Title IX, a landmark 1972 law that requires gender equity in schools' sports programs, opened vast, new prospects for female athletes. More than 3 million girls now play on high-school teams, and some 9,100 women's college teams compete at the varsity level. Yet Title IX remains highly controversial. Some critics charge that it has forced schools to reduce opportunities for male athletes to make way for women. Others say women's sports have become so prominent that the law is no longer needed. But proponents of Title IX argue that sports opportunities for females still lag behind those for males. What's more, they say, the growth of women's amateur sports hasn't translated into many viable professional women's leagues or high-level jobs for female sports executives. Meanwhile, media interest in traditionally male sports such as football and baseball remains far higher than in women's sports.

Chanan Tigay is a freelance writer in San Francisco. He has contributed to Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, The Jerusalem Post and Agence France-Presse, among others. His work has included coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the 2001 U.S. anthrax attacks and recovery work at the World Trade Center site. Tigay won a Simon Rockower Award for a story on an Israeli rescue team that helped with rescue and recovery work in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University.