As somebody in her 20s, McMurry cross nation coach Rexi Parcells wasn’t alive for the landmark Title IX ruling.
That civil rights legislation handed June 23, 1972.
However 50 years later, the results of the choice have given Parcells the chance to be a pioneer in school athletics.
Title IX “prohibits discrimination on the idea of intercourse in education schemes receiving Federal monetary help.” In NCAA athletics, this implies female and male pupil athletes should have equitable alternatives to compete, and female and male student-athletes should obtain athletic scholarship {dollars} proportional to their participation.
Parcells has been McMurry’s head cross nation coach since 2018. Earlier than that, she ran for Arkansas State’s cross nation staff. The coach is aware of she would not be in her present function if not for Title IX.
“Had I by no means had that chance, I would not be teaching and getting this chance to work with the folks I work with now,” Parcells mentioned. “It has been a sport changer for me.”
In 4 seasons teaching the Battle Hawks, Parcells has seen nice success. McMurry has put collectively a number of top-five convention finishes for each the lads’s and girls’s cross nation groups, in addition to a number of all-conference runners.
Parcells is following within the footsteps of different McMurry girls in sport who’ve been pioneers.
In 2008, observe and discipline coach Barbara Crousen led the Battle Hawks’ males’s staff to the outside nationwide championship, making her the primary lady to teach a males’s staff to a nationwide championship in any division or sport.
She did it once more in 2012, when the McMurry males gained one other nationwide title.
Additionally, head volleyball coach Cammie Petree grew to become the winningest head coach of any sport at McMurry final 12 months, with a 465-292 profession report. And Bev Ball, McMurry’s former swim coach, launched this system in 2000 after teaching for nearly 50 years in Abilene ISD.
“For me to have the ability to see what these girls have carried out and comply with of their footsteps, I am grateful for that each day,” Parcells mentioned. “I would not have this job or have the arrogance to do it if it wasn’t for ladies like that. It is actually cool to see what McMurry has been doing for feminine athletes for a number of years.”
One in all Parcells favourite elements about her job is the chance to teach each the ladies’s and males’s groups. That’s considerably a rarity in NCAA athletics.
“It is vital for ladies to teach girls, nevertheless it’s additionally vital for ladies to teach males,” Parcells mentioned.
Regardless of Title IX impacts on gender equality, there are nonetheless nice inequalities in teaching.
Based on a 2021 report from The Institute For Variety And Ethics In Sport (TIDES), 59% of girls’s NCAA groups are coached by males, whereas simply over 5% of males’s groups are coached by girls.
“The factor is that it isn’t bizarre to say you could have a male softball coach. We do not see that as unusual,” Parcells mentioned. “However as quickly as you get a feminine teaching baseball, folks have a look at it prefer it’s unusual. That is one thing that should change.”
Parcells mentioned there’s just one possible way for colleges to alter this: rent girls.
“That is solely going to alter by directors hiring girls and it is turning into regular,” Parcells mentioned. “Once they’ve seen girls in these management roles, it will maintain shifting this in the fitting path.”
All in all, Parcells is grateful for Title IX, 50 years after its ruling. It gave her dela — and different McMurry girls — the possibility to have an effect on the varsity and school sports activities, as an entire.
Nonetheless, the younger coach desires to see even better change within the subsequent half century.
“Now we have come such a good distance in 50 years, however I believe there’s loads of room to develop,” Parcells mentioned. “I believe we’ll see even larger change within the subsequent 50 years. Girls have to maintain being in sports activities and maintain teaching.”
Carson Area is the realm sports activities reporter for the Abilene Reporter-Information. He covers primarily Huge Nation highschool sports activities. When you recognize domestically pushed information, you may help native journalists with a digital subscription to reporternews.com.