Keeping the passion alive.(women's sports and educational finance)

Ultimately, passion is personal," said Donna Lopiano. "It comes from our own experience or story retold." The executive director of the national Women's Sports Foundation began as a young girl with a big dream--to pitch for the New York Yankees. One of the privileges of childhood is to have dreams that may never come true. But, says Lopiano, to tell a little girl that she can't even try to live her dream simply because she is a girl, creates passion that bums white-hot.

Teaming with Athena Yiamouyiannis, executive director of the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education (NCWGE), Lopiano spoke at the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators (NACWAA) fall forum in St. Louis. Both administrators have dedicated their careers to advancing women in sport.

Lopiano became one of the country's elite softball players, a pitcher of course. Then she took her passion and administrative skills to volunteer as assistant athletics director at Brooklyn College and from there to the women's athletics department at the University of Texas. While she was AD in Austin, her teams won 26 national championships. Now in her 50s, she celebrates 10 years as the head of the Women's Sports Foundation, one of the top five organizations in the United States in grants to women.

But her passion still burns white hot. Lopiano tells of carrying a bag of softballs in the trunk of her car, so when she spots girls on a playground she can stop and give them a ball and maybe a few pointers on how to play. She asks rhetorically, "When can you say you have taught enough, shared enough?"

"What makes passion functional is the obligation to share it," Lopiano said, challenging those attending the forum to act in defense of Title IX. In referring to the Department of Education's Commission for Opportunity in Athletics, which is charged with recommending "adjustments" to Title IX, Lopiano stated bluntly, "Make no mistake, it's a stacked deck, six outs for them, three for us."

Educators must realize that the law that gave women a more equal playing field is itself on trial. Special interest groups would dilute the law and take away some of its benefits for women on campus.

She suggested advocates of women write an op-ed piece for a local newspaper and encourage those in your e-mail index to do the same. If we don't act individually and collectively, Title IX will suffer. We must put on a "full court press."