Out of the Tunnel into History

By Jane O'Reilly

The Olympiad was another step forward for women's sports

So this is what equality looks like. Cheryl Miller, Kelly McCormick, Tracy Cauikins, Flo Hyman, Valerie Brisco-Hooks, Joan Benoit running through the tunnel into the Los Angeles Coliseum and out into history.

The realization was framed during these free-enterprise Olympics as much by the television commercials as by the players. Benoit and her teammates moved to a chorus of marketplace acknowledgments that "feminine" has been redefined. "These women have a dream," exulted an Avon spot over a shot of women donning their running shoes. The Arco tots, a pack of three-or four-year-old boys and girls, raced toward the camera. As a little girl in pigtails broke the tape, her look of triumph bespoke a fu ture unimaginable even ten years ago. Once she would have been called a tomboy. Now she is called an athlete.

Maybe the transformation would have been noticed in 1980 if the U.S. had gone to the U.S.S.R. Maybe it would not have been so dramatic if the Soviets had come to Los Angeles. But one thing is certain. The dazzling accomplishments of U.S. women at this year's Games were the direct result of changes in personal attitude and public policy brought about by two inseparable revolutions: the women's movement and the growth of women's sports. Well within the memory of many of the women at this year's Games were the bad old days before 1972, when, for example, the budget for women's sports at the University of Michigan was zero, and they were funded by such expedients as girls' peddling apples at football games. At the University of Minnesota, men gymnasts passed on their used tape to the women, who had no budget for tape of their own.

The first step was the passage in 1972 of Title IX of the Education Amendments Act, which prohibits sex discrimination in federally assisted educational programs, including sports. Title IX became effective only in 1975, and enforcement has been sketchy. But the threat of losing federal funds was enough to raise the number of women in intercollegiate athletic programs from 16,000 in 1972 to more than 150,000 today. In high schools the percentage of women athletes jumped from 7% to 35% by 1982. At the same time, the percentage of money attached to all college sports expanded from 1 % spent on women to 16%. The U.S. Olympic women's basketball team, probably the best female team ever assembled anywhere, is a direct result of the scholarships and the support created by Title IX. As Olympic Basketball Player Miller says: "Without Title IX, I'd be nowhere."

"The results proved we needed a law to get these opportunities," says Donna de Varona, who, after winning two gold medals in swimming in 1964 at the age of 17, was in effect forced into retirement. "My best friend, Gold Medalist Don Schollander, had a full scholarship to Yale. Girls weren't even admitted to Yale then, and there were no women's swimming scholarships anywhere.?"

However, few sports programs are federally funded, and the Women's Sports Foundation fears for the future support of women's athletics. Last February the Supreme Court ruled that Title IX applies only to programs receiving federal funds, not to institutions. A bill to overturn the decision is in the Senate. One problem, explains U.S. Olympic Swim Team Man ager Bev Montrella, is "we look at female gold-medal winners with the same esteem as men. But in colleges, men's athletics is still where it's at."

There have always been women heroines at the Olympics, but they were seen as the exceptions. Although Babe Didrikson at 20 commanded the 1932 Games, she was nicknamed "Muscle Moll" and treated as some kind of miracle instead of a person who had been in training for ten years. In 1960, after Wilma Rudolph astonished the world by winning three gold medals, the press expressed surprise that off the track she wore skirts.

The difference in 1984 was that the women defined themselves however they chose to--and the press sometimes scrambled to keep up. After Cyclist Connie Carpenter-Phinney won the gold, she spoke to the true feeling of women in the Games: "I feel proud. I was a pioneer in women's cycling, and I worked very hard for this day. I think it may mean more to me than it might to some others." But the press became entangled in a problem of modern manners, insisting on knowing if she was Miss Carpenter or Mrs. Davis Phinney. "I don't know," she said. "You figure it out for yourselves." Splinter Evelyn Ashford, usually a retiring soul, told ABC television that running gave her "a feeling between space and time... You don't get it often, but when it's there, it's better than having sex." Brisco-Hooks celebrated her 400-meter-race gold medal by dropping to her knees in prayer, then jumping up and down in a massive family bear hug with her husband and two-year-old son.

Women athletes are just beginning to discover what their bodies, properly trained, can do. Says Swimmer Nancy Hogshead, 22, winner of three gold medals: "Once the Marilyn Monroe look was really in. Now it's the lean, muscular, runner look. I'm not going to stop being a world-class athlete because swimming gives me dry skin or something." Retired Shot-Putter Maren Seidler, who holds the U.S. women's record, says, "I can remember being the only girl in any weight room.

Things have changed dramatically." The equation applies to both sexes: muscles mean medals.

The times are not changing; they have already changed. The hugging, the kissing, the tears belonged to both the men and the women. Sugar Ray Leonard fed his baby a bottle while he watched the boxing. The women, taut and tough, sleek and sinewy, demolished the myths of frailty forever, and they did it with humor, grace, gaiety and even... sportsmanship. Try telling the women's rowing crew that women can't get along with each other, or the volleyball team that women lack commitment. Try telling the marathoners-collapsing Gabriela Andersen-Schiess and the surprise bronze-medal winner Rosa Mota-- enough. These women tested their limits, and having the chance to do that is what sports and feminism are all about. --By Jane O'Reilly. Reported by Deborah Kaplan/Los Angeles

With reporting by Deborah Kaplan