Sunday, October 28, 2007

The best educators

I am a little late on this but still wanted to report that the Institute for International Sport has compiled a list of the 100 Most Influential Sports Educators. Of note on the list (to me, of course; I am sure everyone has his/her own favorites):
  • Christine Grant, professor emerita, University of Iowa, (the bio neglects to mention her academic position though only mentioning her advocacy for women's sports and position as a sports administrator) Title IX advocate (and the person who taught me the ins and outs of Title IX compliance)
  • Vivian Acosta and Linda J. Carpenter, both professors emerita at City University of New York, Brooklyn, who have tirelessly been compiling and analyzing Title IX data since the late 1970s.
  • Pat Griffin, professor emerita at University of Massachusetts, current head of the Women's Sports Foundation's It Takes a team project whose aim is to combat homophobia in sports. She wrote Strong Women, Deep Closets about the lives of gay women in athletics. (She's also a very nice person and good softball player, though I am not sure if these were criteria the IIS committee used.)
  • Billie Jean King--of course!

There are a lot of other very important people on the list. I was a little disappointed to see Frank Deford there as I frequently have a problem with his commentaries on gender and sport but overall I thought the IIS did a good job compiling this list.

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