A Place on the Team

The Triumph and Tragedy of Title IX

Welch Suggs

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9780691128856, 9780691117690
• eBook ISBN: 9781400826544
• Subtopic: Higher Education

A Place on the Team is the inside story of how Title IX revolutionized American sports. The federal law guaranteeing women's rights in education, Title IX opened gymnasiums and playing fields to millions of young women previously locked out. Journalist Welch Suggs chronicles both the law's successes and failures-the exciting opportunities for women as well as the commercial and recruiting pressures of modern-day athletics.


Enlivened with tales from Suggs's reportage, the book clears up the muddle of interpretation and opinion surrounding Title IX. It provides not only a lucid description of how courts and colleges have read (and misread) the law, but also compelling portraits of the people who made women's sports a vibrant feature of American life.


What's more, the book provides the first history of the law's evolution since its passage in 1972. Suggs details thirty years of struggles for equal rights on the playing field. Schools dragged their feet, offering token efforts for women and girls, until the courts made it clear that women had to be treated on par with men. Those decisions set the stage for some of the most celebrated moments in sports, such as the Women's World Cup in soccer and the Women's Final Four in NCAA basketball.


Title IX is not without its critics. Wrestlers and other male athletes say colleges have cut their teams to comply with the law, and Suggs tells their stories as well.


With the chronicles of Pat Summitt, Anson Dorrance, and others who shaped women's sports, A Place on the Team is a must-read not only for sports buffs but also for parents of every young woman who enters the arena of competitive sports.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The Segregated History of College Sports
• Chapter 2 A New Paradigm of Civil Rights
• Chapter 3 Heroines as Well as Heroes
• Chapter 4 College Sports and Civil Rights
• Chapter 5 Legal and Logistical Challenges
• Chapter 6 The First Generation
• Chapter 7 A Watershed Moment
• Chapter 8 Clarifications amid Controversy
• Chapter 9 Sports before College
• Chapter 10 The Wrestlers’ Response
• Chapter 11 The Tragedy
• Chapter 12 Triumph?
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix A Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972
• Appendix B Founding Members of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women
• Appendix C Draft Regulations for Interscholastic and Intercollegiate Athletics (1974)
• Appendix D Final Regulations Concerning Title IX and Scholastic/Collegiate Sports (1975)
• Appendix E Proposed Policy Interpretation (1978)
• Appendix F Policy Interpretation: Title IX and Intercollegiate Athletics (1979)
• Appendix G The Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987
• Appendix H Clarification of Intercollegiate Athletic Policy Guidance: The Three-Part Test (1996)
• Appendix I Further Clarification of Intercollegiate Athletics Policy Guidance Regarding Title IX Compliance (2003)
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Landmark Title IX Lawsuits
• Index