History
The Women's Sports Foundation was legally set up in 1974 by Billie Jean King, her business manager Jim Jorgensen, and her then-husband Larry King. The Foundation was originally supported by Olympic swimmer Donna de Varona and Olympic skier Suzy Chaffee.
In 1972 and in 1973 King was awarded the Bob Hope Cavalcade of Sports for the "Outstanding Female Athlete of the Year". In 1974, she donated her winnings of $5,000 to incorporate the Women's Sports Foundation. Simultaneously, she started a new magazine titled womenSports .
The WSF began its multi-sport emphasis at the 1975 ABC TV show Women's Superstars which was held at the Houston Astrodome. It was there that Donna de Varona working as an ABC Billie Jean King invited the women athlete contestants to join in on the effort.
For ten years, from 1976 to 1986, under the direction of Executive Director, Eva Auchincloss and Associate Director Holly Turner and the Chairwoman Billie Jean King, the Board of Trustees was expanded to include Olympian Peggy Fleming, Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz, and Vice-President of Bristol-Myers Marvin Koslow, David Foster, CEO of Colgate Palmolive. In 1979, Donna de Varona was appointed the first president of the Foundation. Under the leadership of Executive Director Eva Auchincloss and her team, the foundation grew from an organization with $500 in the bank to one with a $1M endowment and an operating budget of $1M.
In 1990, in recognition of King's long standing efforts to promote the rights of women, Life magazine named her one of the "100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century",[5] in part because of her promotion of sports for women such as the Women's Sports Foundation.
Women's Sports Foundation advocates equal opportunity for girls and women's sports in the United States and around the world.
Past presidents include Donna de Varona, Carol Mann, Lyn St. James, Nancy Hogshead-Makar, Wendy Hilliard, Benita Fitzgerald Mosley, Nancy Lieberman, Julie Foudy, Dawn Riley, Dominique Dawes, Aimee Mullins, Jessica Mendoza, Laila Ali, Angela Ruggiero, Angela Hucles, Grete Eliassen, Elana Meyers Taylor, Alana Nichols, and Phaidra Knight. The current president is Meghan Duggan and the current Board of Trustees Chair is Sandra Vivas.
A statement by 16 women's rights organizations including the Women's Sports Foundation, the National Women's Law Center, the National Women's Political Caucus, Girls, Inc., Legal Momentum, End Rape on Campus, the American Association of University Women and Equal Rights Advocates said that, "as organizations that fight every day for equal opportunities for all women and girls, we speak from experience and expertise when we say that nondiscrimination protections for transgender people—including women and girls who are transgender—are not at odds with women’s equality or well-being, but advance them" and that "we support laws and policies that protect transgender people from discrimination, including in participation in sports, and reject the suggestion that cisgender women and girls benefit from the exclusion of women and girls who happen to be transgender." [3]
Current initiatives and programs
Sports 4 Life: In October 2014, the Women's Sports Foundation, with support from espnW, launched Sports 4 Life, a national effort to increase the participation and retention of African-American and Hispanic girls, ages 11–18, in developmental youth sports programs. Through education, public awareness and grants to organizations nationwide, Sports 4 Life seeks to effect sustainable improvement to the overall health and development of girls in these communities.
The Travel & Training Fund: The WSF was the first—and only—charitable organization to offer grants to aspiring women athletes with elite potential when it established the grant almost 30 years ago. The Travel & Training Fund provides direct financial assistance to aspiring athletes – in individual and team sports. Travel & Training grants allow serious female athletes a chance to fulfill their potential on the regional, national or international level through assistance for coaching, specialized training, equipment, athletic attire, and/or travel. Since 1984, WSF awarded grants to more than 1300 individual athletes and teams – including figure skaters Michelle Kwan and Rachael Flatt, diver Mary Ellen Clark, ski jumper Alissa Johnson, swimmer Mallory Weggemann and the US National Water Polo Team. The T&T Fund is supported by contributions by donors and WSF national sponsor Gatorade.
GoGirlGo!: The WSF's GoGirlGo! works across the country to improve the health of sedentary girls and to keep girls involved in physical activity. We get girls moving not through direct service, but by supporting programs and organizations that work with girls. GoGirlGo! identifies and weaves together quality resources within each community and provides comprehensive support through education, funding, public awareness and networking.
WSF Athlete Ambassador Program is another program within the Women's Sports Foundation. This program uses amateur athletes to professional athletes to work with a group. This works for players who want to serve as role models and help motivate younger players. [4]
Research and Resource Center
SHARP, the Sport, Health and Activity Research and Policy Center for Women and Girls, was established in 2010 as a new partnership between the Women's Sports Foundation and the University of Michigan's School of Kinesiology and Institute for Research on Women & Gender. SHARP's mission is to lead research that enhances the scope, experience, and sustainability of participation in sport, play, and movement for women and girls. Leveraging the research leadership of the University of Michigan with the policy and programming expertise of the Women's Sports Foundation, findings from SHARP research will better inform public engagement, advocacy, and implementation to enable more women and girls to be active, healthy, and successful. [5]
The Women's Sports Foundation Library and Resource Center contains a large collection of books, magazines, articles, photographs, films, videos, and artifacts. [6]
The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) is the principal organizing body of women's professional tennis. The association governs the WTA Tour, which is the worldwide professional tennis tour for women, and was founded to create a better future for women's tennis. The WTA's corporate headquarters is in St. Petersburg, Florida, with its European headquarters in London and its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Beijing.
Title IX is a landmark federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government. This is Public Law No. 92‑318, 86 Stat. 235, codified at 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681–1688.
Billie Jean King, also known as BJK, is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. King won 39 Grand Slam titles: 12 in singles, 16 in women's doubles, and 11 in mixed doubles. King was a member of the victorious United States team in seven Federation Cups and nine Wightman Cups. For three years, she was the U.S. captain in the Federation Cup.
The participation of women and girls in sports, physical fitness, and exercise has existed throughout history. However, participation rates and activities vary in accordance with nation, era, geography, and stage of economic development. The modern era of organized sports did not begin to emerge either for women or men until the late industrial age.
The American Association of University Women (AAUW), officially founded in 1881, is a non-profit organization that advances equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, and research. The organization has a nationwide network of 170,000 members and supporters, 1,000 local branches, and 800 college and university partners. Its headquarters are in Washington, D.C. AAUW's CEO is Gloria L. Blackwell.
The National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC) is an organization which was founded in 1971 by leaders of the women's liberation movement to promote women's participation in government. The group describes itself as a multi-partisan grassroots organization in the United States dedicated to recruiting, training, and supporting women who seek elected and appointed offices at all levels of government. The NWPC endorses female candidates at the state and national level who adhere to the organization's core set of values.
Girls Inc. is an American nonprofit organization which encourages girls to be "Strong, Smart, and Bold" through direct service and advocacy.
Donna de Varona Pinto is an American former swimmer, Olympic champion, activist, and television sportscaster.
The National Women's Law Center (NWLC) is a United States non-profit organization founded by Marcia Greenberger in 1972 and based in Washington, D.C. The Center advocates for women's rights and LGBTQ rights through litigation, policy, and culture change initiatives. It began when female administrative staff and law students at the Center for Law and Social Policy demanded that their pay be improved, that the center hire female lawyers, that they no longer be expected to serve coffee, and that the center create a women's program.
Jim Jorgensen is a serial entrepreneur. He has started over 25 enterprises since getting his MBA at Stanford Graduate School of Business at the age of 24. Jorgensen's industry selection for these new enterprises has been wide, running from retail to manufacturing, from Internet to mail order, and from oil exploration to insurance. Some of the entities remained small, while two of them reached market caps in excess of $1 billion.
womenSports magazine was the first magazine dedicated to women in sports. It was launched in close conjunction with Billie Jean King's Women's Sports Foundation and each issue of the magazine contained a two-page article written by the executive director of the Foundation. It was started soon after Billie Jean's win at the Battle of the Sexes.
Nancy Lynn Hogshead-Makar is an American swimmer who represented the United States at the 1984 Summer Olympics, where she won three gold medals and one silver medal. She is currently the CEO of Champion Women, an organization leading targeted efforts to advocate for equality and accountability in sports. Her areas of focus include establishing nationwide equal play, such as traditional Title IX compliance in athletic departments, protecting athletes from sexual harassment, abuse and assault, as well as combatting employment, pregnancy, and LGBT discrimination. In 2012, she began working on legislative changes to ensure that club and Olympic sports athletes were protected from sexual abuse. In 2018, the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017, which she co-wrote, was enacted.
Christine Grant was an American athlete, coach, administrator, and advocate for women's college athletics. Dr. Grant served as the athletic director at the University of Iowa from 1973 until 2000. She was inducted into the University of Iowa Athletics Hall of Fame in 2006. Grant was also inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017.
The Billie Awards was an American awards ceremony that focused on positive portrayals of female athletes in visual media. It was held in Los Angeles, California by Billie Jean King's The Women's Sports Foundation from 2006 to 2009.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other non-heterosexual or non-cisgender (LGBTQ+) community is prevalent within sports across the world.
The participation of transgender people in competitive sports, a traditionally sex-segregated institution, is a controversial issue, particularly the inclusion of transgender women and girls in women's sports.
The Equality Act was a bill in the United States Congress, that, if passed, would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, public accommodations, education, federally funded programs, credit, and jury service. The Supreme Court's June 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County protects gay and transgender people in matters of employment, but not in other respects. The Bostock ruling also covered the Altitude Express and Harris Funeral Homes cases.
The Billie Jean King Contribution Award is an annual award granted by the Women's Sports Foundation to an individual or group who has made significant contributions to the development and advancement of women's sports. In 2017, the award was renamed the Billie Jean King Leadership Award.
Carole A. Oglesby (1938–?) is an American athlete, physical educator, sports coach, sports psychologist and writer. She is considered among the first openly gay women in U.S. athletics.
The Fairness In Women's Sports Act is a common title for legislation passed in Idaho, Florida, and Arkansas that restricts participation in interscholastic, intercollegiate, intramural, club athletic teams, and any sports sponsored by a public school or university based on the biological sex of the individual. The legislation was introduced in response to concerns that allowing transgender women to compete in women's sports would create an unfair advantage due to their physiological differences. Legislation of this nature has been introduced in several states across the US and is part of a national debate over whether transgender athletes should be allowed to compete in sports teams based on their gender identity. Supporters of the laws argue that it is necessary to maintain fair competition and protect the integrity of women's sports, while opponents argue that they are discriminatory and unjust. Much of the current legislation is facing legal challenges and criticism from advocates for transgender rights, who argue that they perpetuate harmful stereotypes and ignore the diversity of gender identities.
