doesn’t mean we deserve less credit. That’s a stereotype that needs to stop.”
Eaton and Wojtkun see how these attitudes translate into attendance. Men’s events typically draw more fans. Women student-athletes, however, often see friends, family, some local girls’ teams and a lot of empty seats at their games. They don’t understand why they don’t get the same support.
“It’s an interesting challenge, even as competitive as the women’s teams are,” Wojtkun said. “I can’t tell you why (the support is so different). I love women’s sports. I’m a big fan. I hope eventually it will start evening out, but I don’t think it will ever be at the same level.”
Go team!
If attendance is a challenge, female student-athletes are likely to face it and other tests together – as a team. For female student-athletes, the team is a powerful unit, no matter the level. The team is what works together to win or falls apart to lose. Women in all three divisions use words such as “family” and “respect” to define their relationships with teammates.
The family analogy is apt. Teammates don’t always get along, don’t always enjoy each other’s company and don’t always like each other. But ultimately they are all there for a common purpose, and they most often put aside their differences to achieve that goal.
They use expressions such as “keep off-field issues off the field” and “always have each other’s back.”
“You treat your girls like your family when you’re on the field,” said Lewis the Vassar field hockey player. You love them and hate them and fight them and cry with them. There’s a huge amount of emotional bonding that goes on, and a lot of that has to do with the physicality of your body. You’re actually physically looking out for your friend.”
Whether that bond transcends the one that male student-athletes have for one another is anybody’s guess. However, observers can draw conclusions about the nature of the bond by watching how college athletes react to trauma, such as knee injuries. With women, the teammates are often visibly upset. Tears are common, and they go out of their way to comfort their injured cohort. Men are much less demonstrative.
Lewis, who made some of her best friends on Vassar’s field hockey team, said her athletics relationships will last a lifetime. She said winning a game with 22 of her friends is an experience that is amplified many times over because of how they feel about each other.
“It’s one of the best feelings in the world, and why being on a team with women is so wonderful. You share the wins and you share the losses,” she said. “A big win is wonderful, especially when it’s followed by a sweaty group hug, everyone kissing and hugging. It’s one of the greatest feelings in the world because you share it.”
It’s uniquely female and it’s powerful. Let’s hope some things about being a female student-athlete never change.