In this 40th anniversary year of Title IX, 250 people involved in women’s sports —athletes, coaches, sponsors, academics, executives and other decision-makers —gathered in Tucson, Ariz. this week to discuss how to collaborate in building a stronger future for female athletes and for women involved in sports.
Laura Gentile, vice president of espnW, a website focused on female athletes and sports fans, described this week’s summit, titled “The Future Is Ours,” as an opportunity to craft a forward-looking agenda to raise the profile of women’s sports. Through the sharing of ideas and strategizing, the goal is to improve the business of women’s sports, as well as create greater opportunities for female athletes.
The summit began with a preview of the documentary film series ESPN has commissioned to mark the anniversary of Title IX, Nine for IX. The nine films, all of which will be directed by female filmmakers, will not be a list of athletes or a countdown, said Connor Schell, vice president and executive producer of ESPN Films and ESPN Classic.
“The films will say something about our culture through sports stories,” said Schell of the films scheduled to air on ESPN in July and August of 2013. “The films will build a mosaic of the Title IX era through nine compelling stories.”
The W Power Talks on Tuesday touched on topics extremely relevant to female collegiate athletes as well as college administrators. Dr. Henry Friedman of Duke University Medical Center and an avid Duke women’s basketball fan, tackled the topic “Engaging Female Athletes Through Higher Education Opportunities.” Friedman founded a program at Duke called the Collegiate Athlete Pre-Medical Experience (CAPE), America’s only premedical mentoring program for female student-athletes.
“He came to know that there were some really fantastic athletes who were opting out of medicine because they felt it was too difficult to be a Division I athlete and be pre-med,” said Gentile. “He put a program in place that’s really enabling women to pursue their dreams and not settle or go down a different path.”
Friedman spoke about the infrastructure an institution needs to enable student-athletes to get the most of their educations.
