Growing up in the time of Title IX - it was passed when I was 10

The legendary Olympian Jackie Joyner-Kersee once reflected on her childhood with these words: “Growing up in the time of Title IX—it was passed when I was 10—I got a front-row seat to so many great moments in women's sports. Of course I didn't know it at the time.” What she speaks is both memory and prophecy. For as a child she could not yet understand the magnitude of that law, yet as a woman she would embody its promise. In her reflection lies the truth that change often begins unnoticed, like a seed beneath the soil, whose blossoms only future generations will behold.

This quote reveals the quiet power of Title IX, the law of 1972 that forbade discrimination on the basis of sex in education and athletics. To a ten-year-old girl, it was invisible, just words written on paper by distant lawmakers. Yet its consequences were monumental: it opened fields once closed, unlocked doors once barred, and declared that girls too would run, jump, and compete with the same dignity as boys. Joyner-Kersee, one of the greatest athletes the world has ever known, was herself shaped by that invisible current of change, carried forward on a tide she could not yet name.

History shows us that many revolutions begin in such hidden ways. When Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, millions enslaved in the South did not instantly taste freedom, but a door had been opened that no power could forever shut. When Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton fought for women’s rights, many young girls of their time scarcely noticed, yet those efforts would resound for centuries. In the same way, Jackie Joyner-Kersee’s childhood was a front-row seat not to a single event, but to the slow unfolding of a new era, an era in which women’s victories on the track and field became not exception but expectation.

The meaning of her words lies in the humility of hindsight: she admits she did not understand then what she witnessed. And so it is with many of us—we live through turning points unaware, only later realizing we stood at the threshold of history. The child’s unknowing eyes saw women taking the field, but the woman looking back recognizes those moments as sacred milestones. Joyner-Kersee’s greatness was not hers alone, but a flame kindled by a generation’s struggle for equality, passed to her through the open gates of Title IX.

This reflection also teaches us of the interconnectedness of change. Title IX did not create Jackie Joyner-Kersee’s talent, but it gave her the soil in which it could flourish. Without it, her path might have been narrower, her victories fewer, her story untold. The law, the athletes before her, the coaches who dared to believe—all these threads wove the stage upon which she would shine. And in turn, her victories became part of the tapestry for those who followed. Thus, change is never isolated; it is a chain of lives, each link strengthening the next.

The lesson for us is profound: never dismiss the changes of today as small or invisible. What seems to pass unnoticed may, in time, transform the destiny of countless souls. Support justice, even when its fruits are not yet visible. Encourage equality, even when the culture resists. Invest in opportunities, even when their outcome is uncertain. For the child who does not yet understand may one day become the champion who testifies that the world was changed beneath her very feet.

Thus, Jackie Joyner-Kersee’s quote is not only a personal memory but a beacon to future generations. It tells us that the seeds of justice planted today may grow into forests of triumph tomorrow. Let us then honor those unseen beginnings, nurture them with faith and patience, and trust that one day, like Joyner-Kersee, we will look back and see that we too had a front-row seat to history in the making.