As the Hofstra University Department of Athletics celebrates the 50th anniversary of the passing of Title IX, we will honor, acknowledge, and inform our University community about some of the members of the Pride who helped make a difference at Hofstra and paved the way for today's current student-athletes, coaches, administrators, and teams. Leading up to the June 23 anniversary of the passage of Title IX, Hofstra Athletics will feature many individuals who played a role in enacting change or those whose experiences at Hofstra were enhanced by the efforts of those who came before them.

Title IX is a federal civil rights law in the United States of America that was passed as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or other education program that receives funding from the federal government.

Please consider a gift to celebrate and support the 50th anniversary of Title IX! All proceeds from this campaign will go directly towards our Hofstra Athletics Pride Club account for women's athletics. 

This week we offer a first-person account from former Hofstra women's soccer and women's basketball student-athlete Elizabeth O'Brien. 

O'Brien is the mother to three daughters, Military Spouse, CEO and board member of Freedom Learning Group, an educational and content provider. O'Brien is a national advocate for military spouse employment, a population that is 92% female with unemployment rates of 30%. Currently, O'Brien sits on the advisory boards of Blue Star Families, Military Spouse Corporate Career Network, the U.S. Chamber Small Business Council, and Hiring Our Heroes. Previously O'Brien served as chairwoman of the U.S. Small Business Administration's Advisory Committee on Veteran's Business Affairs and held a leadership position at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Hiring Our Heroes. O'Brien is a 1997 graduate of Hofstra University, holds a B.B.A. in marketing, and is a former student-athlete on the soccer and basketball teams. She will forever be a recovering basketball coach.   

A Message to My Daughters

Thirty years ago this fall, I set off down Hempstead Turnpike to play Division I soccer and basketball at Hofstra University. I left the confines of Sacred Heart Academy, an all-girls high school in Hempstead, that to this day remains committed to creating the future female leaders of America with utopian ideals that are easy to believe when you go to an all-girls school.
 
I was an early beneficiary of Title IX, one of the most critical pieces of law intended to create equity in education. I was born two years after Title IX passed, blissfully unaware of the opportunities it would create for me nearly 18 years later. I mapped out my path to becoming a two-sport DI athlete at Hofstra University, relatively unaware of Title IX implications.
 
Hofstra University asked me to contribute an essay celebrating fifty years of Title IX impact. I decided to write a message to the three of you, the Girlkowskis through a lens of reflection. How can you go forward without knowing what others have experienced, what I battled through, and how to use your voice to continue to create equity in athletics? 
 
I have a perspective on Title IX as both a player and coach at Hofstra (and multiple other universities) and now as a parent to the three of you, my Girlkowskis, who have attended Hofstra games your entire lives. My reflection is not joy, but rather a deep reconning that our country still does not view, support, or fund female athletes as equal to their male counterparts. The equity intended through Title IX has yet to manifest.
 
I had expectations when I arrived on campus. I believed as a student-athlete, I would have access to gym and field times that aligned with class schedules, meal money, sporting gear, funding for coaches, and travel conditions. I lived in ignorance until I arrived at Hofstra, where it was abundantly clear that inequities remained between male and female sports. It was never more evident to me as a student-athlete how little the administration valued us, as when they failed to fund an assistant coach to support our newly hired head basketball coach my sophomore year. The new head coach quit within three months on the job. Instead of playing basketball, my teammates found themselves running cross country and participating in lacrosse practice while the University attempted to find a path forward. I never forgot how the University valued us so little, that they chose not to invest an extra $19,000 a year to hire a full-time assistant. 
 
When I transitioned into coaching college basketball, a career that spanned over a decade with stops at Hofstra, Army, and the University of Hawaii, I gained a clearer perspective of behind-the-scenes efforts that allowed me to understand how hard athletic directors, senior women's administrators, and coaches have to fight for female athletes to have an opportunity as a student athlete. Every year that I remained in college coaching I witnessed the gains made because of Title IX. Female student-athletes consistently arrived on campus, more skilled and athletic. Women's teams were no longer sleeping four to a room when traveling, increases in meal money matured, traveling via aircraft and charter buses became the norm, rather than vans. College women soccer players were no longer issued men's soccer uniforms and pay for coaches with funding for assistants increased. Progress.

Isabella, Kaitlyn, and Claire, as you pursue your love of athletics, you have been taught from the day you arrived on this earth to advocate for yourselves, take your space in every room you walk into, and that inequality  is not ok. The roadmap for the next 50 years of Title IX is still not clear, but be mindful of the models that work to continue to create change:
•       engage large and small business to invest in women's athletics 
•       utilize Congress and the legislative process to hold universities accountable
•       build alliances and advocacy through your male counterparts
•       launch grassroots initiatives 
•       use your greatest gift, your voice, without fear 
 
The NCAA's most recent financial data for Title IX's indicate that Division I women's sports at Football Bowl Subdivision  institutions only receive 18% of total operating expenses, 29% of recruiting dollars, and 41% of scholarship allocations. Somehow women comprise 40% of athletes, but less than 10% of media time. Corporate America must change these outcomes by investing in female student-athletes. Here are a couple ways how:
 
•       Invest in and target female student-athletes for branding opportunities and Name, Image, and Likeness  (NIL) spends. We are in dangerous territory, as NIL has the potential to create larger gaps in pay parity between female and male athletes.
•       Create intentional pathways for economic opportunity for female athletes; summer internships, fellowships, from the moment they arrive on campus.
 
The actions above will allow female student-athletes to potentially earn equally in the workplace and donate money back to their chosen athletic programs. The lack of pay parity that exists in corporate America has a trickle-down effect – when former female athletes don't earn equally compared to their male counterparts, they possess less disposable income, and less disposable income means less money to return to their alma mater. Never settle for less than your worth, my fierce Girlkowskis. 
 
Allyship is one of the most powerful tools to create change. But, you can't go this alone; you must embrace advocates. Since you were young, your father has shown you the impact of the willing, utilizing his experiences as a collegiate wrestler at Army to ensure you have your spots on the wrestling mat and are able to hold others accountable. When former male college athletes add daughters to their lineup, they see first-hand the battles you face. Powerful allies are created. Likewise, Simon Riddiough, the women's soccer coach at Hofstra, is a tremendous example of what allyship can do for women in athletics. He has successfully mentored one hundred-plus women through the student-athlete experience at Hofstra, sending them out into the world as successful student-athletes and winners, through a powerful experience at Hofstra. 
 
Ensure you participate in grassroots advocacy. Replicate the "Wrestle Like A Girl" model Sally Roberts created in 2016 to increase access and opportunities for girls and women worldwide in the sport of wrestling. In 2020, Wrestle Like A Girl successfully brought women's wrestling under the NCAA umbrella as an "Emerging sport," and will use the same approach to bring women's wrestling to NCAA Championship Status   . Only time will tell if Claire has the opportunity to wrestle and if Isabella has the opportunity to play ice hockey at Hofstra. Thanks to the efforts of Cindy Lewis 30 years ago, Kaitlyn has the chance to play soccer for Simon.
 
Title IX is working. It created opportunities for my teammates and former players at Hofstra to become fierce advocates in our local communities, high schools, and college ranks through sports. I lead with hope and belief in knowing they will impact the future of thousands of girls and women in sports:
•      Amaka Agugua is Head Coach of University of Virginia Basketball
•     Meg O'Brien Thieke has dedicated thousands of hours to girls' youth basketball
•      Erin McDermott is the Director of Athletics at Harvard
•      Denee Rivera Barracato is Deputy Director of Athletics at Northwestern
•      Billi Godsey Chambers is Head Coach of Iona Basketball
•      Tara Dilworth Whitman is a former assistant coach Hawaii Pacific and third-grade A.A.U. coach
•      Meredith Pine Jones is Head Basketball Coach Freeport High and former assistant at Army and Hofstra
•      Kate Gordon is Head Basketball Coach St. John the Baptist
 
And there are many others. I take solace in knowing that you have fierce leaders carrying forward the perspective of what they had to fight for during their playing careers and working tirelessly on behalf of current and future female student-athletes.
 
My Girlkowskis – now you know why we raise hell when your ice hockey team is provided less ice time than the boys' team, and why we question when the high school girls lacrosse team has to practice on a field five miles away, but never the boys team. Now you know why I fight with such passion for ensuring military spouses, a population that is 92% female, have paths to economic opportunity. We question, raise our hands, use our voices and embrace the intent of the law of Title IX, while using the platform of legal precedence, to justify why you are legally entitled to these opportunities. Without our voices and advocacy, America will remain blissfully comfortable, while embracing mediocrity through the celebration of Title IX.
 
Remember that while power conference schools, and perhaps a handful of non-power conference schools, make money from athletics, most universities and colleges do not. There is no acceptable excuse for the coaches of your future teams to be paid less than their male counterparts, for teams not to be staffed equally, or to have a less than equal travel and gear budget. If a college or university accepts federal funding, they should be required to publish the salaries of their men's and women's coaches. When I became C.E.O. of a multi-million dollar company, I shared my salary so that other women would have a fighting shot to negotiate what they deserve, and with the brazen belief that I could affect change. Why shouldn't coaches (male and female) take the lead and publicly share their salary information with bonus structure? There is one way to make sure pay-parity exists, and that is to share information. Nothing terrible happens from transparency, only accountability.
 
To my Girlkowskis – you are our most precious gift and I am so sorry that you will have to fight many of the same battles. However, I want you to know that you are well prepared. You have been uncomfortable your entire life, sending your father off to multiple deployments, living all over the world, wrapping your arms around our friends who returned less than whole from war. Still, all of those experiences have steeled you for the fight in front of you. I am not yet passing you the baton, but your father and I are asking you to come alongside us in the fight to hold our colleges and universities accountable. I was worthy of being treated to the same student-athlete experience my male counterparts experienced during my time at Hofstra, however the country wasn't ready. You are most worthy, and now, the country is ready. 
 
Love your biggest fan (your Dad took the loudest.)


(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Hofstra University.)