She got game: boosted by a federal antidiscrimination law, more and more female athletes are challenging men on the field. How far will they go? (National).

In January, a 13-year-old girl named Michelle Wie tied for 47th place in a field of 96 men in a professional golf qualifying event in Hawaii. Two months later, 17-year-old Kim Salma became the first girl to win a wrestling match in the New Jersey state finals, competing against boys. This past December, kicker Katie Hnida took the field in a men's Division 1-A college football game, another first for women.

There's a quiet revolution going on in sports, from the professional level on down to the school yard. Female athletes, no longer content to excel in girls' and women's leagues, are increasingly entering boys' and men's games, and challenging long-held beliefs about athletic superiority. The breakthroughs have been hailed by advocates for women's rights as yet another step toward gender equality--even as the advances raise questions about the future of women's athletics.

"Thirty years ago, you didn't see women playing in men's leagues; you didn't even see them playing in women's leagues," says Nancy Lieberman, who in the 1980s became the first woman to play in a professional men's basketball league. "Now some women are not happy only to have the opportunity. They want to know how good they can be."

TITLE IX TIPS THE SCALEs

A federal law, known as Title IX, has played a key role in changing attitudes about female athletes--and their view of themselves. The law, intended to prevent discrimination based on gender, required schools to greatly expand sports opportunities for girls. While critics say the law has forced some cash-strapped schools to disband boys' teams, it has led to vast increases in the number of girls who play competitive sports in high school and college. Since the law's passage in 1972, perhaps 50 million American women have participated in athletics, says Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation.

But women's strides in many other fields have had a great influence on female athletes, too, experts say. And that influence begins early, before girls even know about Title IX.

"There's no way a society can undergo the kind of massive changes that we've seen in so many areas--from Elizabeth Dole and Hillary Clinton becoming independent political actors on their own, to the number of women in law school or who are becoming doctors," for there not to be a spillover into sports, says Ellen Staurowsky, an Ithaca College professor who studies gender issues in athletics. "I think the entire social fabric of society is just much more accustomed to thinking in nongender terms when it comes to what people can do."

NOT OUT TO PROVE ANYTHING

Take Annika Sorenstam of Sweden, the world's top woman golfer, who is preparing to play in the Mastercard Colonial tournament in Fort Worth, Texas, later this month, part of the men's Professional Golfers' Association (PGA) tour.

When Sorenstam announced that she would become the first woman since 1945 to play in a PGA event, she said she was not calling a referendum on men versus women in sport, the way Billie Jean King did in her defining "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match against Bobby Riggs in 1973. Sorenstam says her appearance in the Colonial will be about personal challenge, not acceptance. "I'm not here to prove anything," she says. "I'm here to test myself."

Other athletes are also pushing the competitive envelope. After scoring seven goals in leading Canada to the gold medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics, Hayley Wickenheiser felt impatient. The women's national team was not a full-time job, and playing in a women's professional league in Canada did not fully challenge her ability.

In January, she signed with Salamat, a second-division Finnish men's team located outside of Helsinki. Club officials admitted that her signing was originally seen as a promotional stunt. The signing of a female player stunned some people, including Wickenheiser's coach, Matti Hagman. "I was shocked--`It can't be that way,'" Hagman says he thought at the time.

His disapproval has changed into an appreciation for Wickenheiser's intelligence, vision, and willingness to take a hit. On February 1, she flipped a backhander into the net to become the first woman to score a goal in a men's professional hockey game. "It doesn't matter if it's against men or women, you want to play at the highest level," Wickenheiser says.

Women's strides have caught some men's coaches off guard. Last winter, as he watched videotapes of kickers auditioning for a football tryout at the University of New Mexico, Coach Rocky Long said, "This one's got a chance," apparently not noticing the blond ponytail peeking from the player's helmet. "That kicker's name is Katie Hnida," Jeff Conway, the special teams coach, later told Long.

"That's a girl?" Long said.

At 5 foot 9 and 150 pounds, Hnida made the team, and on Christmas Day, attempted to kick an extra point against UCLA, making her the first woman to play in an elite men's college football game. The kick was blocked and for a few days, Hnida says, she was "haunted" by her failure, replaying it in her mind. Then she realized, "Maybe the important thing was that I was deemed good enough to take the kick."

In high school in Littleton, Colorado, Hnida succeeded in 83 of 87 extra point attempts and 4 of 5 field-goal attempts. (She was both the starting kicker on a team full of boys and the homecoming queen.) If Hnida can extend her range and consistency, she could become her college team's regular kicker on shorter field goals, Long says.

WOMEN IN THE MIX

Kicking, a generally noncontact position that requires technique as much as strength, has been the position of entry into college football for women.

"I think there's a strong possibility that a woman will be able to kick and be successful in college," her coach says. "Katie is as accurate, or more accurate, than the men we have. She doesn't have near the leg strength or range that most of them do, but in practice, she's right in the mix."

There could be many other Katie Hnidas waiting in the wings. Nearly 3,000 girls are now playing high school football in various positions like kicker, wide receiver, lineman and linebacker, though apparently not quarterback, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.

In sports reliant more on technique, training, and motivation than on great size or brute force, some women have long held their own against men. Julie Krone won more than 3,500 horse races as a jockey. Shirley Muldowney became the first person to win three national championships driving top fuel dragsters. Susan Butcher won the Iditarod sled-dog race four times.

Since the 1920s, women have often swum the English Channel faster than men, in part because of a greater amount and better distribution of body fat to provide buoyancy and insulation.

If golfer Annika Sorenstam represents a new generation of female athletes challenging men, this month's competition raises some tantalizing questions: How far can women go? How far do they want to go? And there are a host of philosophical questions, says Mary Jo Kane, a sports sociologist at the University of Minnesota. If Sorenstam fails, will it perpetuate the stereotype that the term "female athlete" is a contradiction? If she succeeds, will she be celebrated or viewed as a threat? Will sports become significantly more integrated by gender in the next generation?

"What's wonderful is that we have this speculation in advance and get to see it play out," Kane says. "The question is no longer, `Can women play?' The critical question is, `At what level?' That's the 21st-century question."

lesson plans

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

* Why do you believe few female athletes have competed against males until recently?

* Should female athletes receive special advantages or protection when they compete against men in contact sports?

* Can you envision male-female athletic competition in your school?

TEACHING OBJECTIVES

To help students understand a new social phenomenon--female athletes who are knocking down stereotypes by competing against males.

CLASSROOM STRATEGIES

CRITICAL THINKING/DISCUSSION: "She Got Game" is more than a sports story. Rather, it helps teach a lesson about social convention and the obstacles in breaking down social barriers that are founded on traditional gender roles.

Ask for a show of hands. How many students know or know of a female physician? Police Officer? Lawyer? Have students seen women in these roles on television programs? Have students seen reports on female soldiers in the war in Iraq? (See page 8.) Does it seem strange to see women in these roles? Explain that for high school students of the 1970s and before, it was a rarity to see women in these roles.

SPILLOVER: Direct attention to the observation of Ellen Staurowsky of Ithaca College, who sees a natural spillover from these careers into sports. What does the spillover and the resulting boom in women's participation in sports suggest about the flexibility of American social values? (Lest students conclude that society willingly opened opportunities to women, remind them that most of these openings appeared only after Title IX barred discrimination based on gender.)

Then note the comment of Finnish hockey coach Matti Hagman, about the signing of Hayley Wickenheiser to the Salamat team: "I was shocked--It can't be that way." Tell students that Finland is an extremely egalitarian country; women have long had the same rights as men. Can students imagine a U.S. hockey coach having a similar reaction?

SURVEY: Ask students to use this article as the basis of a brief survey of school coaches, male and female athletes, and other students. Would they support competition between male and female athletes? If so, would they attach any conditions to such competition? If they oppose mixed-gender competitions, what reasons do they offer? Survey results should be tallied and posted and/or written up for the school newspaper.

JERE LONGMAN covers sports for The New York Times.