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40 Years After Title IX Passage, Work Remains, Honorees Say

Local high school and college athletes lauded at National Girls and Women in Sports Day event at Seton Hall are reminded of how things have changed

Tara Rienecker speaks with pride of being a three-sport athlete during her years at Toms River High School East.

“I have 12 varsity letters,” said Rienecker, “and I got a full ride (scholarship) to the University of Connecticut” in soccer.

Rienecker, who graduated from Toms River East in 1991, while she was known as Tara Nichols, also knows how fortunate she and other girls of her generation were to have had those opportunities. And she marvels at the increasing array of opportunities that are available to today's generation of  female athletes – opportunities that didn’t exist when Allison Munch was in high school. 

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Munch, who lives in Williamstown, remembers the days when girls had to wear jumpers to play basketball, six per side to avoid overexertion, and had to return to the school in the evening to practice – after the boys were through with the gym. She remembers what it was like to play softball at Glassboro State College (now Rowan University), when the only uniform was a T-shirt and scholarships in women's sports anywhere in the nation were nonexistent.

“I am blessed to be a Title IX baby,” said Munch, one of the three Honor Award Recipients at the New Jersey celebration of National Girls and Women in Sport Day, held Sunday at Seton Hall University. More than 900 people attended the event that honored Munch, William Paterson University basketball coach Erin Monahan, and Mayor Barbara Wallace of Washington Township, as well as more than 200 female college and high school student athletes from around the state.

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The event held even more meaning for many of the women in attendance, as 2012 marks the 40th anniversary of the passage of Title IX, the federal law that provides for equal access to educational opportunities for men and women.

Title IX's Impact

Formally known as Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the law barred discrimination in eduation based on gender. Originally, Title IX came into being to address academic discrimination against women, including the fact that women had been refused entry into universities based solely on their gender.

For instance, Virginia state law prohibited women from being admitted to the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Virginia, according to publication “Title IX: 25 Years of Progress,” published by the US Department of Education in 1997. It was the most highly rated public institution of higher education in Virginia at that time, and it was only under court order in 1970 that the first woman was admitted, the publication notes. And Lucy Baines Johnson, daughter of President Lyndon Johnson, was refused re-admission to Georgetown University’s school of nursing, the publication notes, because in 1966, married women were not permitted to be students.

And while Title IX has been more widely known for its application to sports opportunities, especially at the college level, athletics was actually a last-minute addition to the mix, said Munch.

"It was originally for math and science equivalency," she said. That aspect of it paved the way for her younger sister to get a degree in genetic engineering. She is now the head of pediatric oncology at Vanderbilt University, Munch said.

"That is Title IX," she said. "I took the athletic path."

Munch, a 1972 graduate of Burlington Township High School, was honored for her contributions to the effort to promote girls sports as a softball umpire. She has been an umpire for more than 40 years, and is a respected softball rules interpretor and is umpire-in-chief of the softball side of the Philadelphia Phillies' Carpenter Cup. She also has been a high school coach and continues to devote hours upon hours to coaching and officiating.

Monahan was lauded as one of the most successful women's basketball coaches in the nation. She is 349-141 in 19 seasons at William Paterson, where she played her college ball, and the Pioneers have made the NCAA Division III Tournament nine times, including four trips in the last five years. Twice they have reached the Elite Eight. Monahan also was the starting first baseman for the Pioneers' softball team during her college career.  

Monahan, who is married and has three children, pointed out that as important as the opportunities have been, the support she has had from family and friends, from the time she was young, has been just as important in pushing her to the level of success she has today.

"Nothing happens without support," she said, thanking family and neighbors who play a key role in helping her juggle her children's activities and her professional responsibilities.

Wallace, the mayor of Washington Township, was honored for her commitment to gymnastics, where she has been a judge and has served as the rules interpreter for the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Wallace also has a deep commitment to the Special Olympics, and has traveled internationally as a gymnastics judge for the Special Olympics World Games.

While much progress has been made, she said, inequities remain. And thanks to the economic climate, which is resulting in schools reducing sports programs, vigilance is needed to make sure sports opportunities for women remain available and to make sure sports like gymnastics don't disappear completely.

While Title IX has been blamed for cuts to and, in some cases, the elimination of men's sports, the blame is misplaced, said Christa Racine, assistant athletic director and head soccer coach at Drew University.

The bulk of the money spent on men's sports at most schools goes to football and basketball, she said, information that is backed up by a study conducted by the Women's Sports Foundation a few years ago. And while participation in sports by women and girls is at an all-time high — as evidenced by the young women in the audience — work remains, Racine said.

"It's not a fight against; it's a fight for," "said NJSIAA Assistant Director Kim DeGraw-Cole, who was the athletic director at Southern Regional High School for more than 20 years. She said that when she was first coaching, she noticed that some of the boys teams were receiving uniforms and other items that she felt the girls should be receiving. When she asked about it, she was told, "no one asked." She began making requests for the girls soon after.

"It wasn't that they didn't want to (support the girls teams)," she said. "They just didn't know any different."

DeGraw-Cole said the efforts of the women who fought for equality early on —women like her high school basketball coach, Pat Zaccone, who would insist her team take the court when it was time for practice and force the boys team to leave — helped pave the way for the opportunities of today.

"We were more afraid of her" than of whatever reaction the boys would have had, DeGraw-Cole said. "But if she doesn't set that foundation, who knows what might have happened. She had to fight, likely at her own peril, but it helped us achieve what we have today."

Honorees

Both college and high school athletes were honored at the event, all of them chosen by their individual schools as being representative of what it means to be female athletes today, DeGraw-Cole said.

Chelsea James, a senior soccer and basketball player at Howell High School, said she was proud to have been chosen.

"(This) was a good opportunity to learn about how much sports has evolved," said James, who is a point guard and was a forward and utility player on the soccer team. She was accompanied to the luncheon by her mother, Anita, and Howell soccer coach Courtney Kroll. "You can see how much the game has progressed, and I'm glad to be a part of that."

Tori Capestro of Brick Memorial said she was surprised by the selection. "We have so many good athletes," she said.

"Educating younger student athletes about our roots and where we came from is important," said Rienecker, the coordinator of student development for athletes at Montclair State University. She also is president of the New Jersey Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, a position she was drafted into by the athletic director at Montclair State, but one she is glad to fill.

The NJAIAW is the driving force behind the annual luncheon, which has expanded from 300 people a few years ago to the more than 900 in attendance Sunday. It is supported by the Garden State Athletic Conference, the New Jersey Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance and Seton Hall University, which has hosted the event for at least three years.

"It's important for these young women to know how these opportunities came to be," she said, not only for them, but for the generations making their way up the sports ranks these days, including her own daughters.

"Title IX does not give you a free pass," Munch told the athletes. "It opens the door. You have to do the work and you have to work hard."

The following local athletes were honored at the event:

  • Meghan Kelly of Fairleigh Dickenson University-Metro, a Howell High School graduate and bowling team member;
  • Alex Okuniewicz of The College of New Jersey, a Toms River High School South graduate and field hockey player;
  • Elizabeth Lawler of Ocean County College, a Lacey graduate who plays basketball and soccer;
  • Tori Capestro, Brick Memorial, soccer and basketball; Krissy Pike, Brick Township, field hockey, basketball and lacrosse; Chelsea James, Howell, soccer and basketball; Brittany Martino, Lacey, field hockey and softball; Julia Zambrano, Long Branch, field hockey and lacrosse; Carly Davenport, Monsignor Donovan, soccer and basketball; Diana Malanga, St. Rose, soccer and basketball; Chelsey Henderson, Shore Regional, soccer and lacrosse; Samantha Manson, Wall, soccer, bowling and track and field.

DeGraw-Cole noted every member school of the NJSIAA is invited to choose an athlete to be honored. Though the event's organizers continue to look for sponsors, for now schools and attendees are asked to pay for their nominees to pay for the luncheon, which may be deterring participation. She hopes the event will be sponsored in such a way that the athletes and their parents will be able to attend at no cost, she said.

"We are pleased to see so many schools participating," she said. "It's nice (for these young women) to be recognized among their peers in a setting like this."

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