{"id":34605,"date":"2015-01-29T09:58:42","date_gmt":"2015-01-29T16:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stage.headlessnauedu-b6hgdzckfdgxgzhe.westus-01.azurewebsites.net\/?p=34605"},"modified":"2015-01-29T09:58:42","modified_gmt":"2015-01-29T16:58:42","slug":"celebrating-opportunities-title-ix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/celebrating-opportunities-title-ix\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating opportunities of Title IX"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0By Sue Darling
\n<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>Women’s Basketball Team Head Coach\"Sue<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

I was 12 years old in 1972 when Title IX was enacted. Up until that\u00a0point (and ever since), my life has been sports.<\/p>\n

As a young girl, I grew\u00a0up in\u00a0a neighborhood surrounded by sisters, brothers and other children of\u00a0similar age. We all had two things in common, a love of sports along with moms who demanded we, “go\u00a0out and play and don’t come home until dinner time.”<\/p>\n

We would play neighborhood games of football, soccer, dodge ball, kickball,\u00a0baseball, and everybody’s favorite, basketball.<\/p>\n

My opportunities in the neighborhood games abounded, but as I approached\u00a0junior\u00a0high and high school age my opportunities outside the neighborhood dwindled. My\u00a0brother and the other boys from the neighborhood were running off to Little\u00a0League, sports camps, school-sponsored practices and games. I would go watch\u00a0but\u00a0couldn’t join in.<\/p>\n

Finally, in 1975, my junior high school sponsored a girl\u2019s basketball\u00a0team. We had one\u00a0practice and played one game against the rival junior high. I was in\u00a0heaven!<\/p>\n

By\u00a0the time I got to high school, there were opportunities to compete in many\u00a0sports, and I took full advantage.<\/p>\n

I obviously wouldn’t be where I am today without sports. Teamwork,\u00a0dedication,\u00a0persistence, self-confidence, optimism and hard work are some of the\u00a0character\u00a0traits developed through sports. They have served me well.<\/p>\n

My celebration of the 2015 National Girls and Women in Sports Day is an\u00a0appreciation. An appreciation of the women who came before me, who didn’t have\u00a0the opportunity, but still fought for my opportunity to play.\u00a0And an\u00a0appreciation for the moms and dads who saw the importance of sports in a\u00a0child’s life (and in our society) and demanded the opportunities afforded their sons be available to their daughters.<\/p>\n

National Girls and Women in Sports Day\u00a0activities<\/a> begin at 3 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 31, at the Walkup Skydome,\u00a0recognizing the importance of athletics in the lives of young\u00a0people.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0By Sue Darling \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Women’s Basketball Team Head Coach I was 12 years old in 1972 when Title IX was enacted. Up until that\u00a0point (and ever since), my life has been sports. As a young girl, I grew\u00a0up in\u00a0a neighborhood surrounded by sisters, brothers and other children of\u00a0similar…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-views-from-nau"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}