THOUGHTS FROM A SEPTUAGENARIAN. In the seven decades that I’ve been on Planet Earth the opportunity for women to compete in sports has increased monumentally. Let’s take a minute to examine how that has transpired during my lifetime and glad this part of sports has evolved.

When I was first exposed to organized sports in the early 60s I had plenty of different ones to choose. I gravitated toward baseball and basketball along with football but there were others that were available. Track and golf as well as tennis plus soccer along with wrestling to name a few.

By the time I entered high school in the late 60s you could choose to participate in any of the above mentioned sports. These extra curricular activities were an integral part of high school life at John F. Kennedy HS in Willingboro New Jersey for boys. Then the opportunities for girls were extremely limited.

There were only two sports open to girls then at JFK and those were basketball and field hockey. Other school throughout the country may have had different options but the choices were still no where near what schools were offering for boys. That led to a lot of young athletic ladies gravitating toward cheerleading because that was their only other alternative if they wanted to be a part of the athletics landscape.

Today every male sport in high school has a female counterpart. If it doesn’t then girls are permitted to compete with boys and those are diminishing rapidly as girls are now encouraged as much as boys to get involved athletically.

As a father of three female athletes I am so happy they had the opportunity to participate as I did. The camaraderie that you develop being part of any team sport is a great life teacher.

Basking in the thrill of victory and learning how to deal with the agony of defeat prepares you for life as an adult. No better teacher of that then sports.

Now girls can have those same experiences. Yes the highs are great and the lows are devastating but you survive and learn from both. I wouldn’t trade those moments for anything.

BOOK IT DANO!