This longitudinal study revealed that the last 15 years have seen a significant downward change in the percent of female coaches and administrators in college athletics. The need for sex role models and methods which may make a difference in women's representation are discussed. (MT)

During the women's all-around gymnastics final at the 2000 Olympics, the vault was inadvertently set 5 cm too low for a random half of the gymnasts. The error was widely viewed as undermining their confidence and subsequent performance. However, data from pretest and posttest scores on the vault, bars, beam, and floor indicated that the vault…

Gender verification of female athletes has long been criticized by geneticists, endocrinologists, and others in the medical community. Recently, the International Olympic Committee's Athletic Commission called for discontinuation of mandatory laboratory-based gender verification of female athletes. This article discusses normal sexual…

Discusses how the media represents U.S. women's gymnastics, examining the degree to which the manifest promises of gymnastics (veneration of mass-mediated femininity and celebration of flexibility, strength, and agility) function in relation to economies of perversity. Suggests that the promises and perversities embodied by gymnasts are…

The results of this study generated only limited support for the notion that members of a losing basketball team would maintain positive self-evaluations of their individual attributes while simultaneously forming negative evaluations of those same elements in regard to the team as a whole. (MM)

A gold-medal winner in the 1960 Olympics 100-meter relay describes what the experience meant to her. (MT)

The history of women's participation in the Olympics is reviewed briefly. Women in positions of leadership of the International Olympic Committee and other sport organizations are mentioned. The lives of Constance Applebee, Eva Auchincloss, Rusty Kanogi, and Wilma Rudolph are highlighted. (MT)

In evaluating performance of women's volleyball teams it was found that the quality of physical size as represented by body composition and strength was more important than the combination of height and lean weight. (JD)

The results of this investigation support the hypothesis that the position in which female gymnasts appear in their within-team order of performance affects the scores they receive from nationally and regionally certified gymnastics officials. (MM)

A "Chronicle" survey finds significant progress for female athletes at the college level and budget constraints looming for all sports programs. The article includes several data tables on sports participation by women, scholarships, and athletic budgets. (EV)

Analyzes black female student athletes' participation in an elite collegiate athletic program by showing how the program maximizes black females' athletic and academic potential through surveillance, control, and discipline. The program instills in black female athletes a model of womanhood whereby they come to expect and achieve academic and…

Summarizes proposed variables linked with higher incidences of anterior cruciate ligament tears in females and the biomechanical aspects of the lower extremity during the performance of common basketball skills, focusing on gender differences in knee joint stability and neuromuscular control, biomechanical aspects of lower extremity skills in…

An increased awareness of the gendered traditions of physical activity portrayed in vintage book series for girls and boys may provide teachers with a deeper understanding of (still) current ideological assumptions affecting female and male participation in sport and recreational activity. This article explores a unique girls' fiction series about…

This article focuses on the involvement of boys and girls in playground football. It is based on research conducted with 10- to 11-year-old pupils at two state primary schools in London. Boys and girls were found to draw on gender constructs that impacted variously on their involvement in playground football. The performance of masculinity through…

The National Collegiate Athletic Association adopted the use of a smaller size basketball for women's intercollegiate and interscholastic play. This article reports on five studies of the effect of the smaller ball on game skills of nearly 2,600 college and high school athletes. (MT)