<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0nqCDH_0vjVP9JT00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0nqCDH_0vjVP9JT00" width="2000" height="1400" ><figcaption>The Oakland Mills High School girls’ varsity soccer team receives a pep talk in this photo from around 1979. (Submitted photo)</figcaption></figure>The Soccer Association of Columbia originally began in 1971 as part of the Columbia Association. The SAC league was structured and grew in the way that Columbia was planned and built: by neighborhood. From the start, there were boys’ and coed teams divided by age group for youth starting as young as 8 to 9 years old. Around this same time, a federal civil rights law with far-reaching implications regarding the opportunity for girls to play sports in high school and college was passed. The passage of Title IX, as part of the Education Amendments of 1972, states that, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” By 1975, about 1000 players were expected to register for the SAC spring season. As Fall registration opened, the youth program had been expanded from three age divisions to four: 7-8, 9-10, 11-12, and 13-14. There was a girls’ league and coed teams were still common. Players 15 and older were eligible to play in the Columbia adult league. The need for practice and game fields to accommodate the growing number of teams was considered the only limiting factor to the growth of the sport at that time. As Jessie Newburn, a long time Columbia resident and one of those young girls playing soccer from the start, recalls of those early days of the league:“Who didn’t play SAC soccer? It was how kids [were] plugged into the neighborhood. I remember walking around proudly wearing my navy-blue Thunder Hill SAC shirt. All the kids were playing soccer. All the ‘cool kids.’” Soccer was thriving and the attention the sport garnered was rising. It did not take long for boys’ and girls’ travel teams to be selected from the most talented players in the neighborhood league. However, the sport was slower to rise at the high school level. Boys’ varsity soccer was offered in several high schools by this time, but it took a group of parents to organize and lobby for the addition of boys’ junior varsity teams in county high schools. Meanwhile, there were no high school soccer teams for girls. A Wilde Lake High School junior, Karen Hendrixson, filed a lawsuit against the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association and state and county school officials for discrimination. She and two other girls were cut from the boys’ varsity team tryouts for being ineligible to play a “contact sport.” Hendrixson was quoted in a July 1975 article in The Columbia Flier saying, “If there had been a girls’ team, this wouldn’t have come up,” and that she and the other girls,” had asked for a girls’ soccer team but were told it was not possible because there was no teacher available to coach the team and there were no other girls’ soccer teams in the county to provide competition.”Newburn also questioned why there was not a girl’s soccer team at her high school.She arrived at Oakland Mills High School in August of 1977. She recalled asking girls’ varsity field hockey Coach Nancy Gise why there was no girls’ soccer team. Gise committed to finding a coach and uniforms, if Jessie could get a team together. Jessie had to look no further than to her SAC teammates. Gise sought to schedule games both inside and outside the county. As Jessie recalled, “we played two games that season, both of which seemed quite far from school, because there were no other high school girls’ soccer teams in the county. And we were the first girl’s soccer team in a public school in the state of Maryland.” She observed that, “the team was created in the minutes before the spark was lit.” The 1978 OMHS Yearbook confirmed, “The fall of 1977 was the first season of play under the coaching of Robert Parker, a new teacher to OMHS. The Scorps were the first high school in the county to form a girl’s soccer team with the hopes that other county schools would do the same in future seasons. With only four games scheduled, two of which had to be cancelled, the team concluded the season with no victories.” There were players from at least two other Howard County public high schools hoping to field teams that fall, but issues of finding qualified coaches, who worked for the school system – a requirement for coaches – was a stumbling block. OMHS, Wilde Lake and Centennial had “plenty of interested girls – but they have no coaches,” according to a 1977 Columbia Times article that also noted many of the girls who wanted to play ended up trying out for the boys’ teams at their schools. In the fall of 1978, the year that Title IX compliance was mandated, the number of Howard County public high schools offering girls’ varsity soccer rose to four: Oakland Mills, Wilde Lake, Centennial, and Howard High. OMHS would play this season under a second male coach, who made the season more enjoyable, according to Senior Terry True, who was quoted in the 1979 OMHS Yearbook.In the fall of 1979, Cynthia Carson, a popular Spanish teacher and a player herself, was tapped to be the coach, becoming the first woman girls’ soccer coach at OMHS.The team had a full slate of competition. Four other county high schools fielded teams. Each county opponent was played twice. There were three out-of-county games against Pallotti, Stone Ridge, and Holy Child. It was not until 1989 that girls’ soccer state championships began under the direction of the MPSSAA.</div></body>

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‘In the minutes before the spark was lit:’ The start of girls’ soccer in public high schools in Central Maryland

The Soccer Association of Columbia originally began in 1971 as part of the Columbia Association. The SAC league was structured and grew in the way that Columbia was planned and built: by neighborhood. From the start, there were boys’ and coed teams divided by age group for youth starting as young as 8 to 9 years old.