Layla Ali. Mia Hamm. Venus Williams. What do these women have in common? If you said dominant women in the sports world who are positive role models, you would be correct. It is good that women now have a significant role, and making history in the world of sports.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 gave women the opportunities that mostly were given to men, to play sports in schools like in high school, and get athletic scholarships to colleges. This has risen in popularity for women in sports, and more job opportunities for them.
Since this change took place, this has made a lot of differences. Women now have a better chance in going colleges and pursuing a career in something besides housework, or daycare type jobs.
This was genius because little girls, unlike a half a century ago, can now have dreams of playing soccer, basketball, or any sports, and go to college, and maybe go pro, instead of thinking they will grow up just to be a stay at home mom.
Teacher of the Women in sports class, Debbie Jensen broke it down by saying “With Title IX, it opened a lot of opportunities for women to get jobs in sports. Like coaching, which is fun.”
Jensen also elaborated by saying, with that, women started to participate more, since the opportunity was given.
Rise in participation of women, means there would be more sports teams, and more teams means more coaching and athletic administration opportunites, which means more job opportunites for women.
Also with more playing in high school, it rises the chance for scholarships for college, which will help them get a degree.
With that, things began to look up for women. It also helping them become trendsetters and open up a lot of doors for those who may have always wanted to play in certain sports.
Also, within those 20 years, individual women have been having their own success, and becoming influential in their own rights. For example, WNBA player Lisa Leslie.
She has a lot of success in her basketball career by winning 5 gold medals, 4 Olympics and one the World Champion USA team. She even had the honor to make it on the list 101 Most Influential Minorities in Sports in 2003.
For women like Leslie, it gives women, and even some men, a person to idolize, and the inspiration that they need to strive to be their best.
“The more positive role models that we have in sports, the more the younger girls will be able to say ‘Hey that looks like fun’ or ‘I could do that’. So with the role models, it gives [the girl] aspirations to achieve what they achieve; and even if they may not get to [the role models] level, the girls still bring out their best, and that’s great.” Welliver stated.
Cerritos College also has a very successful and a very influential woman who accomplished a lot in her career here that would make her a role model for others.
Coach Welliver, who is dubbed the ‘Winningest California Community College coaches in history’ in 2008 and 2009, and to few, one of the best active coach out there for the fact that she won 608 game in her 31 seasons as a coach, 28 of those being for Cerritos. In her recent season, she lead 09-10 South Coast Conference winning team to 18-2 record, making it to the playoffs, but it endd in the second round to Riverside Community.
“I guess I would be [a role model]. A lot people who have worked with me have gone on to run his or her own programs. My mentor, Jenen Brendeel, was my coach at CSULB, taught me all I know, but I think if we all do it the right way, we are all role models”
With all these opportunities, and role models, there seems to be a bright future for women in sports.
“The number of women taking part in participating in a lot of aspects sports is still growing. We have opportunities for girls to be playing at young ages all the way through, and we are creating future leaders through sports, so sports will continue to grow, especially in the US, where its in high demand,” said Jensen.
