Today Is Title IX Day! My Story As A Woman In Sports.

Today Is Title IX Day! Help Support Women in Sports

June 23rd is the anniversary of Title IX. Title IX is a law passed in 1972 that prohibits discriminating against students or employees based on gender. It’s had a tremendous impact on women in sports especially on the collegiate level.

To celebrate, women’s founded sports companies Bia and Activyst are teaming up to support women in sports and help raise money for a girls soccer team funded by Soccers Without Borders. You may remember Activyst from one of my Awesome Friday posts months ago. They were raising money on their IndieGoGo campaign and one of their goals was to raise money to help fund a girls soccer team by Soccer Without Borders. They fell short on their goal and now they are determined to make it happen.

How Can You Help? 

• Post, tweet, and pin your experience as a woman in sports and what it’s taught you using the hashtag #TitleIXDay. Ex: Fill in the blanks “My first sport was _________ and it taught me __________.”
• Copy and paste the infographic below and host on your blog
• Order a Bia GPS Watch or an Activyst sports bag and they will double their normal donation to Soccer Without Borders for today only.
• Make a donation to Soccer Without Borders in honor of Title IX Day

My Story As A Woman In Sports

I’ve been athletic my whole life and sports have been a huge part of my life. My first sport was taekwondo and it taught me strength, focus, determination, and self respect. I am so happy I took taekwondo at such a young age to instill such strong values in me. I still credit taekwondo for being the reason I am such a goal oriented person today. We had to train hard to qualify to test for our next belt. I trained for one year before I tested for my black belt. When  you are 12 years old, a year seems like an eternity. I received my “adult” black belt at age 16 by breaking a brick with my bare hand. I even wrote my college essay on this experience.

Soccer has been another sport that has been huge in my life. I started playing when I was seven and continued through high school. I took a break in college but started up again in my later college years playing indoor intramural soccer. Now my husband and I play 2x a week on a co-ed soccer team. Love soccer.

I’d never been much of a runner until I went to college. Running became my way to keep in shape. I would run on the treadmill or around campus. I became more serious about running after college when I decided to train for 5k and 10k races in the area and eventually a half marathon. In 2012, I completed my first marathon.

Over the past three years I’ve been getting into the sport of triathlon. I mainly got into it through swimming. I enjoy swimming and running so I’ve got 2/3’s of it down. I still have a fear for the bike, but I’m slowly getting over it.

Action sports have always been a huge part of my life, even though I don’t really consider them a sport. I learned to surf when I was 15 and it changed my perspective on a lot of things. Learning to surf was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Every experience is different and it’s never the same. I am so glad I learned to surf when I was younger and had the time to really practice and go out a lot. I think it would have been much harder if I started later.

Skiing and snowboarding have always been regular winter sports of mine, but I still don’t consider them a sport because they are just so much fun.

I’ve dabbled with other team sports along the way such as basketball and tennis but I never really took a huge interest in them.

Playing sports growing up taught me about team work, focus, and never giving up. I am so thankful I had the opportunity to play sports as a kid and I never viewed myself differently because I was a girl. I always thought I was just as good as the boys and could compete with them anytime I wanted. But other girls don’t have that same confidence because no one has instilled it in them. I hope we can help other girls in third world countries have the same chance that I’ve had and many others have had to excel through sports.

Happy Title IX Day!

Love,

Lindsay

What about you? What is your story as a woman in sports? Post in the comments and let me know!