Funding for To The Contrary provided by: This week on To The Contrary: It's important because it teaches girls and women how to be leaders, and it literally changes who they are.

It's going to give you the value to set you up to be successful.

We want to give them the opportunities to see those career that they normally wouldn't see.

Hello, I'm Bonnie Erbé.

Welcome to To The Contrary a discussion of news and social trends from a variety of perspectives.

Coverage of women' sports is at an all time high.

But does that mean women ar dreaming of high level success at the same rate as men?

Data show girls are less likely to dream of reaching elite levels in sports than boys.

Not only that, but the gap is widening.

These trends matter because sports build the confidence and leadership skills needed for future success.

Joining me this week, our Nancy Hogshead, CEO of Champion Women and a gold medal winning athlete.

And Donease Smith, a member of the board of directors for Women Leaders in Sports.

Why don't we start by and starting with you, Donease.

Tell us a bit about your organization and why you're involved in this issue.

Yeah.

So Donease Smith, I'm the executive director of administratio at the Kansas City Royals Urban Youth Academy.

Were a baseball and softball academy that empower youth through bat and ball sports.

MLB put these academie in under-resourced communities.

So we're one of eight and really excited.

We work with youth every day and excited to talk about this topic.

Nancy, you go and tell us about your gold medals.

Oh yeah, I won three gold medals and won silver in the 1984 Olympics.

I'm now a civil rights lawyer and have been working as a women's sports advocate for the last 40 years.

It's a long time.

And what does your organizatio do to promote women in sports?

Sure.

We provide legal advocacy for girls and women's sports.

The trend that you introduced— to introduce the topic with is one that we've been following closely.

Every college and universit has to file data with the Equity and Athletics Disclosure Act, and they put that data up on a website.

We take that data and we can show that the gaps between men and women are growing.

Growing.

So some people kind of, like, kind of victim blame in that they say, you know, why aren't girls interested in sports?

And I think that's the wrong approach.

I think it is: why aren't schools giving girls and women the same thing that they give the men, boys and men?

So the gaps are enormous.

The schools throughout the country, it's about over 2000 schools that report, need to add over 70% more in athletic opportunities before they're giving women what they're giving men.

And this is 54 years after Title IX was passed.

Well, those are pretty large gaps.

Now why are these gaps important?

Why is it important that girls should be dreaming to become, you know high level athletes as boys do?

And how does that affec their participation in sports, Donease?

I think it's important that girls have access.

I think that that's something that's very important.

And if you don't see people that look like you, I think it's hard to be it.

So as we're thinking about this gap, how many women coaches are out there?

How many of their moms played sports if they had access to sports?

So as we're thinking about this gap, it's important to make sure that we can reduce those barriers and take some of those burden off as girls go through puberty.

We have different body types, and you want to make sure that they have bra that can support their bodies, you know, and we just did a partnership with a company.

And it's the first time in 80 years that a female designed feminine hygiene products.

So this is the first time in 80 years, you know, and I think those are things that are important.

So at our academy we focus on our girls and women that we serve here.

And it's important to be able to meet them where they are.

Yeah, Bonnie, you ask like, why is this important?

And I would say it's important because it teaches girls and women how to be leaders, and it literally changes who they are.

One of the first things that any dictator in any country doe when they want to suppress women is they eliminate women's sports because it is strong women.

So we know that 94% of all C-suite women, so CEO, CFO, etc.

have a sports experience.

It's almost like it's required for the job.

So when we're denying that many women with athletic opportunities, we're denying all of us.

Like so as a society, we don't have as healthy as society, we don't have as healthy pregnancies as we could have.

We don't have as—the students that participate in sports get more education, they're more likely to be in STEM fields and on and on.

Right.

So this is a loss for all of us that we don't provide women and girls with equal educational opportunities.

And what does society lose when women aren't going into the C-suites at the same rate as men?

We lose leadership.

We lose all of the values that are instilled in us when we play sports.

I think you lose teamwork.

You lose collaboration and you lose representation.

I think that that's important as we talk about the workforce, as we talk about reducing the gap and giving girls these opportunities to go out and be future leaders and make an impact in the workforce.

Forever ago, I wrote a book that was success is a learned skill that we can't just expect people to have that and that sports is literally— it's not about like who gets to the Olympics, although that's nice and who gets to play professionally, etc.

but just having that sports experience, like I said, i literally changes a kid's life.

My daughters when—they're 20 years old now, but when they were kids, they were playing softball and they're like, hey mom, how come the boys have a scoreboar and we don't have a scoreboard?

How come the boys have restrooms and we don't?

Why do they have a concession stand?

Why do they have brick?

Right, like—it was like they had taken a class on Title IX.

And it wasn't that they, you know, were listening in on conversations that I have at work.

It was that measuring equality in sports is pretty easy.

Like what are you doing for the boys?

What are you doing for the girls?

And I have to say, those program that my girls were involved in, those were just a community program.

It was not a— it wasn't associated with the school at all, but they knew that they wer getting second class treatment, and it was a terrible lesson for them.

Well, do me a favor.

Walk us through, what is it about participating in sports that trains girls to want to become successes in the business world, and move up the ladder in the corporate suites Let's start with you, Donease?

Yeah, I would sa just those transferable skills that we talk about: the teamwork, the leadership, the transferring those skills.

Maybe you were the point guar and you're able to lead a team.

You don't think that at the time.

So as I look at my career, I am in youth sports now.

But I came from college athletics.

So being able to help our student athletes transfer those skills to the workplace, I think that's important.

And havin those conversations is important because they're worryin about what game they're playing and where we're traveling and their schoolwork.

So having those conversations early that they know these are things that you can put on a resume.

These are things that help you be successful.

Youve already— you already have those skills and values that you need to be great in the workforce.

Sports really gets girls out of sex stereotypes that hold them back.

So sex stereotypes, meaning, you know, what does it mean to be a gir or a woman and being, you know, quote unquote feminine or, you know, they've got to not speak up or they—right.

They have a, they have a venue where they get to break off those—the things that keep them back, that keep them from really being, you know, who they could be.

So, Nancy, what is it— what is it about women in sports that deflates a lot of sex stereotypes and allows girl to girls to compete more efficiently and better and be better leaders?

Yeah.

I mean, I think Donease said it so well about providing this platform to really break up those se stereotypes so that, you know, sometimes those stereotypes kind of hold women back and that you know, how you're supposed to be.

So you get this opportunity to be aggressive, to be goal oriented, to really be gritty, to really work through something and all of those things, you know, working on a long term goal.

I mean, you know, I dont know about Donease, but in swimming every November, I wanted to quit swimming so badly because it was so hard.

And I said to my mom, like, oh, I want to quit because it's hard.

And she said, there are lots of reasons to quit, but that's not one of them, because everything you do is going to be hard.

I mean, it really taught me to push through, that allowed me to be able to, you know, keep competing for ten years and being able to stay in thi fight for as long as I have to make sure that girls and women have equal educational opportunities through sports.

Now, what is it about— tell me about how your playing sports helped you become an executive and run your organization?

Nancy first.

What way didn't it help me?

I would say probably one of the best things was, you know, learning just to get in the water when I did not want to with every cell in my body.

And, you know, everybody's in a bad mood.

My coach is in a bad mood.

My teammates and, you know everything hurts and you're sore and you know, you still gotta— in the hard part of training.

We swam 800 laps a day, just under 13 miles a day.

So doing that, even when you don't want to, means that same thing about showing up at work.

I don't want to.

Like if I depended on that skill to help me do well professionally, or I should say in family life and in, you know, I don't always, didn't alway want to take care of the baby, you know, 3:00 in the morning.

Right?

It's doing those things because you have— you can take that bigger goal that you have and live in that goal instead of living in, you know that one bad mood or whatever.

Donease, why can't this be taught in other aspects of school?

Why does it have to come through sports?

I think you have to learn it and it's you either have it or you don't.

And I think sports amplifies that.

I think that I was a student athlete, I played basketball, so I love that community.

I love that comradery with my teammates.

And as I look forward in my current position, as we talk about women leaders in sports, I think that that's been my community.

That's been very important for me, so I can continue to be successful and make sure that I have the resources that I need whether it's changing careers.

I was in college athletics, and now I'm in baseball, and it's totally different for me.

But being abl to have that confidence to say, I can do this, I have those skills and that skill set that you need to be able to make this change in my career and be confident every da that I know that I can do this.

So I think sports has helped me.

It's given me the confidence and and just having a great network.

I think that that's also goo to be able to have that support system and, and continue to be a lifelong learner.

I think those are thing that are important and that will take these young ladies a long way.

And the work that we're doing now helps bridge that gap.

Yeah.

Let me just put back on one thing that Donease said.

So, Donease, I really respect everything that you're doing and I appreciate everything that you're doing.

But you said you either have it or you don't.

And I disagree.

I think that you need to be taught those things, about how to be gritty.

You have to have an experienc of being gritty before you can, before you can incorporate that into your everyday life, before you know, it becomes, you know, who you are, before you know “have it”.

And I— so I'm just really grateful not only for me, but also, again, this is one of the best things—you cannot teach teamwork, what Donease was just talking about, about, you know, having this, you know, support system and you can't teach that on a blackboard you can't teach it on an iPad.

You've got to— it's an experiential thing that gets inculcated, that gets taught.

That is, you know, I— there's just no way tha I would have won in the Olympics if it hadn't been for my coaches, teammates and, you know, kind of the environment around me.

I'm forever grateful.

So you're saying that all the training you did that, that didn't help you, that what really made you a leader was competing in sports?

I don't think I had it intuitively, I think that sports brought out those skills that allowed me to develop teamwork.

And, you know, you know, like I always say, it takes—that in order to develop athletics that you really need developed coaches.

Right?

So Donease knows all about that, you know, making sure that the coach has the skills that they need to be able to take the kid from point A to point B and the team from point A to point B, but then taking that same skill, it's like, how do you be coachable as a lawyer?

How do you work in a law fir and learn how to write better, learn how to like, have other skills, achieve other goals, and find those people that can contribute to you?

Having the expectation that you're going to be coached in your professio is something that I think sports is invaluable in teaching.

And why is it can't be taught in other things?

I mean do you have to be in sports to get this kind of thought process going in your brain?

I mean, I think, you know, you can get it through other things, but, you know, you've got a mechanism to teach these things at the same time as it's also giving you better health the rest of your life.

Better, as I said, healthier pregnancies, better giving birth.

I mean, all these things that it does in addition to that, that the music department, the art department, the history department, they just— they can't give a kid that the way that sports can.

And remember the important thing is participation and being part of it, not necessarily winning, not necessarily being on the top of that victory stance.

Donease, why don't girls see to enjoy sports as much as men?

Is it because society has cas aspersions on women in sports?

I really think it depends when you reach them.

So our academy is 5 to 18, so we really hone in on our younger kids.

And I think the experience is important, as I talk about.

When yo experience things each day, it's with your five senses.

So what did you see when you walked up to whatever sport you were getting into?

How did you feel?

What was the ride to the event or activity?

You know, so when people come to this academy, I want them to feel like this is home and this academy was built so that kids have possibilities and that they can outgrow their DNA.

You know, bat and ball sports are very expensive and we want to remove those barriers.

So as we think about softbal at this academy, it's growing.

And we have to ask girls to come and just try it.

Everything here is no cause.

So the only thin that your parent may have had to pay for was gas.

And we also have a bus line that runs here.

So transportation could be a barrier.

So we try to remove a lot of those barriers for them and make it easy.

They—we have gloves, we have catcher's gear.

We have balls.

We have helmets.

We—if they want a visor, we can give them everythin that they need to be successful.

So I think the experience is very important.

And this may be the first time that they've ever seen bat and ball and the first time that they'v ever experienced a Royals game.

So we love being a part of all their first and giving these girls the experiences that they never would have gotten and that people pay a lot of money for.

So I think that the cost of these sports is outrageous, and we want to be a part of the movement, that we remove those barriers and that girls have access, and they can be and do whatever they want to do.

So now that we have all these girls going into sport and now that we have all these women actually going into the C-suite although women are hardly equal with men in the corporate world, what's the next step?

How do we keep this going?

How do we keep getting girls promoted more and more?

So, I don't see the issue as getting girls interested in sports.

My experience is if you have a team and if you provide what Doneases organization is providing, they will come.

So I think that's what Title IX has taught us: that if you build it, they will come.

And I think that's tru for both boys and girls and men and women, that the deman for sport far exceeds what it is that schools and communities are able to offer.

And many people in sport have figured out how to get a lot of money out of parents pockets in order to have their kid be able to play sports.

That is a—it is a crazy cost.

The Aspen Institute, Tom Ferry, they do a great job talking about the cost of sport.

But I fundamentally disagree that the whole issue is about getting girls or, you know, changing girls behavior because we need to be offering girls and women equal opportunities in sports and they will fill them.

We think about getting girls into leadership positions or just setting them up for success.

I think that bat and ball gets them in the door here, but we have to go beyond that.

We have to— our other pillars, our community is very important to us and youth development.

So when they come here we teach them about nutrition, we teach them about other sport adjacent careers.

Sports may not get you to where you want to go, but it's going to give you the value to set you up to be successful.

So as we talk about those sport adjacent careers, we want to give them the opportunities to see those careers that they normally wouldn't see, that maybe you're not going to college, but you can be a broadcaster or you can be an announcer or you can—you can work.

You can coach a baseball team, a football team.

Like there are so many opportunities that I didn't have that I am so excited to share with our young girls that come to this academy and that there are different options.

And I think about the families that we serve.

I don't know if they have bank accounts.

I don't kno if they've ever been in a bank.

So we want to expose them to as many opportunities as they can get.

We have an umpire in-program and we have girls that are umpires, so we're excited about just the opportunities and that they kno there is possibility for them, no matter where they came from, what their zip code is.

Well, with all—everything that's being done in schools now, and the beefing up of women's sports teams, why is it that this is not fixing it?

What hurdles are left until we get to a world where there it's equal opportunity for girls and boys in sports?

When I was in law school I honestly thought, well, Title IX kind of got me into sport, but I'm going to have to find something els because that's going to be done.

And I think that's just so ridiculous because we have the statute, we've got the regulations, we've got the case law, we've got all the numbers and the stats, and we have enormous gaps between men and women.

And so right now, the only enforcement for Title IX and for unequal educational opportunities is the girls, either the high school girls or the college girl— the college women have to bring a legal action or threaten a legal action.

And most people love their school.

They don't want to do that.

But that is what is required.

Because what athletic directors have kind of figured out is like, oh, make the girls really appreciative of what it is that they have.

Let's just make them appreciative.

And then they won't— they won't challenge us or won't sue us.

And the people that have the sport are not the ones, you know— You know, you don't have a rugb or equestrian or a softball or— right?

They don't have a particular team.

And, you know, they may not feel like that they can push to add it.

So that's one thing.

So we have a website that everybody can go on to called Title IX Schools.

Title IX, title nine, Roman numeral X, Schools.com And you can look up your college or university and your high school an find out like what is the gap?

Is it big enough to add a new team and then go to the school and, you know, get those changes?

And Donease, one last question for you, because I would be remis if I didn't pose the question, is it harder for girls of color?

Representation matters.

And growing up, I didn't see a lot of people that looked like me.

I felt like I was still successful, but I tell my kids, now, if you can't be it, then—if you can't see it, you may be it.

And then I also say, if you can't see it, you know if you want to be it.

But that may not happen.

You may be the it, you know.

So it's a—its— I think we've evolved.

I think that girls are hungry an it has to be introduced to them.

I think that education is very important.

And I looked at this academy two years ago, it's a $20 million facility.

And it wasn't if you build it, they will come.

It took a lot of work in these two years and investment in this community and getting out and talking about just the bat and ball opportunities, the other thing, other resources that we have here.

But it was hard.

You know you think that people are just going to come to this academy and everyone is welcome.

But we do target our urban youth.

And I think that that's important because they need to b introduced to different sports.

Usually kids want to pla the basketballs or the football.

So when you talk about baseball and softball, they're looking at you like you have three heads.

And so I think that I have big shoulders that I'm standing on and I hope that someone sees me and that they know that they can be successful and really do whatever they want to do.

All right.

Well, I want to thank you both for a really engaging conversation, and I hope some school administrators are listening and that they put some of these suggestions into action.

Of course, it all takes money, and money's in short supply these days, but it still can be done.

You always have enough money to be fair.

Right, that's it for this edition of To The Contrary, let's keep talking on social media including X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

Reach out to us @tothecontrary and visit our website, the address on the screen and whether you agree or think to the contrary, see you next time.

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