As a girl, I was expected to wear dresses, patten leather shoes and play with Barbie and Ken. I was expected to want to be a wife and mother when I grew up and I was expected to sit demurely at tea parties while the boys got to play and romp outside. That was not me. Not at all. Never was. It made my father proud. It made my mother shake her head in confused discouragement. It made me a bit of an outsider from my earliest days.

The boys on my street never judged. I was extremely athletic and I played baseball and football better than most of them. I collected baseball cards, climbed trees, rode my bike and romped around with the boys getting filthy, while the girls sat neat and clean along the curbside playing with their dolls watching us. I was a gal. They were girls. My Dad bragged that I was the son he always wanted, taught me to pitch and throw, encouraged me to throw a football and taught me to fight. We talked baseball. We went to Shea Stadium. We were diehard Mets fans. I was a rough and tumble kid. I hated dresses and put jeans and sneakers on at the first opportunity. My mother tried to encourage me to play with dolls, I wanted to play Cops and Robbers, Cowboys and Indians, War. I played with toy guns and army men. But she kept trying. She made me take ballet lessons. To be graceful. That was a disaster that even she laughs at today. I was a shuffling buffalo. Not a graceful bone in my body. Except on the field of sport. I was unstoppable at touch football, and I moved with the grace of a cat. I was picked before most of the boys when we chose sides. I was graceful at sports, much to my mother’s dismay.

I won physical fitness awards at school, I was good. I excelled at boy’s gymnastics. I swam like a dolphin. There was no program, no equipment for girls. Teachers coached me during lunch periods. While boys learned the parallel bars, girls learned to tapdance. When boys climbed the ropes, girls learned to square dance. They got to wear shorts and tee shirts, we wore "gym suits". Boys went to shop class, girls had home economics. Sigh. I was a girl. But in my last year of junior high school, Title IX kicked in. Although I was too old for organized sports like little league, I did get to go to wood shop instead of cooking class. My mother still has the plant stand I made her.

One summer when I was about 13, a female friend and I rode down to the playground after dinner, to play paddle ball down at the handball courts. Some older men, about my father’s age, maybe a little older, tried to muscle us off the court. I refused to leave, so to appease me, one of the men "challenged me" for the court. I won. I embarrassed him. They kicked us out anyway. But it didn’t matter. I was so cocky. When I told my father, he was so proud.

I remember back in 1969, my father had to fight with the summer camp directors to allow me to attend the baseball games that the boys attended every Wednesday at Shea Stadium. You see, when the boys went to the game, the girls went to ballet and music lessons. When the Mets players came to give pointers to the boys, the girls went to arts and crafts. My father fought hard. He won. I loved it. He understood. I did eventually become a counselor at that camp, teaching younger girls to swim and teaching them those sports which I loved so much. It was a joy.

But entering my teens, things started to change. As my hormones started kicking in and my body developed into womanhood, my interactions with those same boys began to change a little. I looked great in a bikini. They noticed. I knew they noticed. I liked it. At 14, 15 I had the best of both worlds. I had access to the boys as a gal, AND a girl. But I had to make concessions. Boys egos bruise easily. I liked boys. A lot. So I learned to lose, to throw games, to slow down. It bothered me. I hated to be phony. But those were the times I grew up in. Girls and sports did not mix in a teenager’s world of dating. Not in the 70's. Boys expected to dominate that which they had always dominated. Girls like me had to concede. Talents went unfulfilled. Thoughts of what might have been.

As I watch girls today, I am proud of the things they accomplish each and every day on the courts and fields once dominated by men and boys. I adore the WNBA and I support girls athletics. I watch women compete against men at golf, and now for the first time in history, a woman is competing in the Pro Bowler’s Tour. It fills my heart with joy to see girls participate and earn scholarships in sports and medal at the Olympics. My gender has come far since my childhood days. Boys respect athletic girls. Girls can be true to themselves. No compromising. Stand tall girls. Be proud. Go far. Win.