Now the debate will continue about whether women's basketball is as good as the men's game, and I'm happy to leave that discussion to the talk shows and sports bars.
Here's what Tuesday night's game says to me: "You've come a long way, baby."
Thanks to a pervasive ad campaign for Virginia Slims cigarettes, that catch phrase had become part of the popular culture by Jan. 19, 1974 -- when Notre Dame ended the UCLA basketball team's record winning streak at 88 games (UCLA didn't have a women's team until the 1974-75 season). The Virginia Slims slogan was seen in magazine ads and on billboards in 1974, even though the full jingle left the airwaves in 1971 when tobacco ads were banned from television and radio.
Smoking a specially marketed cigarette – hardly a healthy activity -- was viewed as a sign of progress for women in the second wave of feminism. But involvement in competitive sports was still something that stirred caution, if not outright skepticism. Sports, some feared, would make women muscle-bound, or worse, might damage their reproductive organs.
In 1972, Congress' passage ofTitle IX, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in all federally assisted education programs and activities, spurred growth of varsity sports for girls in high school and for women in college.But back in 1974, when my friend Kathy Conroy won the Athena Award as the most athletic girl in the graduating class at Edina-East High School in Minnesota, she was honored in part for her performance on the football field and basketball court – as a member of the pom-pon squad that danced at halftime – and in part for her participation in the school's synchronized swimming club.
That is no dis of her athletic skills – both activities required a high level of dedication and physical fitness. But if sports like basketball or softball had been offered for girls, she said Tuesday afternoon, she definitely would have gone out for them. And I feel safe in saying that she would have excelled.
The same year that UCLA punctuated its winning streak at 88 and Kathy Conroy was honored for her athletic abilities, tennis star Billie Jean King founded the Women's Sports Foundation, which describes itself as "a charitable, educational organization dedicated to promoting girls and women in sports and fitness."
The foundation's chief executive, Kathryn Olson, said in a phone interview on Tuesday that in 1 in 27 girls were active in sports when King started the organization. Today, 2 in 5 girls are active in sports. "There's a tremendous amount of progress that has been made," Olson said.
And attitudes have changed dramatically. No longer do parents worry that sports will diminish their daughters' femininity. "Thank goodness we've made a lot of progress in terms of what a healthy body is considered to be," Olson said.
The Women's Sports Foundation said that a recent study found that 4 of 5 executive businesswomen surveyed played sports when they were growing up and attributed their success, in part, to their sports experience.
"It's just expected that girls will be playing sports and boys will be playing sports," Olson said.
It's also expected that fans will want to watch women athletes competing at the elite level. The game Tuesday night, at the XL Center in Hartford, Conn., was televised on ESPN2 and had a capacity crowd that included shirtless male fans who had painted themselves in UConn blue.
It does my heart good to see the deserving players of UConn and Florida State bask in the spotlight. But I am happier still to see the unsung players on the unsung teams testing themselves in gyms across the country and gaining the benefits of sports. Because of those benefits, even teams that wind up on the short end of the scoreboard still come up winners.
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