As Title IX Turns 50, Sport Oregon Continues to Inspire Female Athletes Through SHE FLIES Initiative — Sport Oregon Voices

Photo: University of Portland Athletics

Sport Oregon Voices: Foundation initiative aims to facilitate greater girls’ and women’s participation in sport

Fifty years ago this week, Title IX – a 37-word passage written to address gender discrimination in public education and federally assisted programs – was passed into law as part of a larger education bill. Despite its relative brevity, Title IX’s passage on June 23, 1972, proved to be a milestone in gender equity.

Though not specifically written to address girls’ and women’s athletics, Title IX is most commonly associated with sports. In essence, its passage meant any federally funded school from the elementary to college level had to provide fair and equal treatment of the sexes in all areas, including athletics. It opened doors and reduced barriers for girls and women to participate in a variety of sports and to have equal access to educational opportunities and academic disciplines.  

Sport Oregon has long celebrated the achievements of high school, collegiate and professional female athletes as part of the Oregon Sports Awards and through its programs and initiatives. It’s simply hard to imagine how that landscape would differ had it not been for Title IX.     

Today, a significant amount of the work Sport Oregon does through its foundation is focused on continuing to reduce barriers to play, especially for females. While there are many more opportunities available to participate in sports for girls and women as a result of Title IX, many of today’s challenges relate to dwindling participation numbers, lack of resources and not enough mentorship and inspiration to encourage continued participation. 

Specifically, Sport Oregon’s SHE FLIES initiative is the signature platform for its foundation. At its core, SHE FLIES is inspired by a fundamental belief that people learn to soar as confident individuals, team players and strong leaders through sport. Its mission is to connect girls and women across Oregon to sports, and to create inclusive opportunities through its programs, partnerships and networks.

Teresa O’Neill is the vice president of global strategic partnerships for Travel Oregon, a state agency that works to enhance Oregon’s economy by developing world-class visitor experiences and inspiring travel to the state. She is connected to sports in the state in many ways, including her work as an executive board member for Sport Oregon and as a founding member and supporter of SHE FLIES.

On a personal level, O’Neill appreciated the opportunities available to her as a teenager as she participated in swimming and running programs while growing up in Montana. Granted, these opportunities are essentially a given in today’s world – at least in the United States – but it’s not lost on her the impact that Title IX had on making them possible.

“The opportunity to not even question whether you could participate at the same level as the male athletes was a big deal,” she said. “It really did open my eyes that women can do anything.”

Travel Oregon is actively involved in helping to attract large events to the state, but particularly it is committed to its mission to assure Oregon remains a welcome destination that celebrates diversity. It is keen on attracting and supporting sporting events that celebrate women’s athletics, like the encouraging pursuit of the Women’s Final Four for basketball and the upcoming World Athletics Championships Oregon22, which will celebrate a day of special programming honoring female athletics with a “Women in the Spotlight” day on July 18.

“These things are important to Oregon,” O’Neill said.

Fifty years after Title IX, most would suggest that support for women’s sports and female athletes is still not enough, and that there is still work to be done. There’s also a growing concern with the decline of girls and women’s participation in sports. According to studies, girls are two times more likely to drop out of sports participation by age 14 when compared to boys.

The decline in participation for female athletes is a major area of focus for the SHE FLIES initiative. First, it strives to get more girls in the game, specifically by reducing barriers to access and promoting the many positive advantages of participation. Additionally, there is a broader focus on empowering more women coaches in sports, with statistics showing women making up less than 30 percent of youth coaches nationwide. Lastly, SHE FLIES promotes a lifelong, fit-for-life mentality that encourages fitness as a lifelong pursuit for increased health and wellness.

With many resources already available from a variety of like-minded groups, SHE FLIES has been designed, intentionally, as a supporting resource to tackle the issue. Sport Oregon has embraced its role as a supporter, connector and as an overarching entity that can shine a light on the work being done and to further rally the cause. This commitment, notably, includes a significant fundraising element aimed at supporting the many groups and causes already working to make a difference, especially in areas disproportionally affected.

Like O’Neill, Elisha Lutz sits on the board of directors with Sport Oregon and has both a professional and personal connection to sports, including the development of SHE FLIES. Lutz is the general manager and vice president for accounts and client partners for Ideas Collide, a digital marketing agency and Sport Oregon sponsor. Ideas Collide began its work with SHE FLIES at an inflection point, collaborating and lending its collective expertise in refining the initiative’s mission, vision and values, and developing the tools to help amplify its message.

Lutz can relate to the troubling statistics related to girls dropping out of sports. Personally, she played high school sports until she was about 15. She says that it then stopped becoming fun, started being over-competitive and frankly, it just wasn’t seen as being “cool” by her peers at that age.

“I didn’t have anyone to pull me back in, to help me see different options,” Lutz said. “I really didn’t have a relationship with a coach like that, and my parents didn’t really push me in that way; so that’s where it ended for me.”

She says she regrets missing out on what a team environment provides and the benefit of those team-related experiences. But her experience as a teenager inspires her even more to help make a difference through her work with Sport Oregon and SHE FLIES.

“Personally, I just feel really compelled to help change that and give girls, women and the community more resources to support girls and the cause,” she said. 

Jack Elder is a noted area Olympian and historian with a varied and interesting relationship with sports over the decades, highlighted by his experience and achievements at the international level. He founded the Oregon Sports Authority (now Sport Oregon) in 1991 and was part of a group that explored the potential of bringing the Olympics to Portland. As a broadcaster and a 1972 Winter Olympian in luge, he essentially had a front-row seat for the progressive era of change that was the 1960s and 1970s. He remembers well witnessing the rise of women’s athletics and the fight that athletes like Billie Jean King and Steve Prefontaine endeavored in taking a leading role in the rapid changes for the better that were occurring across sports.

“Title IX and the rights of athletes in general was finally coming to a head in the early 1970s; all of these things were happening around the same time,” Elder said.

You can’t have a conversation about Title IX without King, who worked tirelessly for women’s parity in sports for years while helping to pass Title IX and prohibit sex discrimination in all federally funded school programs.

“When Title IX passed, the explosion was just stunning,” Elder remembers. “The growth of women’s sport was just amazing.”

Prefontaine fought for athletes’ rights against the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), which held tight controls on where athletes could compete and essentially all aspects of an athlete’s life. Elder could relate to this plight on a personal level, as he was held out of the 1968 Winter Olympics basically for not being at the right race at the right time.

Elder, who is the current historian for the U.S. Olympians and Paralympians Association, points out that one of the great benefits of Title IX and the advancement of women’s athletics can be seen off the field of play, with women taking a leading role in the business side of sport, from the operational level to the executive level to the political side. It also paved the way for the creation of women’s professional sports leagues, like the WNBA and NWSL, which features Portland Thorns FC.

Things have come a long way in 50 years, but there’s still work to be done. For Sport Oregon’s part, it will remain sharply focused on advancing women’s athletics and continuing to foster and inspire participation amongst girls and women through its programs and initiatives. 

For More Information on SHE FLIES
To learn more about SHE FLIES and Sport Oregon’s work to keep lifting girls and women through sport, click here.