Oakland 'Play Like a Girl' festival expands on spirit of Title IX
OAKLAND -- It has been 50 years since Title IX opened the door to student women athletes but getting girls involved in sports competition remains a challenge. On Sunday in Oakland a special event was meant to change what it means to "play like a girl."
In just its second year, the Play Like a Girl festival is helping put an end to the notion that girls aren't interested in sports. More than 600 young women, ages 2 to 18, showed up at the Piedmont High School athletic fields to get a taste of the new, wide world of sports.
"We're getting girls playing sports, keeping them playing sports," said event organizer Eva Phalen. "And then, it's really identifying as being an 'athlete,' because we know girls that identify as being an athlete, they continue playing sports."
The girls got to try their hands at 22 different sports, including lacrosse, field hockey, rowing, cycling, martial arts, pickle ball, golf, and track and field, with instruction mainly coming from women coaches. Seven-year-old Laila Furfero had pretty good technique for someone who had never tried the long-jump before. Or had she?
"I've done it many times but today's my first time doing it," she said.
And 7-year-old Marie Omardad wasn't letting anything hold her back as she tried sprinting while wearing a resistance parachute.
"I wanted to see how it felt like," she said. "I felt like I was running on top of a house in the sky!"
Trying something new was the whole idea of the event and, while some sports may already be familiar to women athletes -- like soccer or volleyball -- the Cal women rugby players were teaching something that may not come as naturally, like making a flying tackle on a padded bag.
"Not all the girls go into contact sports. With rugby, it's a high contact sport," said player Samantha Noriega. "And if they can tackle the bag then they can tackle somebody on the field. It's all about having confidence and being fearless and I think that's a great trait to have."
The challenge for girls in sports is often getting them to stay with it. There is a high drop-out rate during adolescence but, if anyone needed inspiration, they could look to Dana Vollmer. She set a world record in swimming at the 2012 London Olympics and showed off the seven Olympic medals she won during her career. She said she thought about quitting many times but her message was about encouraging young women to keep working, even when things aren't going well.
"To move their bodies, to stay active, to fail and learn that that's kind of the point of sport -- is to fail and get back up," Vollmer said. "And to just be inspiring them to continue to try, I think, is just an amazing part of this day today."
"There's more opportunities for girls in sports," said organizer Phalen. "I think we can always provide more opportunities for girls to play sports because we know girls are looking for that opportunity."
Research shows that, besides the health benefits, girls who participate in sports have lower rates of depression, higher self-esteem and improved career outcomes. With all of its thrills and agonies, sports have a lot to offer anyone but there is a special kind of strength in "playing like a girl."
