The next time your daughter wonders whether girls and sports mix, tell her about Dana Ziegert. The senior at Newbury Park High School in Thousand Oaks, Calif., is the school's only female wrestler - and the most persistent one. Last December, after four years of competing, she pinned an opponent for the first time. Wrestling took some getting used to: "During some of the holds I was like, oh my goodness!" recalls Ziegert. "But now it's a high."
Wrestling isn't generally regarded as a feminine pastime, Ziegert concedes, "but it's not like I'm unfeminine." Her peers, who weren't always so charitable, now agree with her: A surprised Ziegert was voted Homecoming Queen last fall. "It made me feel good that people acknowledge that I'm still a girl," she says.Ziegert is just one example of how athletics and femininity needn't be mutually exclusive. She could also be a poster girl for the esteem-boosting benefits of sports. "It feels good to see what my body can do," she says. "And I'm more accepting of myself."
It's no wonder. "Sports help girls define who they are and who they want to be," says Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation. High school girls who play sports, she says, are significantly less likely to get pregnant or to become involved with drugs, and are more likely to graduate from high school.
So why aren't more girls playing? Despite Title IX, the landmark 1972 legislation that mandates equal athletic opportunities for girls and boys, female teams remain scarce because girls tend to lose interest in participating as they get older. They are growing up in a culture that doesn't encourage sports for girls. When they flip on the television, they see mostly men at play. In fact, according to the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles, fully 92 percent of local television news sports coverage is dedicated to men's sports.
Still, there is hope. In 1971, fewer than 300,000 girls played school sports. By 1993, the number had risen to nearly 2 million. And there are ways for parents to support their daughters' interest in athletics and help them clear any hurdles in their path.
1. Make athletics a part of life. That means starting early, says Dorothy McKnight, the former executive director of the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport. "I'm not suggesting you enroll your 3-year-old in a pre-Olympic swimming program. Just get her away from the TV and teach her to appreciate an active lifestyle," she says. This can be as simple as bringing home a baseball mitt instead of a troll doll, or going on a hike together every weekend.
2. Get physical yourself. Girls are more likely to enjoy physical activities when parents participate in sports too, Lopiano says. You don't have to be a superjock to introduce your daughter to sports, though. For six years, Sue Cowgill - who had never even played soccer - helped coach her daughter Jaime's soccer team in suburban Cincinnati. "In the beginning, I was eminently unqualified to coach," she says. "But I knew my being there encouraged Jaime."
3. Cheer her on. Let your daughter know that you respect her goals. Applaud her efforts by standing on the sidelines to swap high fives after she makes a great play, volunteering for carpools, or keeping dinner warm when practice runs late.
As she improves in her sport, take her to watch an older girls' game. "If she has a context in which to put herself," says Brad Woolsey, who coaches a combined third- and fourth-grade girls' basketball team in Larkspur, Calif., "she is more likely to continue playing her sport."
4. Find a supportive coach. Male or female, a coach can make or break a sports experience. "A good coach is someone who'll help a girl reach out and grab her own potential," says Brian Lockwood, who coaches girls' basketball with Woolsey.
Observe your daughter's coach and ask yourself: Is the coach being too critical? Is he or she making the experience fun? If it's a coed activity, are the girls getting equal time? A sport can't build your child's self-assurance if she is criticized by an insensitive coach.
Your daughter may feel more comfortable training with female coaches, who can also serve as positive role models, so seek them out whenever possible.
5. Prepare for peer pressure. Girls often lose interest in athletics around age 10, when the pressure to be what society considers feminine kicks in. Hannah Giduz has been playing on an all-girl soccer team in her home town of Lenoir, N.C., for six years. But when she enters fifth grade this fall, there probably won't be enough interested players to form an all-girl team. "All of a sudden I see Hannah's friends dropping soccer for cheerleading," says her mother, Lee Carol Giduz. "It makes me crazy." But Giduz has introduced Hannah to rock climbing and bike riding so that she can stay active even without soccer.
6. Point out positive role models. The movie "A League of Their Own" portrays pioneering female baseball players. Olympic medalists Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Shannon Miller and Summer Sanders are modern-day examples of the power of athletics. Says Sanders, a 21-year-old swimmer, "It's cool now to be a jock." Wrestler Dana Ziegert would second that. And so will your daughter if she's given half a chance.