She was a four-time state champion in college softball, twice at Lake City Community College and twice at Florida State University. But she only received half the pay coaching as her male counterparts.

Nine years after Title IX passed, Kim Boatright returned to her hometown to coach.

“I came to Live Oak (Fla.) to coach and teach P.E. in 1981 after graduating from Florida State,” Boatright said. “At that time, I got paid $300 to coach softball and the baseball coaches got $600. I wouldn’t say they did it on purpose. They didn’t seek out to pay me half. That’s just the way things were back then. They didn’t have a value for women’s programs like they do now.”

Boatright, Suwannee High School girls golf coach and tennis coach, has experienced athletics with and without Title IX.

“The only sport they had for women to play in high school was basketball,” she said regarding Suwanee High when she attended. “My senior year, we had a P.E. teacher that came in that had played softball at the University of Florida. She started the first softball team.”

After one year of high school softball, Boatright went on to play both softball and volleyball at Lake City Community College and then continued her softball career at Florida State University. She was inducted into the Suwannee High School Hall of Fame in 1996.

“Title IX has helped everything,” Boatright said. “When I think about what Billie Jean King has done not only for tennis, but women in general — not only to have the ability to play sports, but be able to have your college paid for to play sports — she opened that door for a lot more scholarship funds for women and also for women to go into coaching.”

The SunLight Project team in the coverage areas of Valdosta, Dalton, Thomasville, Milledgeville, Tifton and Moultrie, Ga., and Live Oak, Jasper and Mayo, Fla., looked into current Title IX compliance in public schools.

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 protects from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance,” Title IX states.

According to the U.S. Department of Education Title IX Resource Guide, “(The Office of Civil Rights) uses a three-part test to determine whether an institution is providing nondiscriminatory athletic participation opportunities in compliance with the Title IX regulation. The test provides the following three compliance options:

1. Whether participation opportunities for male and female students are provided in numbers substantially proportionate to their respective enrollments; or
2. Where the members of one sex have been and are underrepresented among athletes, whether the institution can show a history and continuing practice of program expansion which is demonstrably responsive to the developing interests and abilities of the members of that sex; or
3. Where the members of one sex are underrepresented among athletes, and the institution cannot show a history and continuing practice of program expansion, as described above, whether it can be demonstrated that the interests and abilities of the members of that sex have been fully and effectively accommodated by the present program.”

Even with Title IX regulations, with more males participating in sports across Georgia, more money is poured into boys’ sports, especially football.

According to the Georgia Department of Education Fiscal Year 2016 Gender Equity Report, the sport with the highest male participation as well as the highest overall sports participation was football with 32,835 participants. The female sport with the most participation, track and field, falls far behind with 9,882, sixth in overall sports participation.

Jimmy Blankenship, Lafayette girls basketball coach, recognized the football-centric sports atmosphere.

“Football is the king,” Blankenship said. “It’s a tradition. Their fathers played, their cousins played, their uncles played. I think in a way there are still some strides that need to be made … But Title IX has been a great thing. I think it’s been pretty good here.”

Haley Hogan, Valdosta High School competitive and sideline cheerleader and varsity soccer player, also recognized the popularity of football but doesn’t allow it to dampen her spirit.

“Coming from Valdosta, I know football is kind of where most of the attention runs toward, but I think Coach (Reginald) Mitchell, our athletic director, does a really great job of supporting all sports programs regardless of if it’s a co-ed sports team or an all-girl or an all-boy,” Hogan said. “I think the opportunity for women is really about how much talent you have and how much work ethic you put in individually.”

Hogan said the only inequality she sees as a female athlete is in crowd participation being less than in larger male sports, such as football.

According to the Georgia Department of Education equity report, crowd participation is not the only low number in female sports. With a 40 percent female to 60 percent male athlete participation, the funding for sports is split 40/60 on average, accounting for that participation.

Many school officials and coaches in the SunLight coverage area said they believe their schools have sufficient gender equity in sports.

Lowndes County High School Assistant Athletic Director and Assistant Principal Danny Redshaw is one of those officials. He noted the opportunities available to girls.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt (that there’s gender equity in Lowndes sports),” Redshaw said. “We actually have one more girls team than we do boys teams.”

According to data collected from the coverage areas, there is an average nine boys sports offered per high school and an average 10 female sports offered per high school. Excluding Florida, the average number of male sports participants is 350, and the average number of female sports participants is 219.

At Lowndes, female sports participation is 175 and male sports participation is 428, according to the FY2016 Georgia DOE report. The female sports expenditure was $155,453 and the male sports expenditure was $532,987 for the school system. 

Currently, Valdosta High School has 402 male participants and 276 female participants, according to Athletic Director Mitchell. 

Among VHS sports, football has the most participants with 150 athletes and the largest expenditure at $113,000. 

The second largest sports expenditure goes to baseball at $11,600, while softball receives $6,190. 

A close third in spending is boys and girls basketball at $11,400. 

VHS boys and girls cross-country had the lowest expenditure at $1,200.

For VHS, the female sport with the most participants is non-competition cheerleading with 66 participants, and soccer comes in second with 40. Football, the most popular male sport in Georgia, and at VHS, has 150 participants.

The VHS male sport with the most participation has the heftiest budget. The same cannot be said about VHS’s most popular female sports, as the highest budget in female sports is in basketball.

Though the basketball team doesn’t have the most female participants, Sawyer Lynch, a 17-year-old senior at Valdosta High who plays baseball and competes on the swim team, said the girls basketball team excels, and female athletes excel in other sports as well.

“Track is dominated by girls in Valdosta, and cross country has a bunch of good girl runners,” Lynch said.

Mitchell reported that VHS has spent a total of $161,975 on male sports and $56,365 on female sports this school year. Excluding the football budget, the male sports budget drops to $48,975.

According to Thomas County Central Athletic Director Sam Holland, the budget for Thomasville Central is similar to that of Valdosta in regards to spending more on female sports after discounting football.

“Excluding football, we spend more on females than we do male,” Holland said. “We are very blessed here as far as the Title IX ratio with the expenditures from our LSA account and booster club.”

However, kicker Lauren Pearson is one female who benefited from the $255,590.95 football budget at Thomas County Central High School. Pearson is the only female football player for the school and in the SunLight coverage area.

Without football, Thomas County Central spent $157,542.81 on male sports and $233,358.82 on female sports. Last year, the school had 223 male participants and 234 female participants. Thomas County is one of only two schools in the observed coverage area with more female than male sports participants.

According to Suwanee High School (Fla.) Athletic Director Mike Braun, 51 percent of the school’s athletes are girls, making Suwanee High the second school in the Sunlight coverage area with more female athletes. 

In Tift County, the numbers are quite a different story. 

In all sports offered at Tift, there are a total of 277 female participants and a total of 455 male participants, with 155 of those male participants playing football.

Tift County spends more on football than on the entirety of its girls sports, and the remaining budget for boys sports, $120,349.27, which excludes the $124,775.66 football expenditure, is still higher than the $117,447.43 expenditure on girls sports.

However, Rusty Smith, Tift County athletic director, said much of the money spent is the same.

“The money is the same for the boys and the girls,” Smith said, citing the boys baseball and girls softball teams as an example.

Smith said the expenditure difference comes from the sports where only boys play, such as football, and some where only girls play, such as volleyball, not from the sports with a male and female equivalent.

This is a trend in the coverage area, with the discrepancy in spending originating from solely male versus solely female sports. Teams with both male and female versions, such as soccer, tennis, track and field, basketball and so on, each typically receive the same amount of funding.

At Baldwin High School in Milledgeville, cheerleading has the most female participants with 41 members and has a $8,600 budget. The budget comes in third highest, after football and boys and girls basketball.

Baldwin Athletic Director Dr. Henry Hankerson spoke of the difference between equal meaning same and equitable meaning fair.

“(Title IX) has helped to bring about a greater awareness for people to know that equity is important from the standpoint of it ensuring that we’re giving those equitable opportunities to both male and female athletes,” Hankerson said. “I stress the word equitable because equal does not always mean equitable. I think the key there is the equity piece and ensuring that we’re taking care of that.”

Hankerson said he plans a Title IX Celebration Day in February to celebrate female athletes.

“Strides have been made, but the race is not finished,” Hankerson said of Title IX and equity in sports.

Baldwin High Principal Dr. Cloise Williams spoke of the effect of Title IX and how it extends beyond sports.

“Title IX extends so far from the field of athletics,” Williams said. “It goes into other realms as well. I think the initial purpose was for gender equity in sports, but it has really touched a lot of other areas.”

Though Williams said there is still more work to be done, he recognized improvements.

“I think when you look back about 20 years ago a lot of the female sports didn’t get a lot of airtime,” he said. “I think we’ve come a long way now, where you’ve got female sports being featured. We have female commentators and female referees in opposite sports. I think we have made the move, and I think in the next 20 years we’ll be even better … there’s still room to grow.”

For many female athletes, sports are an integral part of their lives, and Title IX works to protect that.

“It’s important to me because they wouldn’t treat us the same if it weren’t for Title IX,” said Baylor Burch, a Suwanee High soccer player. “Sports are very important to me. Sports teach you life lessons — how to lose and how to deal with failure. I’d be pretty bored if I couldn’t play.”

Another female athlete in the coverage area, Elizabeth Funderburk of Colquitt County High School, won the state championship in the 3,200-meter run and placed second in the 1,600 meters at last spring’s state track meet.

Since beginning her athletic career as a freshman, Funderburk has won three straight region championships in cross country and in the 1,600- and 3,200-meter races. She has also been the low medalist in the girls region golf tournament each of the last three seasons.

With all of these accomplishments, she said she felt equal opportunity in sports.

“I definitely feel like athletics have shaped who I am,” Funderburk said. “And the school and the community have really supported me.”

Along with the opportunity to play sports comes the importance of sports facilities.

Packer Park at Colquitt County High School opened in 2007 and offers a state-recognized field for the girls softball team, lighted tennis courts, a cross-country course and, for soccer, a game field and two practice fields. The basketball team plays in the gymnasium at the new high school that opened August 2015, and a new track will open next spring.

Ron O’Quinn, the head softball coach at Thomasville, said his school’s investment in facilities has benefited the girls sports teams.

“I just got a brand-new softball field about seven years ago with a locker room for the girls,” O’Quinn said. “Volleyball and basketball — they get to use the new gym. The football field with the new artificial surface, girls soccer gets to use that. The school has always helped me with playoffs, for meals, for hotels, for transportation. There are no complaints from me. I think we’re doing a great job with Title IX.”

Still, many school officials expressed wanting continued improvements with Title IX.

Denise Pendley, principal at Southeast Whitfield High School and former women’s college basketball player at Mississippi State and University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, commented on Title IX’s continued relevancy.

“In my mind, women’s athletics has come a long way since Title IX was enacted and so many more opportunities are now available, even in just the last five or 10 years,” Pendley said. “From where we started to where we are now, we have come a long way, baby. I still think there is more that can be done.

“Every year, we do a gender equity report, and we are pretty fair in terms of boys and girls. Could it be better? I think so. There is so much more for girls to participate in now, and some of the minor sports have made it easier for girls to get scholarship opportunities.”

Male athletes have also said gender equity in sports is important.

“My sister plays college softball, and I think that it is really important to have equal opportunities as guys do,” Ryan Weeks, a Northwest Whitfield High School football player, said. “My sister was always the athletic one in the family, and she used to beat me in everything up until I got way bigger than her. They are just as equal as guys. They can do anything a guy can do.”

Coach Reginald Mitchell, Valdosta High athletic director, shared plans to increase female participation in sports, particularly in middle school.

“I am the Title IX coordinator for our district and I do believe equality exists,” Mitchell said in a statement. “We added volleyball two years ago for VHS. Last year we added a middle school volleyball and this year we are adding junior varsity volleyball. The middle school volleyball, middle school softball, middle school (competition) cheer and middle school soccer are combined teams between both middle schools. We plan to create a team in each sport per each middle school. This will increase the participation numbers. Finally, we added dance to each of our middle schools for those young ladies that are not athletically inclined to stunt and tumble for cheerleading.”

For more information on Title IX, visit titleix.info.

If Title IX rights are violated, visit ocrcas.ed.gov to file a complaint of discrimination.

The SunLight Project team of journalists who contributed to this report includes Kimberly Cannon, David Almeda, Mike Jones, Wayne Grandy, Eve Guevara, Chris Whitfield and Gil Pound.

To contact the team, email sunlightproject@gaflnews.com.

Kimberly Cannon is a Reporter with The Valdosta Daily Times. Her extension is 1376.