Editorial: "Zealots would ruin girls sports" from the June 19, 1973 Door County Advocate
Zealots would ruin girls sports
Just when girls sports are getting proper recognition a few lib nuts threaten to reverse all the progress made.
Fairness for girls does not mean the chance to compete with boys. On the contrary that would be the most unfair course of all. It would practically eliminate girls from any varsity-level competition. It would be like ruling that the only high school boys who can touch a basketball are those who make the team.
Sturgeon Bay, for example, has had superb girls track. It had a 440 runner who could go the distance in 62 seconds and if pushed I think she could have been a shade under 60. She was state champ. How would she fare against a state champion boy? About nine seconds behind. Even a so-so high school boy quarter miler runs a 56. Then there's the long jump. The state champion girls leap wouldn't get a place in a boys dual meet back home.
Forcing girls to make the boys teams or else would destroy girls sports and deprive thousands of a chance to compete. Among themselves their competition is terrific. Head to head car racing, to cite an analogy, is just as exciting at 160 miles per hour as it is at 180.
There was a fine picture in Monday morning's Sentinel. Madison Memorial's two-miler had just cinched the boys state Class A track title for the school (they won the girls crown too) and was being congratulated by the girls and boys coaches. That's the real spirit.
I can see equal programs. I can see reasonably equal budgets. I can't see forcing girls to compete with boys in the name of "liberation". It would be completely unfair to the girls and in fact a cruel blow to women's rights.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
Other posts about girls sports
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/girls-sports