“Maybe the reason I love to win is because it hurts so much to lose. And I can’t stand pain. You may call it neurotic, but when you think about it, almost anybody who has been successful in life - in sports, the arts, business or everyday living suffers pain when they lose. 

To be a winner you must have total self-awareness. You’ve got to be aware of how much training your body needs, how much practice you need, and how much time you need to prepare yourself mentally. 

Most people understand the need for training and practice, but they don’t know what I mean by mental preparation. By that, I simply mean, Imagine yourself doing something right! This applies to all of the goals you might want to achieve in life. 

Envision yourself winning.

Know your opponent.

Review after each game what you did right and what you did wrong to better prepare for next time.

Know yourself and what you did to win. 

Have measurable goals.

Have self-discipline.” 

Could have been written today, right? All excerpted from an article written by the one and only Billie Jean King, a heroine to every single one of us who loves to play our sport. Kathy and I had the extraordinary pleasure of dining with Eva Auchincloss and Holly Turner recently. They were co-Executive Directors of the Women’s Sports Foundation in its first years. As the pioneering Eva put it, “We were ahead of our time”. No kidding. 

These editions of Women’s Sports Magazine are beyond precious. Every single piece of editorial content is relevant to me and my daughters and all of our sisters and teammates everywhere. The photos are priceless. I will post a few on our fan page for comment. Some of the ads are laugh out loud, but every single photo of a female athlete is inspiring. The mothers of today’s top athletes! Pioneers!

I asked my own 15 year old to imagine her life without her teammates, her practices every day, her competitions on the weekend. She wonders if she would miss it, since she wouldn’t know what she was missing. But I reminded her of how it felt to play on the playground as a young girl, running around freely, competing equally with the boys in dodgeball and foursquare. What if the boys got to keep doing it officially and she didn’t? That resonates. 

I’m dismayed by those who want to attack Title IX today. The internet conversation today includes many who feel that boys are being penalized by “reverse discrimination” and point out how boys have limited opportunities because of mandatory equitable participation for girls. 

You could say that in our country today, football, basketball and baseball for males fully dominate the sports conversation, the media coverage, and that it has nothing to do with girls or Title IX. As long as the big budgets at all schools, and yes, the big revenue, is dominated by these sports, it will be a struggle to support all the boys and girls who want to participate in sport.

It’s a conversation I’d love to have. And it’s not easy. But attacking Title IX isn’t the answer. I became a teenager the same year that Title IX passed. Had I not been able to play sports year-round, as mandated by Title IX, I can’t imagine what my life would have been like. Seeing the boys play and know I couldn’t play too? 

Let’s keep talking about it. And stay tuned for some of these incredible photos and stories of female athletes from the “early days” of women in sports. Thank you, Billie, Eva and Holly! And Donna deVarona! We are grateful!