ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, August 6, 1996                TAG: 9608060061
SECTION: SPORTS                   PAGE: B-1  EDITION: METRO 
COLUMN: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: ATLANTA
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK

WOMEN MAKE MARK AT GAMES

And on the 17th day, we rested.

Well, at least some of us did after 16 days of competition at the Summer Games. Someone had to clean the makeup ring around the synchronized swimming pool.

The Atlanta Games will be remembered for Michael Johnson's speed, a bomb, the crowds and two emotional appearances by Muhammad Ali.

The Centennial Olympics mostly should be recalled, however, for something that couldn't happen 100 years ago in Athens, and really didn't happen until two decades ago.

In the fourth Summer Games in the land of opportunity, women came to play. And they spoke with a voice that reminded no one of the squeakiness of Kerri Strug.

Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Games, didn't believe in competition for women. One hundred years ago in Athens, the Olympics were, in de Coubertin's words ``the exultation of male sport.''

That held true for years, although women were permitted to compete as early as the 1900 Paris Games. Nineteen did, in yachting, golf and tennis. In Atlanta, 3,779 women were about 35 percent of the athletes competing.

The U.S. women's teams won gold in gymnastics, basketball, softball, soccer and synchronized swimming. By Olympic count, that's only five medals. Counting heads, that's about 60 women with the top prize in their sports.

OK, maybe Title IX isn't working to the satisfaction of some in some - make that most - colleges, but it is obviously working, and the Atlanta Games will only put women onto playing fields.

There are almost four times the women playing NCAA sports today as did 25 years ago, when Title IX became law. There were 40 percent more women competing in the Atlanta Games than those four years earlier in Barcelona.

``When I used to watch the Olympics when I was little, women only were in sports like gymnastics, swimming and diving,'' said U.S. basketball reserve Rebecca Lobo, the college player of the year at Connecticut in 1995. ``The difference now is girls play team sports, and that's important, because that's where the opportunity is. A lot more kids play team sports than the individual sports.''

Softball and soccer were women's sports added for the 1996 Games, with Atlanta organizers pushing for their inclusion. IOC boss Juan Antonio Samaranch - or ``One Anchovy Sandwich,'' as he was derisively called by one radio station's deejays during the Games - witnessed these sports. He appreciated not only the enthusiasm surrounding them, but the fervor with which they were played.

``When I was 10, I played baseball with my brother,'' said Dr. Dot Richardson, the first U.S. Olympic softball hero. ``One guy asked me to try out for his Little League team. I said, `Great,' and then he said, `We'll have to cut your hair.'''

The Olympics has learned something else from allowing more women to play. It means more women will watch. It means Nielsen ratings will be higher. It means networks can sell more advertising, and pay more for rights.

Why do you think NBC ratings were high during the first eight days of the Games, when gymnastics and swimming dominated the coverage?

The network asked Games organizers to move the women's gold medal basketball final from noon to 6:30 Sunday night. And in an interview just before the Games closed, NBC Sports president Dick Ebersol said his ``only regret of the entire Olympics is that we didn't put at least 20 minutes of the women's softball on.''

Unlike the ``Dream Team,'' which acted and played like it didn't care, the U.S. women's basketball team played with an attitude embodied in Dawn Staley's no-look, push-it-up-the-floor passes.

Strug's grit, the grace and power of Lisa Leslie, the hustle of Mia Hamm, the resiliency of Jackie Joyner-Kersee were remarkable to watch on the world stage. Because of them, there will be more.

And because Australia had a more than respectable women's contingent at these Games, the women's profile should grow in Sydney in 2000.

When the world thinks of women in Atlanta after what happened the past two weeks, they will have a point of reference other than Scarlett O'Hara.

These ladies weren't fiction. And it was OK to sweat.

LENGTH: Medium:   79 lines