Without the Title IX legislation that celebrated its 40th anniversary on Saturday, many female athletes, coaches and parents shudder to think of all the opportunities that would have been lost over the last four decades.

For many who enjoy college athletics today, it may seem understood that both male and females participate.

Those 40 years and younger have never known a time when that wasn’t the case.

It wasn’t always so, however.

"The main things that strikes me is all the opportunities that girls are getting now," Acadiana High athletic director and volleyball coach Anne Roger said. "I try not to be that coach who is always talking about, ‘In my day,’ but it’s true. When I was in high school, there was no such thing as athletic scholarships for girls."

As a coach, Roger knows exactly how different the landscape is 40 years later. But when attending the women’s Final Four in Denver earlier this season, she saw a video presentation on Title IX and it hit home.

"I just stood there and cried like a baby," Roger said. "When you look at everything that’s been done and the increased numbers over the years, it’s just phenomenal. Really, I would think we’ve gotten even more than expected out of it."

At Acadiana High, Roger has witnessed two shining examples of Title IX’s power. While the Lady Rams’ athletic programs have rarely been state title contenders over the years, AHS girls basketball has produced two of the top female stars this area has ever seen in former WNBA standouts Kim Perrot and Sheri Sam.

Perrot once scored 58 points in a game for UL, still the

second most in NCAA history, and later played on two WNBA title teams with the Houston Comets. Her No. 10 jersey was retired by the Comets after her untimely death in 1999 with lung cancer.

Sam graduated from Vanderbilt, traveled to Japan with the USA Basketball team in 1995 and played 10 years in the WNBA.

"Every time I open the paper and see a kid get a chance, I don’t care what school they go to, I think, ‘Kudos to that school and to that kid for that opportunity.’ That’s what it’s all about," Roger said.

For those heavily involved in the world of sports, Title IX is purely about equal gender rights in athletics.

Actually, the exact wording of the legislation never mentions athletics or sports.

The actual law reads:

"No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."

Lafayette Parish Athletic Director James Simmons began his coaching career exactly 40 years ago, the very first school year ruled by Title IX.

"My first high school coaching job was at Crowley High," Simmons said. "When I got there, there was no basketball, no track and field, nothing. They didn’t have girls sports."

Simmons said he helped begin a girls track and field program in 1976. Not surprisingly, it got off to a shaky start.

"We bought them brand new uniforms," he said. "They were those one-piece uniforms, just like they wear today, but back then they refused to wear them. The boys would laugh and make fun of them and they just refused to wear them. You know, they were so revealing."

Since those early days, however, much has changed.

The national statistics indicate that Crowley High wasn’t that different than most schools around the country in those days.

Prior to 1972, fewer than 300,000 high school girls around the country — or one in 27 — played high school sports and less than 32,000 participated at the collegiate level.

Just two years later, the high school number had already accelerated to 1.3 million.

These days, the numbers show that over three million high school girls play sports. In 2010-11, more than 191,000 females played NCAA sports.

Simmons said he was recently reminded that not all aspects of the educational process have been as successful as athletics.

"I was reading an article about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math coalition) the other day and it was talking about how there still aren’t a lot of numbers with women in STEM.

"Title IX isn’t just about sports, but the sports side of it took it and ran with it."

UL women’s basketball coach Garry Brodhead was a high school and college athlete in Lafayette during the first eight years of Title IX. He remembers the issue in those early years, but never imagined the impact it would have on his career.

"I definitely remember them talking about Title IX back then, but I didn’t know back when how big it was going to be," Brodhead said. "It’s turned out to be way bigger than I ever imagined. It’s affected the lives of so many kids.

"As a Dad, just seeing the opportunities for my kids and then all the kids that I’ve seen their lives affected as a coach."

While Brodhead constantly works to make the experience a better one, he’s comfortable with how far girls athletics has come over the last four decades.

"Sure, it could always get better," he said. "But we could do more on the men’s side too. You can always do more. But the opportunities are there. If you work hard, the opportunities are definitely there for every kid."

Simmons added, "I tell parents who have daughters all the time to put a golf club or a racquet in their hands, because the opportunities are better for females in those sports."

By 1987, Stefni Lotief — actually Stefni Whitton then — was certainly happy that progress had been made in her sport of softball. Six years earlier, a college softball program had been established in Lafayette and she accepted a scholarship offer out of Friendswood, Texas.

As they say, the rest is history.

Whitton led the Cajuns to its first NCAA appearance in 1990, became the first All-American in the program’s history and now continues to help raise UL softball to new heights in her 13th season as a coach.

"I can’t say that it (UL softball) would have gotten started if not for Title IX," Lotief said. "I don’t know. I do know that a lot of softball programs were only started because of Title IX."

Lotief explained, though, that her appreciation for Title IX began before her college career.

During his high school career in Texas, Lotief said the push was showing up in facilities for female sports at her school.

"This is Texas where the football budgets were so huge," Lotief said. "I definitely knew what Title IX was in high school. I just remember all the enhancements to all the facilities."

Once she began her college career, however, it didn’t take very long for Lotief to notice that the Title IX spirit hadn’t extended everywhere.

"I remember playing at Southern Mississippi, a program that has been to the College World Series, and we played on an intramural field with a goal post next to third base," she said.

While some went kicking and screaming, Lotief said she believes UL "was more proactive than a lot of schools."

Her husband and co-head softball coach, Michael Lotief, is convinced that the local university and the local community didn’t need the federal government to push them into equal opportunity for female athletes.

"In my heart, I believe this program would have happened here without Title IX, but this is just a special place," he said.

By no means does that mean that Lotief doesn’t fully understand and appreciate the significance of the legislation — both as a lawyer, father, husband and coach.

"As an attorney, it was very significant to me, but it’s significant to me in so many other ways," he said. "As the coach of female athletes and as the husband of a female athlete and now as the Dad of a female athlete, Title IX is a very big deal to me."

Lotief said he dismisses the claims of the critics of Title IX, some of which bring up the sacrificing of men’s programs for women’s sports over the years.

"I think when administrations decide to shut down programs, those are tough decisions," he said. "But I think it’s very unfair to blame that on Title IX. It’s a strong-man argument and I’ve never given any weight to it."

For so many proponents of the benefits of Title IX, those unfortunate examples are dwarfed by all opportunities lost prior to Title IX and would have been lost without it.

"There were a lot of inequities in the system," Michael Lotief said. "There just were. It was needed. It was definitely needed."

But while the opportunities are now there, some lingering issues still exist, particularly at the high school level.

Currently in the Lafayette Parish school system, there are 13 girls sports offered and 14 boys sports.

That’s not the issue. The problem is facilities.

For instance, three of the local high schools have girls gyms that pale in comparison to the boys gym on the same campus.

"I know some people in River Ranch who have bigger dens than that girls gym at Acadiana High," Simmons said. "That gym is a joke. There’s no doubt that facility improvement is the biggest issue for us right now. The girls gyms at Northside and Comeaux are fine, but the ones at Acadiana, Carencro and Lafayette High aren’t.

"Getting air-conditioning is a major priority in all the gyms."

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