Lopiano Just Smiles Before the Brushback
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AN old softball pitcher famous for shaking off her catcher’s signals stormed into town last week with a new job and a supercharged mission. Donna Lopiano, for 17 years the director of intercollegiate athletics for women at the University of Texas, has become executive director of the Women’s Sports Foundation at a critical moment in the history of Title IX, the law that revolutionized the world of funds and games. The timing is exquisite. By the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s own statistics, its annual basketball tournament is a perpetrators’ lineup of big-time colleges that have been blatantly violating Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which bars sex discrimination at institutions that receive Federal aid. In an admirably progressive step, the N.C.A.A. has released a report outlining the subversion of Title IX by its members. According to the N.C.A.A., men receive 70 percent of the athletic scholarship money. Mens’ sports programs receive 77 percent of the operating funds and 83 percent of the recruiting dollars. Women account for more than half of the students at the colleges surveyed. Yet women are only 30 percent of the varsity athletes. “Releasing this information was a great symbolic step for the N.C.A.A.,” Lopiano said. “In a way, doing it means more than the data itself. It means the N.C.A.A. is ready to take the next step, which is to help individual schools get gender equity.” That, of course, may be wishful thinking, or the canny old pitcher’s change-of-pace. Traditionally, the threats of bad press or lawsuits have been the most effective tools of intercollegiate change. But Lopiano, who said she learned at Texas that “if you smile and dress up you can say anything,” sees herself now as an outside advocate whose role is “to contribute and raise questions with no threats of retribution.” While Lopiano is smiling and dressing up, some others on her team will be playing tough. Peggy Kellers, executive director of the National Association for Girls & Women in Sport, says her group is “renewing our vows” and redirecting itself toward issues of sex equity, including workshops and Title IX “toolboxes” for the often isolated, frequently intimidated women in those male-dominated athletic departments often insulated from the body of the university. Kellers, who was Lopiano’s catcher in the pitcher’s Hall of the Fame days, warns: “Remember, Title IX is not a suggestion, it’s the law. ” In the first six years of Title IX, women’s sports programs blossomed and grew throughout the country, accelerating the process of making women physically stronger, more confident, more able to take opportunities and risks. In the next 14 years, the old jock empire struck back, capping growth, replacing female coaches and administrators with men. Vivian Acosta and Linda Jean Carpenter of Brooklyn College document that. In 1972, more than 90 percent of the coaches and administrators of women’s sports were women. By 1990, less than 50 percent of the coaches and less than 20 percent of the administrators were women. The old boys’ network has been singuarly successful in feeding the mostly male sports media the tired myth that the mighty “revenue sport” of football is the engine that drives and supports most programs. More : query.nytimes.com |