<p>In the 1950s when I went to hs, girls weren’t allowed to sweat.</p>
<p>Nice to hear the comments on Title IX since that’s what I did for many years in the government. Most investigators in OCR hated taking Title IX athletics cases because they were so complicated, but I thought they were great fun and found them very rewarding.</p>
<p>My oldest sister played high school sports(late 60’s, early 70’s) and that was one factor in deciding where to attend college. She attended an all girls high school that was well established in sports programs despite the times.</p>
<p>She had pretty strong academic options for higher education, but went with a college that had the women’s teams she wanted. It had turned co-ed earlier than the other schools and thus had more established women’s sports.</p>
<p>Obviously, if you were a women’s sports nut, women’s colleges may have offered the best bet to combine your academics with your sports back in the 50’s or 60’s.</p>
<p>Yes, sports was a big part of my high school experience! Varsity tennis throughout, and xc and indoor track to keep in shape for tennis.</p>
<p>College-prep, large public h/s in the Midwest: JV & Varsity gymnastics (balance beam & floor ex); girls’ track (long jump, 400/800 relay, 100 dash); city-sponsored girls’ softball league (second base & shortstop), league champions one year; & just for fun, ice skating, tennis, archery, & bowling. Tried out for the girls’ swim team my soph year & decided that I didn’t like chlorine THAT much. Besides, the girls’ locker room was a creepy, pink-tiled rat maze! Eww. </p>
<p>My parents moved us back to a small town in their home state of Nevada at the beginning of my junior year. I went from a graduating class of 600 to a class of 90 students. As soon as the school year started, I began to ask about girls’ sports. Gymnastics? They looked at me like I was from Mars. But, I could become a Mat Maid for the boys’ wrestling team. Girls’ track? No, but I could sign up to make cookies for the boys’ track practices. Girls’ tennis? Oh, Hell no! The 6 beautiful, well-lit courts right next to the high school were for the city’s rec department programs for senior citizens. Girls’ softball? Of course not, but I could try out to become a “bat bunny” for the boys’ baseball team. (How do you “try out” to carry a bat around, anyway?) Basketball, unfortunately, was not my sport (I’m 5’ 2"), and that was the only school sport available for girls at my high school. </p>
<p>So, I joined everything I could to stay connected to sports…except for the Bat Bunnies. I wasn’t exactly sure what they did, but I didn’t want to be a bunny for anybody. I substituted cheerleading for gymnastics. We had a Powder Puff football team that was pretty good, but that was part of gym class, and it lasted only a few weeks. I turned years of swimming lessons into a lifeguard job at the city pool, and I learned how to water ski and sail a catamaran with my dad, who thank Goodness, brought us up with the belief that girls could do anything that boys could do.</p>
<p>How important are girls’ sports? Important enough that girls will always find ways to compete physically, to play fair, and to celebrate a good win. I’m just so glad that there are more opportunities for girls, now. My own D puts her nerves of steel to use on the golf course. If you guys saw the movie, Sideways, I’m like the guy who shot the ball back at the golfers behind him and then chased down their golf cart with his club! Not my sport. :D</p>
<p>I was an All-American springboard diver in the 70’s in Texas. I won the state championship my junior year and was named All-American that same year. Being a top scholar (top 1% of a large class) and a top athlete, I was fairly heavily recruited. I ended up opting for an academic scholarship over any of the athletic ones offered.</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>I graduated from a public high school in 1972. I played field hockey freshman year. You only needed one year of phys ed to graduate, so I didn’t even take gym class the rest of high school - I became more interested in other extracurriculars than sports. The thing I really remember about gym class was the blue “monkey suit” we had to wear. Your phys ed grade was mainly based on a clean, pressed gym suit every Monday, and whether or not you showered after class!</p>
<p>You’re lucky–we weren’t allowed to take showers. Not only that, but because the locker room was so small and three homeroom classes took PE at the same time, one class was assigned to the locker room, one class to a room off the stairwell, and one class to the gym balcony! Needless to say, we tried to wear clothes that allowed us to slip into our bloomers easily.</p>
<p>Little Mother, your post about not being allowed to shower brought back a strange memory about 9th grade gym in a 7-8-9 middle school in NJ. We HAD to shower after gym. The only excuse to skip showering was if you were having your period! After gym class, all the girls ran through the shower to fulfill the requirement, then before we got dressed, we had to walk past the gym teacher so that she could verify that we really got wet. That seems so bizarre now and what an awful job for the gym teacher!</p>
<p>We had to wear gym suits. Remember those? All-in-one outfits in a rancid shade of blue that snapped up the front???</p>
<p>dcmom3- sounds just like my gym class. I remember the gym teacher used to keep track of when each girl had “period” as an excuse for no shower. Actually I was amazed to learn that my kids didn’t have to shower after gym in high school . I feel sorry for the teachers who have them the rest of the day! I teach 5th graders, and on hot days after gym class, I wish they could take showers!</p>
<p>Vbg, amethyst213! I remember those lovely, blue bloomers with the snaps up the front. Actually, we kind of preferred them over the shorts that the boys had to wear. No pantzing in those babies! </p>
<p>Back then (in junior high), we had separate P.E. classes for boys and girls, but we were all in the same gym. The only time the classes were ever combined was for the universally dreaded Folk Dancing portion of P.E. I think the whole awful experience was capped off by a dance contest on the last day. Being forced to hold hands with a boy or girl in our class was about as much fun as poking a stick in one’s eye!</p>
<p>Same for us - we were in the same gym with a curtain drawn in the middle to separate us! Co-ed part was square dancing for us.</p>
<p>My son had co-ed PE in high school - that was a surprise to me. But apparently it is now very common. Of course the locker room facilities were still separate.</p>
<p>Didn’t realize there was anything other than co-ed PE nowadays! In S’ PHS locker rooms are separate, but all PE activities - whether swimming, rock climbing, team sports, fitness, CPR etc. are coed. Is this rare?</p>
<p>I have no idea. My son went to a K-8 elementary school, so he never had formal PE until high school. He started high school in 1997 – it’s possible that I was just out of touch.</p>
<p>we had parts of PE coed in high school
One of my fondest memories was beating the pants off a boy playing handball.
( Ihad forgotten that, I used to love playing handball. I was too short for basketball and awfully uncoordinated for baseball, but hand ball I could do)
But ya- in my daughter private school PE was coed- they also didn’t change clothes sometimes as the “locker room” was really just a couple spare rooms. ( Now it is a trendy restaurant!)
In her sisters public K-12 school PE was also coed, they didn’t change clothes cause the locker rooms were used to store computers the school hadn’t recycled.
She is planning on taking PE next year, I think it is still coed, but she is interested in taking yoga/pilates which would probably attract more girls than boys, but you never know.</p>
<p>I took up lacrosse in high school because my PE teacher was desperate to field a team. Ended up playing all four years and then in college until it became too hard to balance classes with practices/games. I never played on a great team, but always had fun, and learned the value of staying fit. My lacrosse stick is an antique now, made of wood, leather, and catgut!</p>
<p>This thread is so funny…how old are we??? I also had the blue gym suit with snaps (loved the cuffs on the legs - as if anything could dress those babies up).</p>
<p>Kat: another badminton player, here. #1 singles baby!!</p>
<p>Yep, sky blue snappy thing here too (although by the end of the year they were not so sky blue anymore). And when you jumped on the trampoline really really hard the snaps would come undone. </p>
<p>Sons had coed gym, but the kids mostly lounged around on the bleachers or tried to hit the ceiling lights with the basketballs. Once in a while they’d walk around the block, with most of the kids talking on their cell phones (which are verboten at school). Were they talking to each other?</p>
<p>Hey Fredo, played badminton since it was the off-season of tennis and boy did it mess up my tennis. Big time. Tennis coach yelled and yelled. My doubles partner in high school was Tracy Austins double’s partner in club andon the circuit. Now that was fun. I got my butt kicked everyday until she graduated. Thank goodness she was a senior when I was a sophomore.</p>
<p>Oldest DD played badminton all through high school andshe really enjoyed it much more than I. Then again she didn’t have to worry that her tennis coach was looking for her every practice!</p>
<p>My kiddos had co-ed PE in CA but when we moved to Vegas, where there are 32 high schools in CCSD, all PE is single sex only. My DD could not believe it. And that was last year. My PE in high school was co-ed, so I was really confused.</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>My mother, now over 90, and never much over 5 feet, always told us that she played center on her high school girls basketball team. The game was as Jmmom remembers.</p>