Old Sportsman Saw Way Before Title IX, by Christine Brennan

Reprinted with permission
USA Today, May 17, 2001

Old Sportsman Saw Way Before Title IX

We often hear these days about how it all began, this women’s sports craze, or movement, or revolution, call it what you will. Conventional wisdom says it started with the passage of Title IX in 1972, followed by Billie jean King’s victory over Bobby Riggs in1973.

But I knew things were stirring even earlier than that.

I knew it because the first women’s sports advocate I met was a man. I don’t remember how we were introduced, and I won’t bother you with his name. But, I quickly came to find out that he was not your typical women’s libber. He voted for Nixon. And Reagan. And Goldwater and Eisenhower and probably even Dewey. You see, this women’s rights advocate was, and still is, a rock-ribbed Republican, which tells you everything you need to know about party labels and stereotypes, although I’m fairly certain he has never thought of himself as a women’s libber, at least not until recently.

I got my first inkling something was up with this man when his almost-eight-year-old daughter told him what she wanted for her birthday, and he went right out and bought it for her. It was a baseball mitt. Today, that would not make news. But this didn’t happen today. It happened in 1966.

Immediately, this man became the only guy in town who was playing catch in the backyard with a girl. What were the neighbors to think?

He went back to the store and bought the girl a baseball bat.

Things escalated from there. His daughter soon wanted more from sports. It wasn’t enough to simply play with the boys in the neighborhood. She asked her father if she could go to some games with him. It was like magic. As soon as she asked, it started happening. She and her younger siblings attended dozens of sporting events, from Toledo Mud Hens and Detroit Tigers games in the summer to Toledo and Michigan football games in the fall. Neighborhood kids clamored to come, too. Boys, girls; it didn’t matter to this man, this latter-day Pied Piper with the season tickets

But one time, there was a problem. It was a cold November day and snow was on the ground for the crucial Michigan-Ohio State game. A decision had to be made. Stay home and watch on TV? Or go? To this man, it was an easy call. “We’ve got to be able to smell it,” he declared. And so their mother bundled up the three oldest children, and off they went to Ann Arbor with their father.

When they got to massive Michigan Stadium, the children couldn’t believe their eyes. They looked around and saw may other fathers, but no children. The other fathers all had brought their wives. But these lucky kids; their father had brought them.

The children’s good fortune continued. On summer Sunday afternoons, when many fathers were hitting golf balls with their pals at the country club, this man brought his three daughters and one son to a public par-3 course to learn the game. And when he was invited by friends to play at restrictive clubs, he said no. He wasn’t going to set foot anywhere his girls couldn’t go.

In the years that followed, this man would attend almost every high school game his children ever played. It was one thing to go to a football game on a Friday night; he did that. It was another thing entirely to dash out of the office on a Tuesday afternoon in time for the tip-off of a girls’ basketball game. He did that too. Often, he was the only father in the stands.

I’m telling you these stories about this man because today is a milestone for him. Today, he turns 75. It’s not a national holiday. It’s not an important day in women’s sports history. It’s just a very significant day to a little girl who grew up knowing that there would always be a place for her in sports.

Happy Birthday, Dad.