For sports junkies, March can be an exhilarating month. The excitement of high school and college basketball tournaments is almost enough to tame grungy weather and seasonal affective disorder. Here on Mount Desert Island, we have just finished celebrating the accomplishments of our girls Class B champions. Before the cheering stops, however, we should also recognize the efforts of those who worked so hard to give all girls an opportunity to move from intramurals to televised finals in packed auditoriums.

Consider a recent front-page banner headline in this paper: “Record: 52 Points: Blodgett tops UM single-game scoring milestone.” Many of UMaine junior Cindy Blodgett’s contemporaries may take it for granted that young girls with her drive and talent will receive the support needed to thrive at big time programs. Even for those of us who are much older, it may be hard to remember that girls of previous generations played a lesser game and received inferior levels of support.

The girls’ game of an earlier era divided the floor into offensive and defensive zones, with players confined to one side or the other of the court. Girls of course “lacked the stamina” to play the full court, fast break game long practiced by boys. Likewise, support for the girls game was minimal. The standard argument for these inequalities, when they had to be defended at all, was that girls weren’t really “into sports.”

The growing recognition in the sixties and seventies that women had talents and interests long denied or discouraged by mainstream institutions led to a change in the way the game was played. Just as importantly, reforms in Federal education law required equal levels of support for men’s and women’s collegiate sports.

The story of Title IX and women’s basketball contains lessons for a broad panoply of civil rights issues. One stunning success of Title IX has been an increase in the number of coaches and athletic scholarships for young women. With changes in the rules and better coaching, the quality of play has dramatically improved. Well played games and greater financial support for the programs have in turn inspired even more interest in the game on the part of many young girls.

With interest and skill on the rise, attendance at games now has reached the point where one can no longer consider women’s sports just the poor second cousin. Cindy Blodgett’s draw has paid for her scholarship many times over. The University of Connecticut’s Lady Huskies play to standing room only crowds on a regular basis. The relatively greater emphasis on basic skills and teamwork in the women’s game now attracts growing audiences of both men and women.

These gains wouldn’t have occurred without political agitation on behalf of equal opportunities. Individual skills don’t emerge without a climate that encourages and nurtures them. Girls needed the good coaching and the older role models boys had long enjoyed. An MPBN commentator remarked some years ago that Cindy Blodgett had grown up idolizing Larry Bird. For some members of Mount Desert Island’s team, such young women as Blodgett and former University of Connecticut star Jennifer Rizzotti have been role models and even coaches. In the process, the way is cleared for many more girls to aspire to excellence in the sport.

Enactment and enforcement of Title IX requirements have obviously not been without their contentious moments and remain unfinished business. The larger commitment to class, race, and gender equality is embattled both in Washington and at many state universities. Throughout the two decade enforcement of Title IX, some male coaches and university administrators have continually attacked Title IX. They claim that it is unfair to support the non-income earning sports like softball with the same levels of assistance received by such “income generating” sports as football. These AD’s conveniently forget that all big time men’s programs once relied on large initial subsidies. (In addition, when costs are fairly allocated, most such programs still are actually a fiscal drag on large universities.) Two years ago, a group of Division I athletic directors even argued that football scholarships should not be counted as part of the pool needing matching female scholarships. Perhaps they assumed that football players were a distinct, third gender.

Further long-term gains for women in sports are also threatened by the little noticed implications of other trends. Some women sports stars now follow their male predecessors in a more problematic triumph. They lend their good name to corporate behemoths that bankrupt poor neighborhoods and exploit child labor worldwide. The company that tells young girls to “just do it” makes it virtually impossible for the world’s poorest to gain the time or facilities to pursue their dreams. In addition, the very money and recognition now garnered by women’s sports constitute a growing temptation to employ the same repugnant recruiting techniques too often practiced by men’s coaches.

Nonetheless, these caveats and concerns shouldn’t be allowed to negate the pleasures of the moment. The triumphs of March are not only victories on a basketball court. They grew out of hard political struggles within legislatures and college campuses. They testify to the collective and individual capacity of those who are finally given an opportunity. They should be an inspiration to us all.

John Buell is a political economist who lives in Southwest Harbor.