Female Football Stars Cut from DISD Fields

Female Football Stars Cut from DISD Fields

By Dotty Griffith

Don't look for any football heroines in Dallas schools this fall.

Three 6th-grade girls who played briefly on teams before allegedly quitting "on their own" wouldn't have been allowed to pursue their interest in the sport anyway, due to a ruling by the school superintendent Thursday.

"Our policy is that girls won't participate in contact sports," said Dr. Nolan Estes.

School officials don't believe that will bring them into conflict with federal guidelines barring sex discrimination in school athletics because "comparable programs" are offered.

The principal at Margaret B. Henderson Elementary School, George S. Boley, said the 6th-grader at his school decided to quit the team "a day or two ago" after a few practices.

Mrs. Sue Ekiss, principal at Julius Dorsey Elementary Schools, said the two girls who'd come to practice several times at her school also dropped out of the program on their own, before Estes' ruling.

School board trustee Bill Hunter, when told of the girls' interest in football at an athletic committee meeting, worried for their safety.

"I can imagine how I would feel if a girl of mine involved in contact sports got breast cancer or sustained injury that preventer her from having children."

Estes echoed that concern, saying it was his "bias" that girls were more susceptible to injury than boys.

Girls can participate in track, volleyball or soccer, said Morris Brantley, director of physical education. Brantley added, however, that if enough girls wanted to play football the school district would likely offer them an opportunity to play on all-girl teams to comply with federal standards.

But the federal guidelines on sex discrimination won't be finalized by the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare until January, marking no contact sports for girls in school a virtual certainty until then.

Dallas Morning News
Saturday, September 7, 1974
Section A, Page 27