here’s no crying in baseball,” Tom Hanks growled while portraying an over-the-hill former Major League Baseball player and coach in the 1992 film A League of Their Own. Hanks’s character, Jimmy Dugan, was attempting to stop a player on the all-female team from crying.

Though research shows that women do cry four times more often than men, the expression is often mistaken as a sign of weakness. But female athletes at the University of Miami—some emotional and some not—have proven themselves to be strong, principled, unrelenting competitors and winners. Drastic changes in recent years have given female runners and dribblers, divers and winners the forum to flex their mettle. Suffice it to say, they’ve come a long way, baby.

Exactly how far have they come? Over the last 12 years the University of Miami has increased its full scholarships for women from 46 to 104, has fully funded two existing women’s sports—track and field and rowing, and has initiated and fully funded two women’s sports—soccer and volleyball.

Ever since the passage of Title IX, the 1972 U.S. legislation banning gender discrimination at educational institutions, the University of Miami has taken a leadership position in creating opportunities for thousands of female athletes. In 1973 UM was one of the first universities with a high-level athletic profile to offer scholarships to female athletes.

hese initiatives have earned UM bragging rights for cultivating some of our country’s best athletes. Lauryn Williams, B.B.A. ’05, is one of the fastest runners in the world. She won the silver medal in the 100-meter sprint at the 2004 Olympic Games, and this summer she snagged the gold in the 100 meters at the World Track and Field Championship. In 1992 Frances Savage, A.B. ’92, was named the Sports Illustrated Player of the Year and the Big East Most Outstanding Player. Diver Michelle Davison, B.B.A. ’02, was a two-time All-American (2001 and 2002) and a ten-time U.S. Junior Champion, and she competed in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. Tracy Kerdyk, A.B. ’88, played on the LPGA tour. Megan Bradley, B.S.Ed. ’05, was the No. 1 collegiate tennis player in the country in 2005. And volleyball player Karla Johnson led the ACC and is among the nation’s leaders in kills.

In 2001, in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the passage of Title IX, University of Miami President Donna E. Shalala wrote in an editorial in The Miami Herald that Title IX has “absolutely worked. Thirty years ago, the national participation rate for collegiate athletics was less than two women playing sports for every ten men,” Shalala wrote. “Today, that ratio has improved to better than one woman participating for every two men.”

President Shalala’s sentiments are echoed by coaches, student-athletes, alumni-athletes, and administrators at the University, all of whom agree that in the competitive world of sports at the University of Miami—an arena once almost exclusively reserved for men—women these days have much less to cry about.

The only thing that brought tears to volleyball outside hitter Karla Johnson’s eyes was the realization that she’d played her last game of her last season on the team. “The coaches were still outside talking, and it was really quiet, and I was just sobbing,” says Johnson, a senior majoring in biomedical engineering who is the University’s all-time leader in kills. “I’m really going to miss the team.”

During the years that Lauryn Williams attended the University, she saw a tremendous amount of positive change. “Things were very different when I got here. Now all of the women’s sports have a top-ranked athlete,” Williams says. “Also, there’s more choice, more kinds of shoes, more of everything. You’d be surprised how much the little things make such a difference for us.”

Connie Nickel, associate athletic director/ senior women’s administrator, has witnessed remarkable change in the 19 years that she’s been at the University. When she arrived, women’s teams existed but weren’t really funded. Football overshadowed all. “In the old days, we had a concrete parking lot, and everyone had to move their cars so that the girls from the track and field team could run on it,” Nickel recalls.

Amy Deem, women’s track and field head coach and Lauryn Williams’s personal coach, adds, “When I started here 16 seasons ago we had eight scholarships, and now we have a proposal to go up to 20. Now we can compete with everyone in the entire country.”

Megan Bradley, who was named the International Tennis Association’s National Player of the Year in 2005, arrived at the University of Miami in 2002, which was before the school staked its claim in tennis. “We were a low-20s ranked team, and the team really turned around,” Bradley recalls. “And Audra Cohen just came in from Northwestern University and is going to put Miami on the map even more.”

“It comes down to being given a chance, and once that decision is made, you dedicate resources to make it happen,” says athletic director Paul Dee, M.S.Ed. ’73, J.D. ’77. “I’ve been here for 25 years, and the commitment of the University when it comes to women’s athletics has really improved.”

Another important aspect of the women’s athletic program at UM, Nickel points out, is that women’s teams are for the most part coached by women. “We are one of the very few colleges that can make that claim,” Nickel says.

The University’s new women’s head basketball coach, Katie Meier, left her head-coaching position at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte because she was so impressed with UM’s vision. “Miami was the only school I talked to that asked me what kind of culture I would bring and how I would like my young ladies to represent the University. It was nice to have a big-time university like UM speak to things like principles and character,” Meier says.

Penni Key, associate athletic director and a former NCAA Division I softball player, agrees that women coaching women can be extremely positive. “Some women don’t want to be coached by women because they know they can get a lot more past men. If they tell a male coach that they have cramps, they can get away with it. Not so with a female coach,” Key says.

Key adds that women have a greater awareness of the needs of their female athletes. “When I got here in 1998 there were no locker rooms for women. And I just couldn’t understand why women didn’t have sports bras. I asked an administrator, who happened to be a man, why women didn’t have sports bras, and he didn’t know what they were. I told him, ‘It’s just like a jockstrap for men.’ It’s about how you come forward and make a compelling argument.”

espite vast progress in a relatively short period of time, there’s still plenty of work ahead to achieve true equality for female athletes. On the national level, the NCAA reports that men’s sports programs at Division I institutions continue to receive more funding for recruiting and scholarships than women’s programs. “We have to break more barriers,” Nickel says.

Williams, who plans to go for the gold in the 2008 Olympics, has witnessed firsthand some of the obstacles women face. “I consider myself to be a very humble person, but sometimes I’ll be at a track and field event, and the fans and reporters are running over me to get to the male athlete, and I’m thinking, ‘I thought this was for both of us.’ It’s like I don’t exist.”

Still, a 150 percent increase in the number of female NCAA student-athletes over the last 23 years is an undisputed leap in the right direction. By contrast, men’s participation increased by 29 percent during the same era.

Meier notes certain advantages of being a woman in sports these days. “I’ve found a place that allows me to be very comfortable with who I am, and it exists a lot more in women’s basketball than it does on the men’s side. I really feel very special that it’s about teaching and mentoring these young women and about creating a positive environment.”

The fact is that student-athletes benefit from this “positive environment” far beyond the athletic arena. The critical values learned from sports participation—including teamwork, standards, leadership, discipline, self-sacrifice, and pride in accomplishment—are being brought to bear in the workplace as women enter employment in ever-greater numbers and at ever-higher levels. According to a University of Virginia study, 80 percent of female managers of Fortune 500 companies had participated in school sports. Also, high school girls who participate in team sports are less likely to drop out of school, smoke, drink, or become pregnant. It is no surprise then, that 87 percent of parents now accept the idea that sports are equally important for boys and girls.

“This is my soapbox here, but the qualities that have gotten men ahead in things like business and politics are the things you learn in sports,” Nickel says.

“Being away from home and being on a team has helped me be more open to people,” Johnson says of her personal growth on the volleyball team.

Evidently in the debate over equality, all women (and men) are not created equal. But there is one thing that every female athlete, coach, and administrator agrees on: as young athletes playing games in their backyards and schoolyards, none of them could’ve ever been accused of throwing like a girl.

eem vividly recalls her formative years on the ball field. “Growing up, I always beat the boys. The neighborhood boys went to my dad and begged him to let me play Little League. But because Little League Baseball was for boys and girls played softball, my dad said ‘no.’ I was crushed.”

Meier’s experience was quite different. “I was actually the first girl in Wheaton, Illinois, to play Little League Baseball with the boys. I remember pitching and striking out a boy. I was so excited. But the kid’s dad came out of the stands and grabbed the boy and said, ‘I can’t believe you struck out to a girl,’ and I remember having to socially say, ‘I can’t celebrate this because I’m embarrassing a boy.’ You know it’s very vivid, the responsibilities of a female athlete and socializing your way through. Now there are examples of competitive, aggressive, successful women who are role models. I didn’t have that then.”

Certainly, many men still have a difficult time when they lose to a woman. “I think it was my sophomore year, and it was springtime when the football players came out to run track, and I ran faster than [Miami cornerback] Antrel Rolle,” Williams recalls. “Everyone was saying, ‘Lauryn ran faster than you? You must be this and you must be that.’ He had a hard time living that one down.”

Incidentally, Williams is engaged to former Miami fullback Talib Humphrey, A.B. ’05, whom she has never raced. “He’s told me that he’ll trip me before he lets me get to the finish line.”

Bradley has had a different experience. “My dad was a baseball player and a football player, and I’ve always been competitive. But at the same time, I knew that I could still be really feminine,” she says. “I made sure that I surrounded myself with men who weren’t threatened by successful, competitive women. We pushed each other to be better athletes.”

It’s true that men and women convey emotions differently, but when it comes to playing sports, there may be more similarities than previously believed.

“Now a girl is allowed to fist pump and say, ‘Yeah!’ A girl can dive on the floor and huddle up, and they can jump on each other,” Meier asserts. “But 20 years ago that used to be masculine behavior. Now it’s just passionate behavior. When you come to watch our team play, I want you to get caught up in that.”