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That surely is changing. Women now play an aggressive brand of lacrosse, as shown on TIME's cover by Penn State's Karen Pesto. (In that game, Penn State tied Maryland 6-6, but later defeated its rival 9-3, to win the first national championship for women's lacrosse.)
Women are even beginning to play rugby, a disorderly contact sport that has always been a male preserve. Wearing shorts, shirts and cleats, the women grunt and curse in the scrum and pursue the ball with kamikaze intensity. To watch rugby is to wince, no matter the sex of the participants, and the women's only concession to the game's wide-open brutality is an acceptance of the need to substitute skill for muscle. In Chicago, a league of young women gathers each spring weekend for a rousing game—followed by the traditional round of beer drinking and songs.
No matter how important the shift in society's attitudes, the crucial change, the enduring alteration, takes place in the lives of individuals. Each time a young girl acquires the discipline to polish an athletic skill or learns to subject her ego to the requirements of team play, she helps gain the self-confidence that marks the healthy adult. Girls are showing they can be as determined as boys. In Lee, Mass., a high school softball pitcher named Linda ("Luke") Lucchese, 18, informs the opposing bench, "Forget it, you guys. The gate is shut." Then she wins the game 11-4. Luke's attitude is shared by World-Class Miler Francie Larrieu, 25: "I have learned through athletics that if you believe in yourself and your capabilities, you can do anything you set out to do. I have proved it to myself over and over."
Researchers have found that the virtues of sport, when equally shared, equally benefit both sexes. Notes Dr. William Morgan, of the University of Arizona's Sports Psychology laboratory: "Athletes are less depressed, more stable and have higher psychological vigor than the general public. This is true of both men and women athletes." If, as folklore and public policy have long insisted, sport is good for people, if it builds a better society by encouraging mental and physical vigor, courage and tenacity, then the revolution in women's sports holds a bright promise for the future. One city in which the future is now is Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In 1969, well before law, much less custom, required the city to make any reforms, Cedar Rapids opened its public school athletic programs to girls and, equally important, to the less-gifted boys traditionally squeezed out by win-oriented athletic systems. Says Tom Ecker, head of school athletics, "Our program exists to develop good kids, not to serve as a training ground for the universities and pros."