Are We Holding Back Tomorrow’s World Cup Stars?

Last week, in the nail-biting finale of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011, Japan captain Homare Sawa delivered a dramatic penalty kick for the winning point against the United States. Sawa, who made her debut on team Japan at the age of 15, took home the Golden Ball and Golden Boot awards and has garnered admiration for both her prowess on the pitch and her sportsmanlike manner.

Sawa is a star role model for girls who play sports. But while the women’s game drew record viewership in the United States, girls who are inspired by the excellence of Sawa and female athletes like her face real challenges: play is in peril for girls. 

Schools across the country are cutting back on recess and downsizing physical education programs in the face of economic woes. Strict student performance requirements due to the No Child Left Behind Act are pushing many schools to allocate more time to teaching tests, believing that more classroom instruction will lead to better academic performance. Reports indicate that elementary students receive less than 26 minutes of daily recess on average, including lunch, and only 28 percent of high school girls are meeting current physical activity requirements.

Giving girls the opportunity and encouragement to play sports is an urgent issue. High school girls on athletic teams are less likely to become pregnant, have unprotected sex, or use illicit drugs. They also have a lower risk of breast cancer and osteoporosis, and have higher levels of self-esteem and body image and lower levels of depression.

Sports participation in school may also lead to success in the boardroom. Sports can help girls learn “achievement-oriented behaviors,” like goal-setting and teamwork, and prepare them for competitive work environments. As women gain ground in the professional world and push against the glass ceiling, a pattern is beginning to emerge of women playing sports and holding positions of influence.

Mary Schapiro, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, was captain of the varsity lacrosse and field hockey teams at Franklin & Marshall. Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay, was a member of the lacrosse and squash teams at Princeton. DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman was on the basketball team at Tufts.

An Oppenheimer Funds survey of 401 highly-successful American women found that four out of five of those polled played sports between junior high and college and continue to play sports or exercise regularly. A survey by the Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF) found that “80 perfect of the female executives at Fortune 500 companies identified themselves as former ‘tomboys’ — having played sports.”

But according to the WSF, by age 14, girls are six times more likely to drop out of a sport than boys. “Girls and women simply do not receive the same positive reinforcement about their sports participation,” stated one WSF report.

“It's no accident that girls' sports participation in Olympic sports increases significantly following the Olympic Games, one of the few times that coverage of women's sports is equal to that of men's sports. Aspirational role models drive youth demand for sports.”

The good news is that female athletes are gaining more visibility as positive images of women that excel in sports. The recent Women’s World Cup attracted a record number of viewers in Germany and the United States, with the finale garnering ESPN’s largest audience ever for a football match.

The opportunity to give girls the chance to play is enormous. A growing number of social entrepreneurs have taken up the challenge by using sport as a tool for girls’ development.

Boxgirls International, founded by Ashoka Fellow Heather Cameron, simultaneously teaches girls how to box and become strategic leaders. Through football, Girls and Football SA empowers girls in South Africa to own and respect their bodies and helps educate them about HIV and preventing violence.

What is clear is that the benefits of sports for girls cannot be ignored. As the WSF states, “Sport has been one of the most important socio-cultural learning experiences for boys and men for many years. Those same benefits should be afforded our daughters.”

Boxgirls International was a finalist in the Gamechangers: Change the Game for Women in Sport competition. Girls and Football SA was a winner of the 3rd HALF and National Committee for International Cooperation and Sustainable Development Early Entry Prize in the Changing Lives Through Football competition.

Photo courtesy of Sonia Bianchi, Girls and Football SA