BGSU celebration of women in sport to feature Brennan,
Title IX roundtable

USA Today sports columnist Christine Brennan will be among the speakers coming to the University Wednesday-Sunday (Feb. 2-6) for "Women and Sport: Before, During, and After Title IX," an interdisciplinary symposium celebrating women in athletics.

Christine Brennan

In addition to Brennan, a Toledo native whose address will open the symposium Wednesday, keynote speakers will be Dr. Bernice Sandler, on Thursday, and Mariah Burton Nelson, on Friday. Sandler played a major role in the development and passage of Title IX and other legislation prohibiting discrimination against females in education. Nelson, a former college and professional basketball player, is a writer who has authored books on how women are changing sport.

All three keynote speeches are free and open to the public, as is a Saturday morning session on Title IX, which was part of the federal Education Act Amendments of 1972.

Scheduled for 8:30 a.m. to noon in 101 Olscamp Hall, the roundtable discussion will include a comparison of experiences by six women who were athletes at BGSU from the 1940s to the '70s. Comprising the panel will be Dorothy Luedtke, a 1947 graduate who went on to coach at the University and still lives in Bowling Green; Dr. Lynne Emery, '56, of Pasadena, Calif.; Marcia Conrad Saneholtz, '64, of Pullman, Wash.; Noel Jablonski, '72, of Annandale, Va.; Mary Jo Beers-Takash, '75, of Albany, Ga., and Cathy Copeland Mock, '76, of Columbus.

The panelists are among roughly 800 women who participated in competitive athletics at Bowling Green before women's sports received varsity status on campus in 1977. Those women will be awarded varsity letters Friday at a banquet and ceremony hosted by the BGSU Athletic Department, then introduced the following day at the women's basketball game versus Ohio University in Anderson Arena.

Also speaking at the Saturday session will be Mary Jo Kane, from the University of Minnesota's Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport, and Deborah Larkin of the National Women's Law Center. Kane will discuss "The Federal Law Known as Title IX: What's Fact vs. Fiction Got to Do with It?" Larkin's talk is titled "Title IX: Don't Let Our Daughters Grow Up Without It!"

The athletic department's decision to honor pre-Title IX pioneers at BGSU helped prompt planning for the concurrent academic symposium, said Dr. Vikki Krane, director of the Women's Studies Program, which is hosting the five-day celebration.

Further impetus has come from renewed interest in protecting Title IX, which she said is "under attack once again." Recommendations made two years ago by the Secretary of Education's Commission on Opportunity in Athletics would hurt opportunities for women in intercollegiate sports, said Krane, also human movement, sport and leisure studies.

She added that some of the symposium speakers may have updates on the status of the commission's report and recommendations.

The opening speaker, Brennan, will discuss "There's a Woman in the Locker Room: From the Field to the Press Box, Women Have Arrived" in her keynote address, set for 7 p.m. Wednesday in 101 Olscamp Hall. A reception will follow in the same room.

Also a network television analyst and an authority on women's sports, Brennan joined USA Today in 1997 after 12 years at the Washington Post. At the Post, she covered the Washington Redskins—becoming the first woman to do so—as well as the Olympics, Super Bowls and national-championship college football bowl games. In 1993, she was named the Capital Press Women's "Woman of Achievement."

The first woman sportswriter at the Miami Herald, where she worked from 1981-84, Brennan is the author of several books. Her 1998 book, Edge of Glory: The Inside Story of the Quest for Figure Skating's Olympic Gold Medals, won an Ohioana Library Association Book Award. She is also a four-time winner of the Women's Sports Foundation's journalism award and was the first president of the Association for Women in Sports Media.

Associated with Title IX perhaps longer than any other person, Sandler will tell "The Untold Story of Title IX: How We Got It When No One Was Looking" at 8 a.m. Thursday in 308 Bowen-Thompson Student Union.

Dr. Bernice Sandler

Sandler filed the first charges of sex discrimination against more than 250 institutions in the 1970s, before there were specific laws prohibiting such discrimination in education. She developed the first reports on campus sexual and peer harassment, gang rape and the "chilly climate" for women, including the first report on differing treatment of men and women in the classroom.

The first person to testify before a congressional committee about discrimination against women in education, Sandler was also the first appointee to a congressional committee staff to work specifically on women's issues. A 1994 recipient of a Century of Women Special Achievement Award from Turner Broadcasting System, she is now a senior scholar at the Women's Research and Education Institute in Washington, D.C., where she consults with institutions and others about achieving equity for women.

"We Are All Athletes" will be the message of Nelson's address, at 10:30 a.m. Friday in the union's Lenhart Grand Ballroom. It is also the title of her 2002 book, subtitled Bringing Courage, Confidence, and Peak Performance into Our Everyday Lives.

Mariah Burton Nelson

Nelson's writing and speaking career followed her years as a basketball player, first at Stanford University and then professionally in Europe and in the Women's Professional Basketball League—-the first U.S. women's pro league.

Nelson, who will also speak at the banquet honoring BGSU's female athlete pioneers, received the Capital Outstanding Speaker Award from the National Speakers Association/Washington, D.C., Area in 2003. Last year, the WNBA's Washington Mystics presented her the Pollin Award, which recognizes individuals who have made an outstanding impact in their community and are positive role models who inspire others through their work and actions.

Other speakers will come to the symposium from colleges and universities in the United States, Canada, Ireland and Sweden. Among the session topics on which they will make presentations are African-American Women and Title IX, Initiatives and Advocacy for Girls' Sport, Title IX Moms, Gender Equity, Sportswomen in the Media, Women in Sport History, Women's Experiences in Basketball, Being Women in Sport, Professional Women's Football, Femininity and Women's Sport, Sport Injury, Women's Sport Leadership, Social Justice in Sport, and Homophobia and Exploitation in Sport.

In addition, three films about females, sport and Title IX will be screened Thursday in the Gish Film Theater, beginning at 7 p.m.

For more details about symposium events, including registration information, go to the Web at www.bgsu.edu/departments/wmst/womenandsport.html.