Myers: All of us should remember Bernice Sandler, the 'Godmother of Title IX'

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I had never heard of Bernice Sandler until reading her obituaries last week.

Sandler died on Jan. 5 in Washington, D.C., at the age of 90. As the news broke, I quickly discovered what an awe-inspiring impact she had made on our society.

In 1969, after earning her doctoral degree in education from the University of Maryland, Sandler began applying for multiple teaching positions, with no success. In one interview, she was told that “she came on too strong for a woman.”

That stoked her fire, and she got involved with a variety of groups working to end sexual discrimination in education.

We are drastically shortening a long story, but there were many ups and downs and Sandler was helped by many others – women and men. Ultimately, she played a critical role in the passage of Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972, which was signed into law by President Richard Nixon with zero fanfare.

The key phrase in Title IX is only 31 words: “No person shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program receiving Federal financial assistance.”

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Title IX also extended to sexual harassment and employment discrimination, but by far its most recognizable impact has been in athletics.

Girls and women were already playing a few organized sports in some high schools and colleges in the early 1970s, but Title IX really opened the floodgates nationwide. I first saw the impact in 1976, as a sixth-grader in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

My sister was part of the band that played at home basketball games at Southside High School. And because my mom had to provide the transportation, I had to come along, too.

This was never a problem because I loved watching the high school boys play basketball. But that year, there was something new. We had to arrive a couple of hours earlier because Southside now had a girls basketball team.

They were awful. They could barely dribble, struggled to know the rules and couldn’t shoot worth a lick. And all of the teams they played were just as bad because almost all of the girls involved were just starting to play the game.

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So, of course, being sixth-grade boys, my friends and I sat in the stands and made fun of them. We thought this was the dumbest thing we had ever seen. We couldn’t understand why this was happening, why we had to watch it.

Needless to say, times have changed drastically over the last 40-plus years. Now I write about high school sports all across Delaware, and I can assure you that I enjoy watching the girls play every sport just as much as the boys. The strength, stamina, dedication and athleticism they show is absolutely amazing.

Most of the girls of today probably don’t know that girls basketball started out as six-on-six – basically two half-court games of three-on-three – because the men in charge thought it would be too taxing for girls to continually run the full length of the court.

They probably don’t know that the first women’s 1,500-meter run in the Olympics didn’t happen until 1972 because the men in charge thought anything more than 800 meters would be too strenuous. The Olympics didn’t add a women’s marathon until 1984.

And it’s perfectly fine that most girls who now play sports wouldn’t know those things. Because now they grow up with limitless athletic possibilities, and that’s the way it should be.

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Of course, there are many people – mostly men – who see Title IX as something that has reduced college athletic scholarship opportunities for men. When you’ve been getting 100 percent of something forever, it’s obviously going to ruffle some feathers when you start getting less.

But while Title IX has undoubtedly had an adverse impact on some men’s college sports — especially wrestling — men still have plenty of opportunities in plenty of sports. And Title IX has opened the doors for thousands of women to enjoy all of the benefits and life lessons that come from competing on a college athletic team.

The New York Times referred to Sandler as the "Godmother of Title IX." I don't know if she was a sports fan, but I hope she was. Here in Delaware, she would have loved watching Elena Delle Donne dominate on a basketball court. She would have loved watching Daija Lampkin explode out of a starting block. She would have loved watching Phoebe Brinker crush a golf ball.

I hope she enjoyed some of the amazing feats that have been accomplished by female athletes since her hard work started to give them equal opportunities.

And I hope we all take a little time to remember Bernice Sandler, one of the people who made all of these things possible.

Contact Brad Myers at bmyers@delawareonline.com. Follow on Twitter: @BradMyersTNJ