My journalism journey, part 23

I graduated from college as Title IX was being passed, opening up a world of sports to girls. Unless you were extraordinarily gifted, there just wasn't much before. I had little to no athletic ability growing up. I wanted to play softball (the girls' equivalent of my favorite sport, baseball) but I was fat, slow and clumsy. I was allowed to play because I was big and could block the plate. As long as I could do that, I could be the catcher in slow-pitch 16-inch softball; there was no stealing and all I had to do was catch the ball and throw it back to the pitcher.
But once I got to age 16, there was nothing left for me. So I had decided to be a sports writer long before that happened. Unfortunately, at my high school, Mother Guerin, there was only one sport, girls' basketball, so when I got to be sports editor, I had to be very creative in putting out a sports section.
I didn't have that problem once I got my first job on a newspaper. There were plenty of sports for girls. Now, the issue was getting the sports covered.
I made it my job to get those girls' sports in the paper. In Carpentersville and Elgin, Illinois, that wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. Both Ken Veloskey and Ken Dunwoody were happy to get the girls' sports into the paper, and in fact, the girls' teams in our area were very successful. The Dundee girls' basketball team had gone to the Illinois state tournament the year before.
While in Illinois, I made sure the volleyball, track and softball teams got in the paper as often as the boys' teams. The coaches and parents were thrilled. So much so, one of the coaches quit calling the daily Elgin paper because it didn't give the local girls' teams enough ink. She told that paper's sports editor (a man who once told me during a job interview I wasn't good enough because I was too fat and didn't write like him) she was giving all her reports only to the Elgin Herald.
I continued that policy in Montana, although sometimes our ad manager didn't agree with my coverage. But I was the sports editor there and I gave equal coverage.
So when I came to South Dakota, there was no reason for me to change. Our sports editor, Ron Feickert, had no problem with this; neither did the executive editor, Cindy Eikamp. But there were some who didn't think girls' sports counted.
"If it's not on TV, it doesn't matter," said Matt Schmidt, my colleague in the sports department. According to him, volleyball, track, swimming, cross country, girls' basketball, etc., were not sports because they were not on television.
And he's not the only one who believed that. I butted heads with many a sports writer over this issue. It's one of the reasons I got out of sports. I got tired of dealing with guys who wouldn't give women an equal break. Eventually, it led to burnout (at least one of the reasons).
But I did encounter others who were happy the girls were getting more coverage. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles were among those. These were the people for whom I wrote. I wanted to make sports more than just game stories; I wanted to tell stories about the games and the people who played them. I wrote those stories for people who didn't usually read sports.
Along the way, I saw Jackie Joyner (before she was Jackie Joyner-Kersee, the Olympic athlete) long jump in the Illinois State High School track meet. I was shooting photos of our Dundee athlete, Cheryl Cleveland, who was in the same preliminary flight. Joyner advanced; Cleveland didn't.
There was a young woman in Elgin who stands out, Donna Alvine. She played softball, volleyball and basketball. But Alvine was born with just one leg and only parts of fingers on one hand. I first saw her play softball; she was a catcher. She had an artificial leg from above the knee down. She had nubs of fingers on one hand, too. When she played volleyball, in which she was a setter, the officials had to be told about the deformity on her hand because it might look like she was lifting the ball.
Alvine was playing basketball one day in a Christmas tournament at Cary-Grove High School in Cary, Illinois. People thought she was injured and were upset that her coach would allow her to play with this big brace on her leg. But later, they saw her take her leg off; then they thought she was courageous. Alvine just shrugged. She had been doing this since she was a child.
She also rode a motorcycle and skied. And after high school, she got a scholarship to play at the local community college.
In South Dakota there was Julie Jensen, who starred at Langford High School and then Northern State University, setting college scoring records. But in between the stars and the unusual stories, there were everyday athletes who were just playing because they enjoyed the games and were getting a chance to play.
And because they were getting a chance to play in youth leagues and high school, many went on to get college scholarships. That didn't lead to professional leagues at all because until recently there were few professional opportunities in sports for women. But they were able to use their athletic abilities to get college degrees, and that was more important than any professional sports leagues.
Somehow I hope along the way, I hope the stories I was able to tell inspired some young athlete to compete and excel.