The cultural value of sport. How is it to be measured? Is organized athletic activity a social good? A social problem? Both? Neither? And what of women and girls, so long excluded from the realm of sporting activity, striving to make gains since the passage of Title IX and once again threatened with exclusion? Is bringing more and more women into organized sport, from the childhood world of soccer leagues to the highest realms of professional achievement, of unalloyed value? Something to be sought without concern?

These questions, which Catharine Stimpson took on with wit and erudition in the inaugural Helen Pond McIntyre '48 lecture, serve as our point of departure in this issue of Scholar & Feminist Online. In inaugurating the McIntyre lectureship, Stimpson turned her immense energy and intelligence to a topic that deserves but rarely receives our attention. Because athletics at the collegiate level are extracurricular activities, they have not always been subject to the type of scholarly attention that professional sport receives in the major media. Sports are somehow extraneous, perhaps even frivolous. They are, after all, just games: exercise and entertainment and certainly separate from the "real" business of society and education. Yet, sport is also big business, and not just at the professional level, where billion dollar team franchises have the power to command public funds for new stadiums and tax concessions. Sport is also big business for the major media, where talk radio stations and multiple cable networks are dedicated to nothing but commentary on sport, and where more time of the local news is dedicated than to issues of political or social concern. And sport is big business for colleges and universities. As James L. Shulman and William G. Bowen have documented in The Game of Life, athletic programs comprise a major portion of collegiate budgets, and these high-level programs can bring in vast revenue and media attention. But, even in the less rarified realms of Divisions II and III schools, athletic programs have a greater impact on admissions than do affirmative action programs, and they require a kind of specialization and dedication that make it hard to realize, except in rare cases, the ideal of the "student-athlete."

In making the cultural value of sport the topic of her lecture, Professor Stimpson also raises a set of specifically feminist issues, ones which feminist scholars who study sport (some of whom are assembled here) have long followed, but which have not received the attention that they deserve outside the confines of sport studies. A number of contributors track this apparent disjunction between the feminist study of sport and feminist studies more generally. As Leslie Heywood notes, "In some ways, devoting an issue to women in sport is an unprecedented focus for a feminist journal, for while scholars working in sport studies often take a specifically feminist approach in their work, it cannot be said that feminist journals have likewise entertained sport as a relevant focus." Don Sabo and Janie Victoria Ward follow these disjunctions and their effects in detail. They explain that the issue is not simply that most feminists have not paid enough attention to sport, but also that women's sports advocates have tended to shy away from the "f-word," because to be labeled feminist could be a death knell in the hyper-masculine world of sport. The consequences of this divide are all too often those of lost opportunities for solidarity and social change. Various forms of feminism (or feminisms) are relevant to the struggles of women athletes, and perhaps even more importantly, sport presents a site of possibility for feminist transformation, a site whose positive potential for both individual and communal change is all too often overlooked. Ultimately, then, the sense that feminist studies doesn't attend to sport in ways that might acknowledge its socially transformative possibilities is due to fundamental ambivalences for feminists with regard to sport, and likewise for sports advocates with regard to feminism.

As both a critic and a fan, Professor Stimpson takes up this discussion in a way that allows us to see the full range of the issues that are at stake. She wittily summarizes these issues through the classic story of Atalanta, a renowned athlete whose father initially rejects her and then desires that she marries. Atalanta counters a proposal of marriage by challenging her suitor to a foot race: if she wins, he dies; if he wins, she marries. Favored by Aphrodite, who gives him three golden apples, he places the apples along Atalanta's path and when she stops to pick them up, she loses the race and submits to marriage. Atalanta's ambivalence - her desire to win and her claim to autonomy juxtaposed with her willingness to be distracted in a way that undercuts her desires - says a great deal about women's place in relation to contemporary sport. Stimpson diagnoses this position as one that inculcates the "Atalanta syndrome," "a cultural illness in which women are vulnerable and devalued . . .. Yet, if nurtured, women can become self-protective and resist devaluation. They can - for example - become famous athletes." But, the story doesn't end there. The classical Atalanta can provide the name for a contemporary syndrome precisely because even those young women who succeed against the odds face continuing pressures to conform to social norms, particularly those of femininity. "When these women enter the most important race of their lives, they can be distracted . . . they cannot stay the course." And the effect of veering off course is to be returned once again to the constraints over which they have previously been victorious. Because women may themselves conspire in their own distraction, undoing the Atlanta syndrome is no simple business.

These complexities set up the very ambivalences that our commentators show have led to a disjunction between feminism and women's sports advocacy. If sport is a field where gender differences that require women's submission can be inscribed, then why should feminists direct their efforts toward this field? Yet, surely, it is a mistake to feel that women and girls, so long excluded from the pleasures and benefits of the physical activity in the form of organized sports should be asked once again, like Atalanta of old, not to play to win, or maybe not to play at all, for the sake of social (rather than their own) good. And just as surely there is reason to be cautious about a full-fledged and uncritical rush into a realm of activity that is as much business as it is pleasure, and that plays such an immense role in defining the very gender differences that make women's participation problematic.

In fact, as E. Grace Glenny argues in her essay on the visual culture of sport as exemplified by the covers of Sports Illustrated magazine, the fact that sport is big business has a crucial impact on gender and race relations. If SI is first and foremost in the business not of reporting on sporting events, but of selling magazines, then the pictures that we see in the magazine will tend to coincide with those views of gender and race that seem most marketable. And as Glenny shows, it is impossible to disentangle whether SI is merely following cultural trends that perceive women as sexual rather than competent and that replay deeply held prejudices about race, or whether the magazine is setting these trends. Yet it is these very trends that make it extremely unlikely that athletics will be an arena in which we might see either gender or racial justice.

As the contributions gathered here show, the images produced each week for Sports Illustrated have an impact on how we understand gender well beyond the confines of the playing field. And, because our contributors are thoughtful and creative feminists, they show how making change in the area of sport, from which women have been so long and so thoroughly excluded and which seems so difficult to conquer, can make possible other types of social change. In other words, if we abandon the arena of sport because we worry that to enter it is to be caught up in the very snares of gender determination that we would hope to avoid, we shy away from one of the very places where we might transform those relations. As Jo Ann M. Buysse notes in her contribution, "we must continue our efforts toward interdisciplinary work between sport scholars and feminist scholars from all disciplines. Sport is an important site where dominant ideas of gender are shared and nurtured. Feminist scholars of every discipline must attend to the culture created and fostered on playgrounds and playing fields."

Because Professor Stimpson has taken up these issues in such a useful way, the roundtable conversation provoked by her essay brings out precisely the ways in which sport, if taken up in feminist terms (whether implicit or explicit) can be a site for social transformation that has wide-reaching implications. Leslie Heywood's article on female athletes in the context of neoliberalism (the currently dominant system of economic globalization) argues that sport can change the way in which the female body is experienced. Such a shift in the feeling of embodiment is important not just for the individual athlete; changes in embodiment have social repercussions as well. Any system of social organization depends upon certain perceptions by individuals, and the current system of economic globalization depends on what Heywood terms "tech time," a speeded-up race toward transcending the very boundaries of the physical world. But, this effort at transcendence always depends on "others," most often women and men of color, who do the worldly work that enables some individuals to overcome their limits. The athlete can either strive to embody the transcendence idealized by neoliberalism or she can experience her body differently. Even in an "individual" sport like cross-country, in which Heywood participated as a college athlete, she can experience the immanence of her embodiment and the ways in which her accomplishments are related to those of her team.

Such a shift in the experience of sport depends on a reconceptualization of the entire athletic endeavor from one of competitive achievement to one of inter-connected accomplishment. And, as Margaret Duncan argues, just such a change is being undertaken in some physical education curricula. Duncan points to a Sports for Peace curriculum, created by Catherine D. Ennis, in which, among other things, "students are taught that they are accountable for maintaining a supportive climate for all team members. To that end, they learn conflict resolution and negotiating strategies." As with Heywood's sense that the potential for experiencing the body differently has wide ranging implications, so also these alternative curricula for physical education have the potential to teach students a different set of life skills and social relations. The importance of the communal experience of sport is played out in number of essays including Tina Sloan Green's description of mentoring for women athletes and the effects of the process on mentor as well as athlete. For Green the word "feminist" has often seemed to imply a realm of privileged white women who "although they championed the cause of equality for women, neither understood, nor wanted to understand the struggles of black or poor working women." Yet, as she reflects upon her career she also realizes that many of the women who mentored her and helped her to excel in a sport like lacrosse that is often coded as "white," were themselves feminists, and that feminist values, including those of mentoring other young women, were crucial to all of her work. Don Sabo and Janie Victoria Ward work out how multiple feminisms, sometimes explicit and sometimes implicit, can contribute to girls' experiences of both self- and communal empowerment through organized athletics.

As Schulman and Bowen point out in The Game of Life, the claim that sports teaches life skills is reiterated so often as to make it a cliché. But, they are also concerned that there is a major discrepancy between the skills of the playing field and those of life beyond the arena, most particularly, between the character demanded by athletic competition and the values of education. What the essays collected in this issue of S&F Online suggest is that this disparity need not be so acute. When undertaken with a different set of cultural values, especially feminist values, sport can contribute to different kinds of lives.

In the current cultural and political climate, however, we are faced not just with the question of the implications of women's participation in sport or with issues of gender and race as they play out on and off the field, but with the question of whether women and girls will be able to continue to participate in sports at all. There is no disputing the fact that the enactment of Title IX in 1972 ushered in a sea change for women in college athletics, one that has led to women's increased participation in sport at all levels. There is also no question that recent attacks on Title IX and on its enforcement are directed at reversing these changes. Vanderbilt University Chancellor Gordon Gee puts it succinctly when he says, "any time a federal policy arises that would change the way things have always been done, some people will resist in fear or misunderstanding." We include a position paper from the Women's Sports Foundation, drafted by Nancy Hogshead-Makar and Donna Lopiano that lays out the problems with the Department of Education's new guidelines for compliance with Title IX. As Hogshead-Makar and Lopiano show there is good reason to see these guidelines as a major shift in direction that will significantly undercut the enforcement of the legislation, and thus threaten opportunities for women's participation in collegiate athletic programs.

And so, in this issue of S&F Online, we also take a fresh look at Title IX and ask how we are to move beyond this moment, both protecting the gains that have been made and adopting new strategies for changing women's role in sport and sport's role in our culture. Laurie Priest explodes some of the myths that surround the debate over Title IX, showing that men's sports teams have not been cut in response to the legislation, but have shown a net gain since its enactment. In fact, sports like wrestling that have diminished in size over the last several years were actually cut at higher rates during the years when Title IX was in court-ordered abeyance than in the years when the act was enforced. Similarly, Priest shows (and Gee concurs) that large programs like men's football and basketball do not support other programs, but rather cost more to run than the revenues that they bring in. As Gee notes, all collegiate athletic programs, including men's football and basketball, are subsidized by their colleges and universities.

Jo Ann M. Buysse traces the positive, as well as the negative effects of Title IX. The success of the legislation meant that an initially resistant National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) eventually wanted to take over the government of women's sports from the women's governing body, the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (AIAW): "In accepting the demise of the AIAW, many female coaches and administrators hoped that women and men would work together to transform intercollegiate sport. Instead, most women's programs were modeled after the men's, and female leadership declined." But, even as Title IX is under attack there are also moves from a number of quarters, like the Knight Foundation's Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, to continue the interrupted project of transforming collegiate athletics.

Chancellor Gee argues that these efforts have the best chance of success if Title IX is a beginning rather than an end point. Too many universities have depended upon Title IX as the answer to the issues raised by the culture of collegiate athletics, taking what should be a baseline of avoiding federal litigation and using it as a goal. This approach has several negative effects. It brings the courts more into the process of university management, something despised by Title IX's opponents and something that could be avoided by universities taking more proactive approach to gender equity. Colleges and universities can, however, take the initiative in fostering cultural change around sport, as Vanderbilt did in restructuring its athletic programs by incorporating them into the Office of Student Life. The goal of this move was to ensure that Vanderbilt's athletic programs would reflect the educational goals and values of the university. As Gee describes the process, the Vanderbilt decision was not externally imposed, "it evolved here out of our truest values. The change belonged - and belongs - to us. It is now part of our self-definition. And because we created our own change, the change 'took.'"

To move beyond Title IX, we not only have to look at how institutional change is best accomplished, but return to the broader set of issues that influence cultural values and thus inform the possible directions for institutional change. In just one example of the type of broad analysis necessary to conceptualize this task fully, we include Tamir Sorek's essay on masculinity and women's exclusion in Israeli soccer. Sorek makes the crucial point that the treatment of women depends not just on representations of women and femininity, but on representations of masculinity as well. If athletics is a site for the construction of masculinity and masculinity is tied to nationalism, then those sports which represent the body of the nation - whether soccer in Israel or football and baseball in the United States - are more likely to exclude women. Basketball is more open to women in both countries, in part because basketball is not the "national pastime" in either country. Like many essays in this issue, Sorek shows how symbols, representation and values are crucial to possibilities for equity and justice. In the second half of her essay Buysse follows some of the changes in media representations of women in college athletics. Such representations have a wide ranging cultural impact - that form and inform cultural values - and thus that are a central part of the struggle for social change.

Karla FC Holloway focuses our attention on precisely such issues of cultural value in her discussion of the recent situation at Duke University in the coda to this issue. This is the second time that we have had to provide a coda to an issue of S&F Online in response to racially charged campus incidents that were relevant to our topics. When we were in the process of production for "Jumpin' at the Sun: Reassessing the Legacy of Zora Neale Hurston," a series of racist incidents here on the Columbia University campus required comment in an issue that included consideration of Hurston's treatment as the first African American student at Barnard. As we were gathering the last of the essays for this issue we were overtaken by the media storm surrounding Duke University, after members of the Duke Men's Lacrosse team on the night of March 13 hired two women of color as exotic dancers for a party that involved extensive drinking and rapidly degenerated, ending in accusations of rape against three of the players. A few weeks later it was revealed that after the party a sexually graphic email had been sent by one of the players to the rest of his teammates, describing his fantasy of committing violence against women at similar events. The revelation of the email and a series of violations of campus codes by the lacrosse players resulted in the dismissal of the coach. The media coverage of these events, which can most accurately be called a circus, has focused on the question of whether the three accused players will be found guilty in a court of law, but Holloway, a professor of English, Women's Studies and Law at Duke, as well as a former Dean at the University, draws our attention to much broader issues of culture and of values that are at stake regardless of what happens in court. The facts that are not in dispute - the out of control nature of the party, the harassment, including racial slurs, directed at the two dancers (who had been hired under false pretenses of working at a much smaller bachelor party with far fewer people), the email, and the previous pattern of drinking and rule-breaking - are themselves quite serious. And the effects on the campus have also been serious. As a result, Duke must wrestle with a set of questions about the cultural value of sport and the culture which values sport in the way that the United States currently values college athletics. While the rest of the nation seems obsessed with deciding the question of guilt or innocence in advance of the trial and on the basis of race, class, and gender (on either side), Professor Holloway brings our attention back to the question of who has been hurt by a culture of sport that granted license for repeated infractions to a particular group of racially and class-privileged athletes. Even more poignantly, Professor Holloway raises the question of who is being asked to fix this culture. Perhaps we should not be surprised, but feminist analysis suggests that we should be concerned, that the very people most injured or at risk for injury are the people whose labor is called upon to address "the problem."

And so, we are returned to the question of cultural values with which Catharine Stimpson started us off. Only with a wide-ranging approach, one that takes into account social relations, institutional change, and cultural values, can the potential of feminism for sport and the feminist potential of sport be realized. E. Grace Glenny's essay and its accompanying slide show provides not only a trenchant analysis of how the visual culture of sport influences gender and race relations, but also some suggestions for how feminists might undo the tangle created at the nexus of sports, media and business. By comparing images from Sports Illustrated with those from the independent sports photography exhibit, Game Face: What Does a Female Athlete Look Like?, we can see how women and sport might be envisioned differently. Not only does Game Face show women whose athletic accomplishment is impressive and sometimes breathtaking, but it shows the range of sport in which women participate, amateur and professional, organized and neighborhood, highly competitive games and games played simply for the wonder of physical activity. This is a very different and much wider world of sport than the one available through most media outlets. By pursuing such visions we might very well change the terms on which the game is played. Glenny suggests that there are also other places where alternative cultural possibilities might develop like the cultures of fandom that have grown up around women's teams, including the U.S.A. women's soccer team, the teams of the WNBA, or even local pick up games. By participating in a culture that values women's athletic accomplishment at various levels and in various ways, it is possible to embody values outside of those offered by the major media. So join Professor Stimpson and the other contributors to this issue: become an athlete, become a fan, and do so in a way that broadens rather than narrows the realm of sports and athletics, of gender and race, of culture and of values.