Title IX Series: Deb Utesch
5/23/2023 11:00:00 AM | Women's Cross Country, Features
Lehigh Women's Cross Country head coach Deb Utesch reflects on the importance of Title IX and the impact it has had on her life as an athlete and as a coach.Â
While I was getting into sports as a young girl (initially basketball, then track and field, and finally cross country) I was fortunate to have people around me that encouraged girls in athletics. My dad, (who was always a coach to both boys & girls) always challenged me to "compete with the boys" and looking back I even remember him encouraging some women to pursue coaching so that we had some female influence in athletics.  In 1983, My dad and the other high school coach, Lee Baranik, took a few of us girls and boys to Lehigh during our senior year in high school to watch the NCAA Championships on Lehigh's Goodman Campus. I was excited to see my sport heroes compete and I had NO IDEA that 1983 was only the third year that the NCAA had sponsored a cross country national championship for women! I assumed it had gone on forever.
I actually was never cognizant that I was "behind the times" as a female athlete until my freshman year in college. I was looking at the results board outside my college coaches' office (who was female by the way) and saw very few NCAA results. Most of the track and field and cross country results were listed as AIAW championships. I started to inquire about that organization and why there was limited history for women in the NCAA. I didn't realize at that time that my generation was on the cutting edge of women in sports.
When I began to pursue my own coaching career, I started to become aware of the differences in opportunities and the differences in attitudes toward women in sport. Again I was fortunate. I was given an opportunity to coach both a men's and women's team at Saint Francis University as my first coaching job. I clearly remember sitting in an IC4A coaches meeting (there may have been two other female coaches in a room of 50-60 men) and hear for the first time some of my male counterparts complain that the introduction of women's events watered down the meet and they just wanted to finish the competition and go home, not have to wait for women to also compete. That was eye-opening and motivating to me at the same time. I was determined to gain the respect of my colleagues!
So when I think of the people who laid the foundation for women in sport and pushed for Title IX legislation, my gratitude is twofold. There are amazing females who came before me to demand opportunities, showcase their individual talents against many odds, and endure hearing a multitude of "NOs" along the way. But there were also courageous men who recognized what women were capable of. They stood up for us, countering the voices of their colleagues and at the risk of losing their own opportunities. Yet they encouraged women to move to the front of the line to a space that they helped create for women's athletics.
So Title IX created a space for me to be competitive as an athlete, pursue my goals at a high level and never doubt that it was possible! Title IX has also allowed me to have a career spanning decades in a college athletic arena where I have had the opportunity to help young men and women navigate a critical time in their lives through sports. I am forever grateful to the people that made that possible!
Change takes investment of character, investment of time and investment of financial resources to create new spaces of opportunities. In the 42 years since that first women's NCAA national cross country championship, only six women have coached a national championship team (fortunately the past three championships have been won by female coaches). During my time in the sport of track and field, I have seen the triple jump, the hammer throw, the pole vault and the 3000m steeplechase be added as women's NCAA events. More women are pursuing coaching but women are not staying in coaching. We need help to make it possible for women to have families, be active with their families and still have the time and resources to be effective leaders of their athletic teams. So the impact of Title IX is significant but the work of those trailblazers needs to be continued by our generation to protect the spaces and opportunities that were created for women's athletics. We must continue to advance the mission for women in sports without shrinking the competitive spaces for our male counterparts.
