Female student-athletes coach children on campus
URI hosts a National Girls and Women in Sports day clinic for the first time after the pandemic to help spark a passion for athletics in young women. PHOTO CREDIT: Greg Clark
For the first time in two years, URI Athletics’ “National Girls and Women in Sports Day” clinic returned to Mackal Field House last Sunday.
Children from the community ages 3 to 12 had the unique opportunity of learning and interacting with female student-athletes from the track and field, volleyball, rowing and soccer teams as well as the URI Ramettes and cheer squad.
The event was originally scheduled for Jan. 30, three days ahead of when National Girls and Women in Sports Day is observed, but was rescheduled after Winter Storm Kenan brought nearly two feet of snow in the area. Snow still fell on the rescheduled date, but it didn’t deter over 200 kids from being on hand.
“It’s something that we feel very strongly about here at Rhode Island as it provides not only our female programs to showcase their girls in front of our community, but it also allows some of the young girls coming up to get in from of not only women’s basketball but all the other Olympic sports that are around,” Assistant Athletic Director, Marketing and Fan Engagement Matt Moeller said.
The kids were split into four stations for approximately 15-20 minutes and had a chance to learn and interact with student-athletes from each team. Afterwards, the Ramettes and URI cheer squad performed and the kids were able to learn cheers from them.
“I enjoyed my time today,” Trinity Smith, senior captain on the women’s track and field, said. “I love track, I love exposing little kids to track because you learn a lot of your basic movements from track — mobility, stretching. I had a great time and I would love to do it again.”
In addition to it being the first time in two years that the event was held, the event had added significance. The year 2022 marks the 50th anniversary that Title IX, a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or other education program that receives funding from the federal government, was signed into law. This law gave way to millions of women’s sports programs opening up across the country from the youth to professional level.
“Title IX is really important to make sure that there is equality between women’s and men’s sports and I think we’ve come a long way,” graduate sprinter Bethany DeLoof said. “There’s definitely still a divide in some aspects. There’s a lot of recognition put on men’s sports that women don’t get as much, but I think we’re headed in the right direction.”
After the clinic, all participants were invited to an autograph session and received free tickets to see the women’s basketball team defeat Fordham University 58-43 for its 13th straight win of the season.
“I would like to thank our fans for coming out and supporting us,” Rhode Island Women’s Basketball Coach Tammi Reiss said after the game. “We had a great men’s game yesterday beating Davidson and today we had people come out and support us and that felt really really good and I know the girls feed off of it. For us, that was huge and I loved it.”
Moeller plans on having this event again next year along with the hopes that they can impact even more community members.
“Every girl comes from different situations, different backgrounds, but what many of them share is a love for sports,” Moeller said. “It gives [student-athletes] a good opportunity to interact with some of these kids. I think we had kids from ages 3 to 12 participate and some of these girls who are just freshmen, 18-19 years old, were in their shoes less than 10 years ago, so I think it’s a great opportunity to give back to the community.”