Each year, the Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF) marks the first Wednesday in February as National Girls and Women in Sports Day®. For nearly 40 years, this day has raised awareness about the physical, educational, and psychological benefits of sports for women and girls throughout their lives. WSF was founded in 1974 by tennis champion and lifelong equality advocate Billie Jean King, who turned a $5,000 Athlete of the Year award into a $100 million nonprofit. Fifty years in, the organization continues to conduct research, develop programs, and lead advocacy efforts to help women and girls reach their full potential in sports and life.
On this episode, we’re joined by WSF CEO Danette Leighton who shares more about their research-informed programs and advocacy and how WSF is working to ensure all girls have access to sport — and its healthy benefits.
Learn more about the Women’s Sports Foundation.
Guest:
Danette Leighton, CEO, Women’s Sports Foundation
Host/Producer: Carol Vassar
TRANSCRIPT
Announcer:
Welcome to Well Beyond Medicine, the world’s top-ranked children’s health podcast produced by Nemours Children’s Health. Subscribe on any platform at NemoursWellBeyond.org, or find us on YouTube.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Each week, we’ll be joined by innovators and experts from around the world, exploring anything and everything related to the 85% of child health impacts that occur outside the doctor’s office. I’m your host, Carol Vassar. And now that you are here, let’s go.
MUSIC:
Let’s go well beyond medicine.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
February 5th marks the 39th annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day, helping to raise awareness about the physical, educational, psychological, and growth opportunities that sports provide to women and girls throughout their lifespan. The day is spearheaded by the Women’s Sports Foundation, founded in 1974 by 39-time Grand Slam Tennis champion and lifelong equality advocate, Billie Jean King. It was King who leveraged a $5,000 check as one of that year’s Gillette Cavalcade of Champions Athletes of the Year to create the Women’s Sports Foundation. Which to date has provided over $100 million to conduct research, create programming and spearhead advocacy to enable girls and women to reach their potential in both sport and life. Here to talk about all of that and to dig into some of their recent research on women’s sports and leadership is the current CEO of the Women’s Sports Foundation, Danette Leighton, of whom I asked what Billie Jean King’s initial goals were in establishing the Women’s Sports Foundation?
Danette Leighton, CEO, Women’s Sports Foundation:
Well, it’s a great question and we just celebrated our 50th anniversary, just finished it last year. Billie, I think we’re all in awe of Billie for so many reasons. It was really the easiest decision to make to come lead this organization as their CEO when I got asked. Because you have one interview with Billie Jean King and you want to run through a wall for her. But the reality was during the time of the creation of Title IX is we really got created two years after the passing of Title IX. Billie knew that with a bill like Title IX it was going to be really important to have a not-for-profit advocacy and research organization that could really develop, support, protect, and essentially create proof points and the data necessary to prove why it’s so important for girls, women to play sports. Obviously, for so many reasons, and I know we’re going to get into that today on the podcast, but primarily the importance level of seeing how it all connects together.
And I think back then, if you think about 1972, just some stats that provide just some context. In 1972 women didn’t have the right to sign their own or get their own credit cards in their name. So, I think what we’re proud of is the reality of where we are today and the progress that we’ve made. But we definitely also as an advocacy organization see the challenge that we’re still face. And the lack of opportunities that are there, but we’re excited to talk more about how this is so much bigger than sport. It’s really about what sport has been able to do for girls and women when it comes to their leadership, their health from a preventative standpoint, and then ultimately how that has impacted the economy. I think a lot of people don’t realize that all those connection points to sport.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
I would love to start in 1972 for those, it was 52 years ago, not everyone was around then. Can you give us a little primer, maybe a 30 second to one minute idea and overview of what Title IX is?
Danette Leighton, CEO, Women’s Sports Foundation:
Yeah, so the irony of Title IX is it has 37 words, and everyone just thinks it was built for sports, but it actually, sports is a component of it because, thank goodness, those that were a part of the founding of Title IX and the writing Title IX had one word in there that really has allowed sports to be such a benefit from it, which that word is “activities.” It is in the 37 words of the piece of legislation. But the landmark legislation is meant to be and what it’s supposed to do: it prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other educational program that receives federal funding. So, it’s considered by many to be the preeminent legislation that paved the way for the girls and women participation in sports. And we know as the Women’s Sports Foundation that if it didn’t exist, we wouldn’t be here today, and you wouldn’t see the momentum that you’re seeing. And we like to say this isn’t a coincidence; this has been a 52-year journey, and we still have a long way to go.
But that piece of legislation basically required the equitable sports participation opportunities, specifically through K-12 and collegiate within our higher education system and in our entire primary education system that all receive federal funding.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Any sense of how it landed at the time? Was it as big in people’s minds then as it seems to be today?
Danette Leighton, CEO, Women’s Sports Foundation:
Well, considering that I am 53 years old, I was one when this all took place. And I think for us, what I’ve been able to see is I’ve spent my entire career in sports and in the industry of sports on the business side, both collegiate and professional. I’ve been obviously a benefactor, because I’m the first generation that’s lived our full lives with having the ability to play sports. That’s really…Gen X is that first generation. And so, I know for me on a personal level I wouldn’t have the life that I have, the career that I have if I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to play sports at the youth level even when I was going through my childhood in the ’70s and ’80s.
I think many of us who have been a part of this journey for a long time in women’s sports, it’s like anything. It takes generational change and generational mindsets for people to see women playing sports. To see both men and women growing up with girls playing sports. And recognizing a lot of the challenges that might have been in the ’70s are not the challenges that are in 2025. But it’s refreshing to have conversations with a lot of our generations that are in their 80s talking about what opportunities they did not have. And I will tell you that those women that never had the ability to pick up a bat or have the ability to play sport, and have been those pioneers to fight the fight are really like Billie Jean are really women and men that paved this way for something that’s so important for girls well beyond the playing field.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
We’re able to talk about some of those women who spoke to you and your organization about what it was like growing up pre-Title IX, during Title IX, and after Title IX in a few minutes. I want to go back in your history, though. The work done by the Women’s Sports Foundation began very modestly. You had a single $5,000 check, and your organization’s growth through the years has been phenomenal. You are massively influential in three areas: advocacy, programming, and research. And we’ll dig into research in a few minutes, I alluded to it just now, but I would love it if you could highlight the advocacy work done by the Women’s Sports Foundation all throughout the decades.
Danette Leighton, CEO, Women’s Sports Foundation:
Sure, a fun story, a fun fact. Billie Jean received an award for being, I think it was Athlete of the Year, and she got a $5,000 check, and when she was receiving that award, she said she was going to start the Women’s Sports Foundation with $5,000, and that’s exactly what she did. And we’ve now been able to distribute over $100 million and more worth of impact and we’re very proud of that. And I think for many people that are in the not-for-profit space, which I’m now only in it for three years, this is my third year as the CEO of the organization. For not-for-profits to survive and thrive for 50 years and now 51, I think we’re all very proud of that and excited about the long history, but it’s taken a village and a team, using some sports phrases, to make this happen.
There was a lot of people, both predecessors that were sitting in this role, obviously, Billie and her constant fight and her constant work in this space has been critical. But for you and for us, when it comes to the Women’s Sports Foundation, you’re spot on. Advocacy has been a big part of our work. And the way I like to describe our work is that we’re primarily an advocacy organization and research organization that uses our community programming really as our output of our research and advocacy. So every program that we do, whether it be a grant program, whether it be some of our grassroots efforts, they’re all proof points of our research and our data and really tie back into the advocacy areas we need to prioritize and focus on because we see where there’s need. And so that research really drives that. And so the advocacy work obviously is a massive component, and protecting legislation like Title IX is just one piece of that.
But I think it’s really important to help people understand this is the beauty of private sector, public sector not-for-profit policy makers all working together. And without that piece of legislation you would not be seeing what you’re seeing today in sport. And you would not be seeing some of the leadership that you see in female executives that coincidentally played sports. We know that’s not a coincidence. We can talk more about research that we did there later. But it’s really the fact that this sport happens to be a remarkable community builder. It’s always been bipartisan, but it has required, and it really was necessary for us to have a piece of legislation like Title IX to get the ball rolling, and without it, we wouldn’t be here. And so it must continue to be protected for girls.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Let’s talk about programming. You talked about some of the programs, it’s evidence-based programming it sounds like based on your research. Talk about some of the programs that you feel have really indelibly impacted girls and women. What are some of your favorites?
Danette Leighton, CEO, Women’s Sports Foundation:
Yeah, I think through the years, and I think when you’re 50 years old, you can see the significant amount of research you’ve done. It’s something that really drew me to this organization. I’ve always been a data and analytics-driven executive in everything that we’ve done. And I’ve always appreciated that that’s how this organization has always set itself up: do the research, dig into the data, and then establish where the advocacy areas are needed. And then build programs to make sure that we can actually make an impact and do things in different communities. So, a most recent program is now 10 years old, it’s 10th, we just actually celebrate its 10th anniversary. We co-founded a program with our national partner, ESPN, and now it’s supported also by Gatorade who’s also a national partner of ours, that’s called Sports for Life. And we recognized through data over a decade ago that we started to see a real decline primarily in obviously socioeconomic marginalized communities, could be rural communities, primarily the BIPOC community girls were all seeing opportunities for them to have less and less opportunities to play sports. So, we kept seeing a reduction of those opportunities or different barriers that we’re getting them to not have access something to try.
And so we establish a Sports 4 Life grant where we are a national organization, so what we do is we actually grant different types of community-based programs all across the country to make sure girls can keep playing and stay in the game. It doesn’t matter what sport, it doesn’t matter if it’s a community-based organization, but it is not-for-profit organizations that are working in their communities to make sure that those underserved communities have the ability for girls to have access to playing sports.
And so in the time of this, Sports 4 Life, we’ve been able to fund over 250 organizations across 40 states, including DC, U.S. Virgin Islands, and providing close to $3 million in grants. And so, we’ve seen a real need, we see a continued need. We obviously wish we had even more funding ability to be able to impact and do more, and we see this as being a real critical area, not just from 10 years ago but also what’s changing in the landscape of youth sports. We’re very worried about what we call the pay-for-play model of youth sports. And the reality is that there seems to be more and more popularity and the ability to generate significant revenue across women’s sports, men’s sports, both in collegiate sports, professional sports, there seems to be a pathway where only certain premier clubs are that pathway to earn that scholarship or to earn the ability to play at higher and higher levels. Which sometimes then starts to eliminate opportunities for those that don’t have those means to be able to fund that type of youth sport environment or club environments.
We want to make sure that parents and practitioners and everyone understands that school sport participation, as well as extracurricular club-based sport participation, and making sure that everybody has access to sport participation is critical. And that’s also why it’s really important, why it ties to Title IX as well. What we like to say is, “Sports isn’t a nice to have.” And you can’t just assume that everybody’s complying with Title IX within each of the communities or each of the systems, and it’s something that people and parents and practitioners need to be aware of, because it shouldn’t be seen as an extracurricular. It’s too important for girls to have in their development.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Are we seeing a decline in things like physical education classes? What are some of the barriers that are keeping young women, in particular, but I’m sure some young men as well, from playing sports? Is money the issue?
Danette Leighton, CEO, Women’s Sports Foundation:
Well, I think financial is always a component of it. We’ve done some research study that we’re going to talk about more I think a little bit later that ask some questions to families and barriers. And we still see financial barriers as a big part of that. So, it definitely is a barrier. It’s a barrier for individual homes and the cost of things being important. I would say sports and art has a tendency to be seen in a more extracurricular lens, not so much in the lens of maybe math and science and English, and it really shouldn’t be seen in an extra way. It needs to be seen as a part of the overall wellbeing of an education of our young girl or a young boy as well. But all through our goal is we want girls to play sports for as long as possible. We know that there’s a very small percentage that are ever going to go play at the highest levels, and we recognize that the 99% of girls that never get to that level benefit.
There’s also some real challenges for girls that are different than boys. And a lot of that has to do with puberty, and a lot of that has to do with the reality that coaching girls is different than coaching boys. Girls go through, we still have one of the highest dropout rates is middle school is when girls quit playing sports. And so, that is one of been our biggest frustrations since we created this organization very early on that we still see the biggest dropout rate is in middle school. And you can say a lot of factors are part of that. And so, I think for us, it’s a combination of multiple layers of things. And we also have less opportunity. A lot of people think there’s all this great momentum around women’s sports, and we’re proud of it. But we still are at exactly the same level of high school participation for girls as the boys were in 1972, so it’s 2025, and we still have a million less opportunities in high school participation, and that’s just high school.
So, it’s layers of issues that create for girls not having access to playing sports. And in certain communities, boys struggle, too. And so when there are not places for them to play, or there’s not community-based organizations, or schools don’t have the ability to add a sport, or they have challenges in funding, there’s an easy place that has a tendency to get cut is this type of area.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Danette, I’m wondering if you have a question that pediatric practitioners can ask girls coming in and their families with regard to sports that they should be asking?
Danette Leighton, CEO, Women’s Sports Foundation:
I think one is asking the question, “Have they thought about sports?” Especially for those households that have both boys and girls or even if they have all girls is, “Have they thought about making sure sports opportunities are for all children in your family?” We have seen differences of certain families and backgrounds that think it’s a natural thing to put their sons in sports, but not put their daughters in sports. And for practitioners to help make them understand that, look at this as an opportunity for both girls and boys in your household. And finding something that suits them. Not every sport is for every child. I threw my daughter into everything. She’s not like my sports. She picked different sports. Keep trying until they find something and it’s really about them finding something that they can learn and give them and expose them to the value of sport that maybe some families don’t understand like we talked about today.
I think it’s really important for them to understand the mental health, physical health, and just the overall communication skills, development skills, social skills, and leadership skills that happen. So that they can get themselves out of just thinking sports is fun. It is fun; that’s the best part about it, but you’re doing a lot more than being fun as a parent.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Let’s talk about some of that research, you’ve been referring to it, I’ve been referring to it. There are two that I really would like to concentrate on and this is the multi-generational impact of sports on women’s leadership called Play to Lead. This was released last year in 2024. Some really fascinating highlights on the impact that women’s sports or sports participation has had on girls and women. Specifically leadership development. Give us some highlights and make that connection for us.
Danette Leighton, CEO, Women’s Sports Foundation:
Yeah, I think, so this one probably is the most near and dear to me. I feel very blessed about a career that I’ve had and being in the C-suite space as it relates to my time in professional sports or collegiate athletics and being an executive prior to coming to the not-for-profit world and running this organization. For all of us who have lived and breathed the ability to play sports. We know the intangibles that we, but we were excited to be able to do research. It was too many of us that were like, we kind of call it, the duh moment. It’s being able to see it now, but it’s also because there’s been generations of women that are now able to be able to speak about it. So what I think what we were most excited to see in the Play to Lead is exactly what we expected.
But that 71% of women that essentially have played sports and have had formal leadership roles of, say, manager all the way up to C-suite, so manager, director, president, vice president, C-suite, 71% of them believe that they’re tied to playing youth sports, garnered them their skill sets and those intangibles which include things like teamwork, learning from mistakes, handling pressure, pushing physical boundaries. And one of the best lessons, and I always say about sport, is you learn how to lose. And when you learn how to lose, you know how to win. You know how to negotiate, you know how to do so many things that are a part of the intangibles of being a leader in business. And we’ve seen this for a very long time about what that power of sport has done. And this piece of research for us was really exciting. Because we were able to look at it from women in their 20s to all the way to women in their 80s.
So, thinking about women that didn’t have as many opportunities at the top part of where they are in their generation, all the way to the beginning of these women’s careers in their 20s. Which is why, for us, there’s been a stat out there for a while now that Ernst and Young did that is 94% of C-suite women played sports, with over half of them playing in college.
This one was able to really look at the journey of women and looking at it through a leadership lens. I like to remind people both from, “Whatever your role is, from policymaking to medical practitioners to parents, this is when we try.” And as a mother of a daughter, I try to remind people that “When girls play in good, strong environments in sports, you will set them up for life. And they never have to go be that WBA player, that Olympian. It’s just what sports teach you as you are growing from your youth into adulthood.”
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
There’s so much more that you get out of it, is what I’m hearing, than just going on to college on scholarship. You are getting the health benefits, you are getting the leadership skills, you’re getting so many life skills that you possibly will not learn outside of the field or off the court.
Danette Leighton, CEO, Women’s Sports Foundation:
Resilience is one of the best, I think, attributes I learned from sports. And it’s because of losing. Sports is you lose, you win and you play as a team. And I think, and we obviously have a lot of individual sports, but for the most part, teams, even in individual sport you have some type of team component. But when you think about a team, it’s always been barrier-breaking in every capacity because you are working with your fellow teammates. Doesn’t matter where they come from, what they look like, or anything. You’re working with your … I was a second baseman in softball. Very rarely did I make an out by myself, it required me to work with my teammate. You’re up to bat, you strike out on the bottom of the ninth inning, you lose the game. You have your team to build you up. You learn life lessons that are intangibles that end up changing your life and helping you guide you, especially in your professional life. And I know for me as an example, I would say my sport participation taught me more than I ever realized until I got older.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
There’s another piece of research that was also released in 2024 by the Women’s Sports Foundation. It talks about girls’ participation in sports and the mental health benefit, benefiting their mental well-being. Tell us about the transformative impact of sports on girls’ mental health.
Danette Leighton, CEO, Women’s Sports Foundation:
This was also really important one for us to dive into. Obviously, with the mental health crisis and coming out of COVID and knowing how sport has been able to really be a part of your communities and the importance of it. And so we developed a report that’s called Driving Through Sport and we learned in this research report, which we had again, the hope that it would translate into this is. That when girls play sports in the right environment, we are very aware there are some environments that are not healthy, and we understand that. And our objective is obviously to help parents and coaches and different practitioners to understand the best type of environment in coaching and how to coach girls, et cetera. But when done so, girls have less anxiety and less depression. They’re also much more likely to do better academically, they’re much more likely to have less teenage pregnancies.
They’re also more likely to get involved in more extracurricular activities, and obviously, all the things that we talked about, communication, teamwork, friendships, collaboration, all of those great things that are part of the betterment of your mental health, as well as obviously being a fantastic preventative physical component of sports. Everybody’s always understood as a part of the sport component, the physical well-being. But from a mental perspective, when we recognize that those that play sport versus those that did not, that they had less anxiety and less depression, we thought that was a very, very important step for parents to understand.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
The Women’s Sports Foundation also has a global influence. Talk about the work you’re doing outside the U.S..
Danette Leighton, CEO, Women’s Sports Foundation:
Yeah, so I think this is more about looking at the 52 years of the piece of legislation in Title IX and recognizing what it’s really impacted, not just here domestically but also from a global perspective. So, a couple examples would be I like to share with people the last Women’s World Cup rosters. So when the Women’s World Cup in soccer or football, if you’re not in America, would say it took place, there was only five countries rosters that did not have a player on the roster, though they went to high school or college in the United States. That’s an example. In the most recent Paris Olympics. In the Paris Olympics, there are 75% competed collegiately as a part of their journey to Team USA, with 54% of those being women. So what’s happened over time is with our piece of legislation, if you pay attention to rosters, whether they be Olympic rosters or World Cup rosters, especially for women.
You’ll a lot of correlation to where they were educated and therefore a lot of women from other countries have had the ability to be in our educational system and then bring that back to their home countries and we’re not the only one. So, in other countries also, we’ve done a lot of collaboration. We want to do more in the space. It’s honestly an area where we would like to be able to do more and be more of a thought leader in helping working with different countries in different ways that can help. What we’ve learned here with the tie between both legislation and community programming, as well as research and advocacy. Every system and sport is set up differently across the world, but that collaborative kind of learning that we’ve had tied to our education system in some instances has been very well received. And we’ve seen and we have good data to show what’s happened here in our country over a long period of time.
And how, essentially, that’s been impacted not just American girls but also women that have had the pleasure to play at the highest, highest elite level. We haven’t had the pleasure of doing type of data across the world that shows some of those benefits from a leadership standpoint, because we focus on that domestically. But I can only imagine what those numbers are like. But when you look at it purely from a sport perspective and an elite sport perspective, which is a small percentage of women that get to that level. And you see how many different women in different rosters actually benefited from Title IX, it’s pretty powerful.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Have attitudes toward women and girls in sports changed? Do we see a stigma there still?
Danette Leighton, CEO, Women’s Sports Foundation:
I think there’s always continued room for improvement, but here’s where I always look at everything with an optimistic view and where we’ve come from. And I think real change happens generationally. And every generation, there’s been continuous evolution in this space, and I think the fact that men and women now, for 52 years, have grown up with seeing women playing sports. I like to reference now you’re seeing moms of NBA players be the star athlete in the household. You didn’t see that 30 years ago, 40 years ago. You’re seeing these successful women that have these sports backgrounds that are these executives in positions because sport was a big part of that. This isn’t just a male or a female thing. It takes everyone to be able to be a part of this journey and to see the real power of sport. And at the end of the day, the Women’s Sports Foundation just wants from an equitable perspective for both girls and boys, we think it’s incredibly important for both girls and boys to have the ability to play sports.
We just want people to understand that there was a lot more stigmas 52 years ago that they thought that women shouldn’t play sports or couldn’t play sports because of our physical makeup or just there was just these wrong perceptions that girls didn’t have the ability to play sports or should play sports. I think our issue now is paying attention to the fact that more sports need more investment from a women’s sports perspective, that women still have less opportunities than boys do. Especially at the high school level. We lack significant investment at all levels of the ecosystem. We don’t have enough female coaches. There’s so many layers of things that we still have to get done in this space, but sometimes if you’re not as in it in the sports industry, it’s reminding practitioners and parents, “This is so much bigger than sports. And what it does for girls and women impacts their whole life.”
And more people seeing that connective tissue is happening more now than it would have. Because the data’s there, the results are there, the people are there to be able to have their life experiences, and now a lot of these decision-makers are decision makers that have lived it themselves. So I think that’s something that’s very powerful to see over a 50, 52-year period of time, what’s changed.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
From your perspective, as we stand here in the beginning of 2025? What are the most pressing challenges for girls and women and as they face and look at playing sports, especially under Title IX?
Danette Leighton, CEO, Women’s Sports Foundation:
Don’t just take it for granted. History has a tendency to repeat itself. And so for some generations that don’t know what Title IX is or realize we’re sitting here today because of it. The importance in their own community to pay attention to it and to realize that they need to protect and support it and continue it for the next, similar to the Women’s Sports Foundation needs to exist for the next a hundred, 200 years. This isn’t something that you can just say we’re done, check the box. So I think a lot of times it’s educating people on that, that policy does matter in this case. And you can’t just take that for granted, and that must be protected, and we see that every day. That we do see continued numbers not being where they should be for girls participation. Concerns about all levels of the ecosystem.
We have a lot of concerns about what’s happening in college athletics, just wanting to make sure as many girls as possible have opportunity to play at all levels if they can play at that level, and college isn’t just about division one playing for those teams. It’s also, people forget it’s division two is division three, it’s NAIA. There’s a whole journey at the collegiate level that also is a big part of educating. In some cases, it’s the only reason why some men and women have the ability to go to school in their situation because sports obviously gave them a scholarship to be able to go to college. We think that’s important. We don’t want youth to turn into the Pay for Play model. We want school sports to matter. We want to make sure every family has the ability to take advantage of their kids playing sports.
We want the school systems to continue to grow a sport participation at all levels. We’re really excited about sports like Girls Flag. We think it’s a great sport to be added across the country and across the nation as a sport for girls to grow more numbers. I think for us, it’s a matter of understanding that the multiple layers to the importance of participation, but to make sure that access is there. And that access is the starting point for all of these girls. And the ability for them have that access is what we try to protect and what we try to grow.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
How do we keep women and girls in sports? How do we get them in? How do we keep them in?
Danette Leighton, CEO, Women’s Sports Foundation:
Yeah, it’s a great question. I think one of the biggest challenges we have is like I said, is that middle school area. And part of it is we have a real challenge that we don’t have enough women coaching girls. There is something to be said about “If you can see her, you can be her.” We work very closely. We actually have a grant program, a few grant programs that are trying to encourage more women in the coaching space, in the scouting space, and areas so that you can see it’s not simple being a coach, and there are differences about what it takes when you’re also a female coach wanting to coach at the highest levels, and you also want to be a mom, and you also want to do a lot of different things. And so we try to really find and break down barriers and help those women be able to, one, see another female coach so they can have obviously a mentor in some form or fashion, but also start the journey of that.
We definitely have seen girls in their youth when they have the ability to be coached by again, and it can be a very great guy and a great female coach. But there is something to be said about having more women coaches in the pipeline has made a difference for the younger women who want to feel more comfortable. We do see things, and since we are talking about this from a children’s health perspective, people don’t talk about some of the things. Sometimes, girls don’t realize in middle school they need a sports bra, or they don’t realize that they’re getting their period and need to understand how to use a tampon. We in sports always laugh about why people make us wear white uniforms. There are just certain things that people don’t realize that girls go through. And sometimes, coaches don’t understand how to go through that. And there’s just differences. And that is a girl’s body image, and what a female athlete looks like is something that we’ve always think is really, really important.
It’s why we’re very, we love seeing what Elana Morrow does with the sport of rugby. And showing the power of being a strong woman and showing that all different body types matter. If you look at every sport, sport represents every body type. And that’s the part that we love about sports and always have loved about sports. And hopefully that helps all girls, especially those at the middle school level where that confidence level is there, that they build that self-confidence to know that this is what sports is so powerful to be. It shows you somebody that can look like you in any sport [inaudible 00:32:04], very different from a marathon runner.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
That is for sure. That is for sure. Danette, what can people who are listening today do to mark National Women and Girls in Sports Day or really any day and encourage support women’s sports in our communities?
Danette Leighton, CEO, Women’s Sports Foundation:
We obviously encourage you to visit Womensportsfoundation.org. We’re very proud of being a co-founder of this special day to celebrate the power of Title IX but celebrate girls playing sports. We honestly, and we would ask people to do this every day. Pick something in your community to go support. I say go support your local high school volleyball team. If you have a professional team in your community, go by. If you’ve never been, go to a game, buy a jersey, and coach your daughter’s soccer team. It can be the smallest thing to the biggest thing, depending on where you are, making sure you expose and attend both a women’s game and a men’s game for both your sons and your daughters. The idea is to show them all it exists now. And all you have to do is the most simple thing in your community is find something in your community that you can support, both girls and boys, but make sure you bring both your sons and your daughters to both. Because it’s very powerful when you see your son watching an NWSL superstar, as well as they’re watching their favorite NBA player.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Final question. I’m curious to know and find out from you what and how far have we come in meeting Billie Jean King’s initial goals. And what work do we still have left to do?
Danette Leighton, CEO, Women’s Sports Foundation:
Yeah, I think incredible progress has been made. And I think all of us, as we looked back last year and kind of celebrate our 50th, we’re reminded of that. We’re reminded of where I look at it through a generational lens, where my generation is compared to the generations above me, and now seeing what’s happening. Just looking at the Paris Olympics. And just looking at finally seeing equal participation for men and women. You have to celebrate all of the good that has come over a lot of work. But recognize this is in a coincidence. Where we have a lot of work to do is at the investment levels. Investment levels of all sports. For a long time in women’s sports, we’ve been accepting the crumbs and we have not been valued the same way, whether it’s the professional level or not, player salaries. There’s a lot of microcosms and comparisons to what happened to women in society compared to if you look at salaries of athletes. We have a lot more, we want to see more fandom, we want to see more.
Obviously, every individual can support a local team or support a professional team in their communities. We want to see more access. We don’t want to see the declines that we’re seeing in certain communities. We want to make sure we don’t go backwards. We need to see more compliance with Title IX. Unfortunately, as much as people think it’s complied with, it’s not. A lot of people ask the question about just, there’s so much momentum with the, we call it the elite side, the ecosystem. Everybody’s excited about and we’re so thrilled to see WNBA and NWSL and Olympics and everybody in PWHL and everything that’s happening. But we just remind everybody that this isn’t a coincidence. This is because it’s 52 years of doing this work and having generational change. But we’re nowhere where we need to be, nowhere close. And it’s high time that we see this type of investment being made at all levels.
But recognizing that we need to be investing in our youth and not taking away opportunities or eliminating opportunities for girls to have this access. Because I honestly, at the end of the day, do not care if you ever never become an Olympian or a Dublin Bay player because 99% of us will never have that pleasure. But it matters that they play as long as possible. And we have seen that when girls play sports, as long as they possibly can, if that’s through high school, they thrive in their life and beyond.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
Danette Leighton is the CEO of the Women’s Sports Foundation.
MUSIC:
Well beyond medicine.
Carol Vassar, podcast host/producer:
It was so much fun for this former soccer player to talk with Danette, who played softball in her youth and has spent her career as a sports industry and nonprofit executive. I want to thank her for taking the time to be with us on the Nemours Well Beyond Medicine podcast. And I also want to thank you, as always, for listening.
We’re open to your ideas for upcoming podcast episodes. All you need to do to get us your idea is visit nemourswellbeyond.org and leave us a voicemail. You can also email us at [email protected], that’s [email protected].
You can also visit the website to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, or listen to episodes you may have missed. That’s nemourswellbeyond.org you can also find all of our podcast episodes on the Nemours YouTube channel.
This week’s production team includes Cheryl Munn, Susan Masucci, and Lauren Teta. Join us next time as we explore an important tool in the fight against mental illness in our nation. The Crisis Text Line. I’m Carole Vassar. Until then, remember, we can change children’s health for good, Well Beyond Medicine.
MUSIC:
Let’s go well beyond medicine.
