Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner on Title IX

This is by Stephanie Miner, Syracuse mayor. She played field hockey for Homer High School. It is part of a package on the 40th anniversary of Title IX.

I played field hockey and I swam. I played a lot of sports. It was one of the things that I enjoyed about school. It may have been the only thing I enjoyed about school.

My father ran track and played football in college. So I remember learning how to throw a football with him. I think I was about 9 when I began swimming for the local Y team, because I had neighbors who were older than I was who I worshiped. And I wanted to be just like them.

I liked the camaraderie, I liked the friendships that I made. I liked being able to achieve something and that recognition when you achieved something. It was a way, also, frankly of getting out of the house. Being the oldest of four children, I always looked forward to that.

I don?t think I was a great athlete. I was always a competitor, willing to get in there. I was good enough that I was a good team player, a good person to have in there. I started, and that to me was enough of a sense of acceptance and belonging that it really helped through those terrible teenage years. It really helped having a sense of self and self-esteem.

I would see people who had great skill who weren?t disciplined and really didn?t go that far. I would see people who had modest levels of skill but had fantastic discipline and would go very far. So I learned that discipline could take what skills you had make them even better. But I also learned, and continue to learn, about how to lose with grace. And also to learn that losing one day doesn?t mean you?re going to lose every day. And to sort of accept that. And to be a graceful winner, too.

As somebody?s who?s 42 and in a leadership position, there are things that I worry about in terms of gender issues. I worry about these incredibly unrealistic and damaging body images that mass media sends about women. And the fact that in popular culture it almost seems like in order to be seen as attractive, you have to have an eating disorder.

I think sports fights that. I think it gives you a weapon. But you know, theater or the arts can do that, too. It?s just for me, I have no talent in that way at all. So sports was kind of the vessel.

More local leaders talk about Title IX:

? Renee Baumgartner, Syracuse University deputy athletics director/chief of staff
? Vanessa Bogan, Syracuse City Court judge
? Linda LeMura, Le Moyne College provost and vice-president for academic affairs
? Ann Rooney, Onondaga County deputy executive for human services

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