PHOTO (COLOR) AND CHART - 2Melissa Smar, one of several girls who tried out for the Hobart High School boys' soccer team, takes part in a ball-handling drill. (Color) (KIM GERBICH/staff photographer)CHART - Area sports programs (SOURCE: Indiana High School Athletic Association 1992-93 directory) (FELICIA McGURREN/staff artist)CHART - TITLE IX REQUIREMENTS AT A GLANCE
THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED VERSION.INSIDE - Female athletes in Gary lack team sports opportunity. A6Duneland Conference girls' coaches lobby for weekend play. A6
Kelly Rogers didn't want to quit the newly formed Hobart High boys' soccer team, but she saw no other option. One of 13 girls who tried out for the team, Rogers dropped out before the final cut so she would be eligible to play on an all-girls community league team where she stands a better chance of catching the eye of a college recruiter.
'It would have been an honor to be picked, but I wouldn't have gotten much playing time,' she said.
Soccer, not yet a state-sanctioned sport, is the new frontier in high school athletics and the new battlefield for the gender equity debate.
With the exception of Gary schools, most local schools offer an equal number - or nearly equal number - of sports for girls as they do for boys.
Many area schools started boys' soccer teams because of the sport's popularity in area youth leagues.
None have girls' teams yet.
In Hobart, the 13 girls who originally showed up at the first practice were turned away by school officials. The officials relented a few days later and allowed them to try out.
That inequity disturbed Paula Rogers, Kelly's mom.
'I was upset. Kelly gets excellent grades. You hate to see her not have the opportunity to get involved,' she said.
When Paula Rogers was a student, she didn't have half the athletic options her daughter has today. Rogers graduated from Lake Central High School in 1974, shortly after the advent of Title IX, a federal law that bars sex discrimination in education.
In 1976, Indiana joined other states across the nation in offering interscholastic sports for girls.
Patricia L. Roy, assistant commissioner of the Indiana High School Athletic Association, coordinated the first girls' basketball tournament in 1976 at Butler University's Hinkle Fieldhouse, in Indianapolis.
In February, she performed the same duties at Market Square Arena, where the tournament drew a near-capacity 16,000 fans.
'I think a lot of schools are doing a really good job with gender equity,' said Roy, a former Lake Station teacher.
Wheeler High School in Porter County, for example, offers four boys' sports and six girls' sports.
Ellyn Vargyas, a lawyer for the National Women's Law Center, said there's been a huge improvement for girls in the last 20 years.
'The law is finally developing in a productive fashion,' said Vargyas, who serves as a gender-equity consultant for the NCAA.
'The chance of getting a scholarship is not so remote. There are tens of thousands of dollars every year in scholarship money for high school athletes.'
Vargyas said if girls show interest in a sport like soccer, they have the right to their own team.
Fighting for girls' rights is nothing new for Crown Point girls' basketball coach Tom May, a former boys' tennis and basketball coach. May quickly saw he took things for granted when he coached boys' teams.
'I noticed things right away in terms of what the girls were getting compared to what the boys were getting,' he said.
May said the girls' team didn't have proper uniforms, adequate practice time, weekend games or cheerleaders at its contests. 'All the things that are 100 percent necessary for a program to have, we didn't have,' he said.
Under May, the Bulldogs won back-to-back state championships in 1984 and 1985. May said he's had more off-court struggles than on court. He said he's made enemies by fighting for equipment and other support he felt the girls' teams were due.
'If kids think a program is treated less than respectful, they won't be willing to pay the price,' May said.
Today, May thinks Crown Point has come a long way.
'I think Crown Point and Valparaiso are probably the best around in terms of gender equity. Are we where we need to be? No.'
As Hoosier sports programs improved for girls, coaching salaries for girls' sports improved as well. As a result, men have claimed girls' teams coaching vacancies they once ignored. Less than half the girls' basketball head coaching positions in Lake and Porter counties are filled by women.
'My concern is girls aren't getting the role models,' said Lou Ann Hopson, a Chesterton teacher and girls' softball coach. 'If they're not getting female role models, why would they assume it's a profession they should go into?'
Like May, Hopson said one of her continued gripes is the abbreviated girls' seasons. Girls play 18 regular-season basketball games compared to 20 for the boys. Her softball team plays 22 games compared to 26 regular games for the boys' baseball team.
'We've yelled and complained but we've never filed a Title IX complaint,' said Hopson, an immediate past president of the Indiana Coaches of Girls Sports.
'But it's tough to get things, what you feel is equity. You feel that you have to fight it hook and nail.'
It's not an easy juggling act either for schools whose athletic programs must be self-sufficient. In Indiana, tax monies only support coaches' salaries and transportation. Equipment and uniform costs are borne by the programs.
Federal law doesn't require schools to spend equal amounts on girls' and boys' programs. It requires them to offer equal opportunities.
A popular revenue-generating sport like Hobart football, for example, pays most of the tab for the rest of the school's other sports programs.
Football is not Kelly Rogers' favorite sport. She still prefers soccer.
'I never thought I'd try out with the boys,' she said. 'But it was my only chance.'
Maybe not.
Soccer backers are circulating petitions from Valparaiso to Schererville voicing support for high school girls' soccer teams. Equality may not take long for Kelly Rogers. She might get another shot next year.
