Tonight, when you're watching the ladies zip around the short track in Vancouver, some history to keep in mind.
In the 1970s, Title IX allowed for greater numbers of high school and college-aged women to participate in sports. Six years after it was enacted, "the percentage of girls playing team sports had jumped sixfold, to 25 percent from about 4 percent," reports today's New York Times.
And while sports have long been associated with all sorts of benefits, like better grades and lower rates of teen pregnancy, no one has ever really known whether these things were the direct result of having participated. No one, that is, until now.
Two studies have found that team sports result in lifelong improvements to areas not only related to health, but also education and work. All of which is good news for Michelle Obama's latest school-based initiative-and makes this advertisement for Elmira College, where "outdoor sports are as essential as indoor study," seem way before its time.
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