Two celebs set for UM sports dinner

Dr. Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women’s Sports Foundation, and national college basketball star Sheryl Swoopes come to Orono Sunday to seek community support for women’s athletics. They will find a receptive audience.

Lopiano and Swoopes are featured speakers for “Realizing the Dream: Celebrating Women in Athletics,” a first major fund-raiser for University of Maine women’s athletic programs.

A National Sports Hall of Famer, Lopiano was a nine-time All-American, competing in 26 national championships in four sports. She coached several intercollegiate sports, was director of women’s athletics at the University of Texas, and president of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women.

Swoopes led Texas Tech to the ’93 national title and was the first sports team recipient of the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year award. She was ’93 female athlete of the year for USA Today, Sports Illustrated, U.S. Basketball Writers Association, Women’s Basketball Writers Association, and WSF.

Lopiano and Swoopes have support from the men who initiated the event, several women who took the idea and ran with it, and UMaine boosters who joined them.

Peter Daigle and Dan Lafayette of the Black Bear Inn of Orono are sponsoring the celebration with Friends of Maine Women’s Basketball and the UMaine athletic department.

The idea followed a conversation with women’s basketball coach Joanne Palombo-McCallie. “She told us a bit about Title IX,” Daigle said of the 1972 federal education amendment mandating equal opportunity for females in athletics. “After having worked many years for Larry Mahaney, who had done great things for (UMaine) baseball, I wondered if we could try an annual event to do something for women’s athletics.”

Daigle believes “the timing is perfect with the great season basketball had last year and Cindy Blodgett and Sandi Carver coming into the program to fill lots of seats.”

The idea became a $1,000 a table dinner featuring nationally prominent Lopiano and Swoopes. Daigle suggested 10 tables, Palombo 20. Fourteen are filled, three more are partially filled. Seats are $125 each and all expect to reach the 20-table mark.

Traveling to generate increased community recognition of female athletes is a new aspect of Lopiano’s job, she said during a phone interview from her East Meadow, N.Y., office.

The WSF, in its 20th year, “has always been considered the voice of women’s sports,” she said. But the delivery of the message is changing. Rather than “a phone call relationship with the world,” Lopiano now makes 3-6 appearances and grants 10-20 media interviews a week.

Her message: girls sports is still getting the short end of the stick. Her purpose: urge communities to seek grants to assess needs of girls sports in their area. The process works well in college towns with local institutions serving as catalysts. Under WSF leadership, programs are under way in 32 states.

Lopiano emphasizes girls have a higher sports-dropout rate than boys, and still do not receive comparable support. Progress has been slow since passage of Title IX, but she has seen inprovement in the last 3-4 years.

“We are now working with the first gneration of parents who lived through the women’s movement and whose children are entering college,” she said. “This is the first generation who is really teed off they are not getting what they deserve.”

Dinner chairman Lynn Coutts of the UMaine athletic department is anxious to meet Lopiano and Swoopes – Lopiano because of a shared softball background, and Swoopes to learn what motivated her to excel.

Sponsors hope sports fans will meet with the speakers at a free public press conference at 3 p.m. in the Dexter Lounge at Alfond Arena.

The celebration moves to a private reception for table purchasers at the Black Bear Inn at 5:30 p.m., with UMaine associate dean Dr. Anne Pooler opening the dinner at 6 p.m.