Brooke Volza and the other girls who play in the top division of high school soccer in Albuquerque know all about the Metro Curse: The team that wins the city’s metro tournament at the start of the season is doomed to end the year without a state championship.
So when Cibola High School defied that fate with Volza scoring the only goal in the team’s 1-0 victory against Carlsbad High School before a cheering stadium crowd at the University of New Mexico last year, it was pandemonium. “I started crying. I started hugging everyone,” Volza, 17, said, describing the experience as “times 10 amazing.”
Now the ball she used to score that goal sits on a shelf in her bedroom, covered with her teammates’ autographs and jersey numbers. Across it in large capital letters are the words, “2021 STATE CHAMPIONS.”
Fifty years ago, Volza’s experience of sprawling and robust competitive high school soccer was effectively unheard-of in the United States. Title IX, which was passed in 1972 and prohibited sex discrimination in education has given girls the opportunity to access sports and other educational programs for generations.
And girls’ soccer, perhaps more than any other women’s sport, has grown tremendously in the 50 years since. Soccer was quickly recognized by school administrators as a cost-effective means of complying with the law. The rising interest helped youth leagues to grow. Talented soccer players from all over the globe arrived in the United States. And as millions of American women and girls benefited, the best of them gave rise to a U.S. women’s national program that has dominated the world stage.
“Once Title IX broke down those barriers, and let women and girls play sports, and said they have to be provided with equal opportunities, the girls came rushing through,” said Neena Chaudhry, the general counsel and senior adviser for education at the National Women’s Law Center. “They came through in droves.”
Before Title IX was passed, an N.C.A.A. count found only 13 women’s collegiate soccer teams in the 1971-72 season, with 313 players.
In 1974, the first year in which a survey by the National Federation of State High School Associations tracked girls’ participation across the United States, it counted 6,446 girls playing soccer in 321 schools in just seven states, mostly in New York. This number has risen to 394,100, with high schools in the country having at least five divisions and schools sponsoring multiple teams.
In 2018-19, which was the most recent season due to the coronavirus epidemic, there were 3.4 millions girls participating in high school sports compared to 4.5 million boys.
Many of these athletes have overcome fear to join a team. Some practiced until the wee hours of the morning, running sprints with their teammates after having fun with them. Some have found archrivals through competition. Others have struggled with the loss. Numerous soccer players have felt the thrill of scoring a goal, as well as the pride of being part in something bigger than themselves.
“We are the heart and soul of soccer at Cibola,” Volza said.
Title IX is a broad law and did not originally include sports. It was created to combat discrimination against girls and women in federally funded academic institutions. As the regulations were finalized, they included athletics. This helped bridge the disparities outside of the classroom. Today, Title IX is perhaps best known for its legacy within women’s interscholastic athletics.
Despite initial and heavy opposition to the law because of a perceived threat to men’s athletic programs, the N.C.A.A. eventually sponsored women’s sports, including soccer in 1982. Prior to this, only a handful played each other in the country.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a dynasty which has won 21 N.C.A.A.A. awards. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which has produced unique players such as Mia Hamm and won several championships, began its run against high schoolers.
“We didn’t really have anyone to play,” said Anson Dorrance, the head coach of the women’s team since its inception in 1979. He described how he crafted a schedule for that first season. One travel soccer club, the McLean Grasshoppers, “came down to U.N.C. and beat us like a drum,” he said.
The N.C.A.A. brought women’s soccer into the fold, participation rates went from 1,855 players on 80 teams across all three divisions in 1982 to nearly 28,000 players across 1,026 teams in 2020-21.
Now, the N.C.A.A. claims soccer as the most expanded women’s sports program among universities in the last three decades.
Former and current athletic directors, coaches, sports administrators, and coaches credit the rise of soccer for several reasons. At first, complying with the law meant numbers and dollars. Soccer is an extremely large sport with a roster size that can range between 20 and 26. Schools were able to provide similar opportunities to male and women students by having large rosters.
Soccer was economical for administrators: All you needed was a field, a ball, and two goals. It was also relatively easy to learn.
“At the time schools were interested in, ‘How can I add sports for women that wouldn’t cost me very much?’” said Donna Lopiano, founder and president of Sports Management Resources and a former chief executive of the Women’s Sports Foundation. She added: “Schools were looking for the easy way out.”
The shifts didn’t start until the late 1980s, or even early 1990s. College programs increasingly gained varsity status — often pressured by litigation — which created scholarship opportunities and made soccer a pathway to higher education. The game boomed at the high school level, where it became one of the most popular sports, fourth in terms of participation rates for girls for 2018-19, according to the high school federation (the top three girls’ sports were track and field, volleyball and basketball).
Club teams also began to emerge around the country as athletes competed for college coaches’ attention. As women were unable to play the sport in many other countries, the youth game grew. Universities became a breeding ground for elite athletes.
The U.S. women’s national team went largely unnoticed when it played its first international match in 1985. It also got little attention in 1991 when it won the first Women’s World Cup, held in Guangdong, China.
The United States started to feel the power and influence of Title IX. In 1996, women’s soccer debuted at the Olympics in Atlanta, and the United States won gold. During the 1999 Women’s World Cup final, against China, the Americans secured a victory during penalty kicks before a capacity crowd of more than 90,000 people at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.
Michelle Akers is the U.S.W.N.T.’s pillar. in the ’80s and ’90s who is now an assistant coach for the Orlando Pride women’s professional team, said Title IX was “game-changing.” “I can’t even understand the amount of time and energy and heartache that took to get that pushed through, and not just pushing it through but enforcing it — making it real for people, and making it real for me,” she said.
The national team’s success continued, with a record four World Cup titles and four Olympic golds. And this year, after a six-year legal battle, a multimillion-dollar settlement and eventual labor agreement established equal pay for players representing the U.S. men’s and women’s national teams when competing internationally.
“It was a historic moment, not just for soccer, but for sport,” Cindy Parlow Cone, U.S. Soccer’s president, said.
Michele Sharts was a member of a U.C.L.A. Club team in 1993. that threatened to sue the school under Title IX for not sponsoring women’s soccer.
Sharts, who was dropped from the inaugural varsity squad’s first team, now has two daughters who play in large university programs. Hannah, 22 years old, started at U.C.L.A. Before moving to Colorado, Hannah was a graduate student. Sydney, 20, started at Oklahoma before she transferred to Kansas State for her next season.
Hannah Sharts has performed in front of up to 5,000 people. “Being able to gradually see more and more fans fill up the stands throughout my college experience has been very promising,” Hannah Sharts said. Both Hannah Sharts and Sydney dream of playing professionally.
Volza, a rising senior from New Mexico, plans on playing in college, just like the Sharts sisters. She is currently looking at Division II schools with strong engineering programs.
She has her final year at high school. Volza stated that she wanted to be a leader in the development of younger players.
“I want to motivate them and teach them what it’s like to play varsity soccer for a state-winning championship team,” Volza said.
Volza is determined to make history in her own country by leading her team to win both the Metro tournament title and the state championship in consecutive years.
Source: NY Times