When Title IX was passed in 1972, the law prohibited sexual discrimination in not only education, but it also ensured men and women would have equal opportunity in sports including coaching, sports offered, facilities and scholarships. Despite the passage, women and girls’ sports have often been lacking. Fortunately, the past few decades have seen tremendous improvements in opportunity and participation thanks to a variety of factors.
“Right now, at the professional level, we’re seeing growth in women’s sports like we’ve never seen in history. Everywhere we look across the industry, numbers are up and to the right,” said Caroline Fitzgerald, founder and CEO of GOALS, a consultancy and media platform that is dedicated to growing the business side of women’s sports.
Fitzgerald continued, “The 2024 Paris Olympic games are poised to be glass-shattering games for women athletes specifically. They will be the first in history to achieve numerical gender parity when it comes to athletes—meaning there will be the same number of female and male athletes competing,” she said. With the focus on so many female sports figures in the media on both professional and collegiate levels, the numbers of young women playing intramural, league and school sports are also affected and interwoven.
“It’s really important to build out the professional infrastructure of women’s sports so that young women and girls can see and have opportunities ahead of them in sports. If you can’t see it, you can’t be it, so having elite, professional women’s sports gives girls in sports something to strive for, should that be of interest to them,” Fitzgerald said.
At North Allegheny School District, sport offerings for young women have grown rapidly; they now have options in lacrosse, slow pitch softball, wrestling, and flag football. “We are dedicated to providing girls who are interested in sports find the opportunity to participate,” said Athletic Director Bob Bozzuto. North Allegheny believes that students should have multisport participation instead of specializing in one sport, so that students have the experiences that come with playing for different coaches, learning different skills, and having a variety of teammates—and those experiences should be equal for male and female students. “We want students to be able to explore different interests. In fact, we encourage that,” he said.
In 2022, North Allegheny became one of the first districts in the region to offer flag football as a sport for young women. “We always want to be on the beginning end of things,” Bozzuto said.
Michelle Ruiz serves as the coach for the girls’ flag football team in addition to her role as a health and physical education teacher at Marshall Middle School. A former high school athlete herself, Ruiz played powderpuff football and loves the game. When North Allegheny decided to become one of the first five teams in the region, Ruiz was a good fit. “I love the game, and I think sports are so important for all students, so it was natural,” Ruiz said. North Allegheny has two girls’ teams, and the games draw quite the crowds, according to Ruiz.
Girls’ flag football has grown exponentially in the region in just a couple of years. “If a district doesn’t have a team now, they will definitely have one in the near future,” she said.
Ruiz also serves as the director of the Just For Girls Sports Camp, a weeklong summer program for girls in second through sixth grades.“The program began as a way to introduce girls to different sports. We have female athletes from the varsity and junior varsity teams serve as counselors. These young women show the younger girls what their sport is all about,” Ruiz explained.
Now in its seventh year, the program started with about 60 girls and now numbers over 200. “Some of the counselors are girls who have moved up through the program,” she said.
Ruiz’s own daughter, Allyson, played flag football at North Allegheny, along with other sports and will be playing soccer at the collegiate level this fall. “Sports are so important for young people. I think for them to be on a team gives them something bigger than themselves, something to believe in,” Ruiz said, “Sports can help kids become more resilient and more confident.”
Leah Abbott, Ohio Township, played basketball in high school at Avonworth and at 41, is still physically active. Over the years, she has played basketball and dek hockey, and works out four to five times a week. “I believe participating in sports while I was younger laid the foundation to this routine in my life. Realizing how good exercise is not only for your physical health but more importantly your mental health is what drives me to continue to work out almost daily,” she said.
Abbott is now the mother of three, including two daughters, Harper, 10 and Sloan, 7, all active in sports. “Harper plays both in-house and travel dek hockey for Team Pittsburgh, swims for Avonworth Alligators and plays softball for Avonworth Softball. She made the U11 Girls Team Pennsylvania for dek hockey,” Abbott said. Sloan also participates in sports but has been sidelined this summer with an injury.
Abbott has experienced the foundation that sports offered her and its importance. “There are so many amazing opportunities for young women compared to when I was growing up. I love seeing these all-girl teams like ice hockey, dek hockey, golf, and more. I think these young women supporting each other and working hard on these teams is amazing. Why shouldn’t they have the same opportunities as boys?” she said. “Women’s sports are finally being recognized. It is showing these young women that they are enough and worthy thus leading to confidence and self-growth. Sports teach these young athletes so many life lessons- working hard towards a goal, taking criticism, being a gracious winner, time management, commitment, and so much more.”
Like Fitzgerald, Paige Beal, a professor of sports, arts, entertainment and music business at Point Park University, feels that women at the professional level in sports empower younger women to participate in sports—not just in playing, but in pursuing careers in all areas including behind-the-scenes roles such as public and community relations, marketing, management, sponsorship and foundation roles. “We now have more women than men in college, and a lot more women are involved and interested in sports in general. It makes sense that they would want to find a profession in what they are interested in,” she said.
Circling back to the benefits of participating in sports, Beal credits her own sports background in high school with providing her with skills that have served her well in her former career in media. “I was a beneficiary of Title IX and played sports in high school. The confidence that I gained, learning how to work on a team, how to communicate—it all helped me work in a field wholly dominated by men in the past,” she said.
The growth in women’s sports can only be a good thing on all levels, Beal said. “When I see the future of women’s sports, it is so bright, it makes me happy. The overall empowerment and uplifting effect of sports—how do you measure that?”
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