Jun. 26—Dr. Holly Fling can only imagine the kind of career in college athletics her mother, now 82, could have had.
She can't even say if anyone in her high school graduating class — which had some good female student-athletes — went on to play any kind of sport in college.
Dr. Fling, the senior department chair and interim academic dean at Georgia Military College, isn't afraid to show her age. She admitted that she will turn 50 this year, as did what is widely known as Title IX. This was a simple provision in the Education Amendments of 1972 adopted by the United States Congress and signed by Pres. Richard Nixon.
While the central focus of the 50-year commemoration of Title IX is how it opened the way for female sports in college to explode, there is much more to the amendment than its impact on athletics. It's something that Jill Robbins, Georgia Military College vice-president of human resources, deals with often in her position, so much so that she's known on campus as the "Title IX Lady."
"Obviously, Title IX's had a huge impact on opportunities for all. Females, specifically, have been able to be more involved in athletics. You continue to see that growth," said Jamie Grodecki, Georgia College's women's softball coach, assistant athletic director for leadership and senior women administrator. "Title IX, too, is bigger than just sports. It's (equal) opportunity to attend the university, to get the degree.
"There's been big names who have done great things. I'm fortunate enough they paved the path that we get to take advantage of."
And Grodecki, who played both volleyball and softball at Alabama-Huntsville from 1995-2000, said she feels fortunate she is at a school where such investigations (no exclusions, no denials, no discriminations based on gender) don't happen and that there's an athletic director, Wendell Staton, who loves all sports (cross country, tennis, softball, etc.) and is "super supportive."
"I think that's not the environment at every university in the country, but definitely the environment here," said Grodecki.
'TITLE IX LADY'
Robbins is a former collegiate athlete having toiled for the Georgia State University women's soccer team. She will now be a fan of Belmont University in Nashville as her son Keith signed with the men's basketball program following a stellar career on the John Milledge Academy hardwood.
"Title IX is equity," she said. "Anybody who gets federal funding has to comply with Title IX. So it's equity among genders. A lot of people either think that Title IX is equity with women's sports, but it's also sexual harassment and anything that falls into any discrimination specifically for gender.
"I am the person who coordinates the policies and procedures for anything that falls under Title IX. I not only do investigations for sexual harassment or assault, but I also meet with the athletic department on compliance.
"Most everybody, when I go into a crowd and say, 'Does anybody know about Title IX?,' they are like, 'That's the thing about women's sports.'"
After all, that's the fun part of it. Robbins comes right and says she was the recipient of an athletic scholarship available due to the effects of Title IX. With so much women's college sports shown on cable television, it is hard to imagine a time when this wasn't the case or that it even took an "Act of Congress" to make sure there was such equity.
"Colleges and universities have to make a good faith effort to have funding equal," said Robbins. "It's never going to be equal if you're at institutions that have a football team. There's no way. But if you really look at other institutions, (they) will only have a sand volleyball team or a water polo team (for women), those ancillary sports they tack on, and you won't see a men's counterpart to that.
"I just know at the time I came to start playing sports in college, I know the school I played for only had a women's team because they had to fund it."
Robbins' husband was a baseball player at Georgia State. She is from the Chicago area and was recruited by Georgia State as a soccer forward. She said she is one of the top 50 scorers in Illinois state history, but she was told by her GSU coach that she was too slow for an attacking position.
Playing defender instead, Robbins was part of the only Georgia State team ever to make the NCAA tournament.
Robbins went into sales and human resources out of college, and then upon joining Georgia Military College she was a phone-answerer in a small office staffed by just three people.
"I pretty much came up through GMC doing everything except for IT," she said. "Mark Strom, who is the senior vice president of institutional development, turned the reins over to me seven years ago.
"We had not had Title IX at the institution until 2010. We had a dean of students who was also the commandant as the first person who was doing Title IX here. Title IX's been around a long time, but (it's) ensuring that you had trained and certified investigators and coordinators. The coordinator is over all the investigators, and we have so many campuses that we have an investigator at each campus, so the program has evolved into being more compliant with the way it's supposed to operate.
"To have a really robust Title IX program takes a lot of money. You are supposed to do a lot of training. Larger universities have a robust budget and can do things more with signs and campaigns. 'See something, say something.' Or add more sports."
Robbins said GMC has looked at adding women's basketball and volleyball plus track and field but the funding isn't there. The athletic program, according to her, added women's golf before men's golf.
As for those investigations Robbins alluded to — the not-so-fun side of Title IX — she said serious ones are "few and far between." There have been "events" in her 15 years with the school, but she said nine out of 10 complaints are "boys and girls bothering each other."
"We do a good job of working with the management around the institution. I think we have a pretty safe environment," said Robbins. "We do a lot of investigations, but sometimes they don't pan out.
"There's always work to do. We could have more robust training. We have a footprint all around the state, so getting out and doing training is probably my biggest wish. And offering an inviting environment. You always have those issues students don't want to bring forward. That's natural due to the nature of the complaint."
DR. FLING
Dr. Holly did just that, flinging a softball overhand as a ceremonial first-pitch at one of GMC's home softball contests of 2022.
Softball always played a big part in the life of the former instructor at the University of Georgia and Missouri native.
"I played co-ed slow-pitch from around 1997 until the pandemic hit," said Dr. Fling. "I played every year, sometimes spring and fall ball, sometimes it was summer ball depending on where I lived. Anytime I moved to a new city, softball was a way to meet people I wouldn't normally interact with."
That included her time at graduate school at UGA, and her rivals and soon-to-be close friends were in forestry or ecology while she was in the English department.
"I got together a group of English grad students, most of whom had never played softball and taught them how to play," said Dr. Fling. "We practiced every week and lost every game. But we sure had a good time.
"It's been a real stress-reliever."
And a family tradition. She said her maternal grandfather was in a softball league, but women didn't play.
"I'm the same age as Title IX," Dr. Fling admitted. "In my lifetime, we've seen a real shift between men getting to go out and play the sports while the women took care of the home to where we see women getting to play too. I was lucky to be born in this time and get to be a part of that.
"I don't remember any of my (high school) friends going on to play college ball. We had really good players in high school. I'm not sure if there were a lot of women's teams at that time. I don't know.
"(Today) they're everywhere. It's amazing. I teach a lot of women here at GMC, softball players, soccer players, cross country runners. If this had been 20, 30 years ago, they probably wouldn't be here. They are here because they have this talent and are able to get an education because of that. Before, they may not have had the opportunity to go to school. Title IX has really shaped women's lives."
Looking ahead, Dr. Fling said she still sees a time where women's sports get taken more seriously and gets more involvement. She brought up basketball, where there is the WNBA and women's college basketball that is still lagging behind their male counterparts in terms of publicity and having a following. She said at UGA it's free to attend a women's game but there's a charge for men's games because men's games draw a larger crowd.
"(My mother) was the captain of her high school basketball team," said Dr. Fling. "Very athletic. There just wasn't that chance for her. She didn't go to college even though she graduated at the very top of her class and had a full ride to a university. Things were different. She didn't have the money, a car to drive back and forth, couldn't afford to live there.
"She's 82 and still cutting down trees with her chainsaw and hauling off brush. She talks about (the way things have changed) a lot and how wonderful it is that we have opportunities that 50 years ago wasn't possible. Most people probably didn't (think about it). They just probably accepted it for how it was."
