Editor's Note: The following is the fourth story in a five-day series about the advances and difficulties of women in Athens' academic, professional and cultural scenes.
At a young age, Karen Rickard asked her mom if she could play hockey with the guys.
She wasn't intimidated.
Rickard played hockey all the way through her final year as an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin. She realized early on, however, that becoming a professional hockey player ' especially a female one ' just wasn't feasible.
Rickard majored in agricultural business management at UW, but when she graduated with her bachelor's degree, she knew that she had to find her way back into sports.
I just didn't think anything in that field was going to make me happy because I had such a strong interest still for sports
said Rickard, a graduate student in Ohio University's sports industry master's program.
But just like her original goal of becoming a professional athlete, Rickard was choosing a field that had a reputation of being one-sided when it came to gender.
She still isn't intimidated.
It wasn't necessarily a concern but I knew it was an issue she said. I've just learned how to deal with it.
Females trying to break into the sports industry have had to do more than just deal with it
over the years as their presence has grown slowly in a profession that was once almost run entirely by men.
James Kahler, executive director of OU's Center for Sports Administration and former Cleveland Cavaliers marketing executive, said it wasn't until the early '90s before women were viewed as equal candidates.
It was the early women that broke into the business that had the strongest effect
Kahler said. Unfortunately they had to pay their dues. But if you look at the history of sport
people have always had to break down barriers.
The barrier for women may not be completely broken down just yet, though.
A University of Central Florida study conducted by Richard E. Lapchick found that females employed by sports organizations at the professional and college level were down in 2005, a year after the previous study found stagnant growth for gender equality.
Of the six organizations analyzed, only the Women's National Basketball Association's employment of women did not decrease from 2004. More than 40 percent of the WNBA's employees are female compared to Major League Baseball, which ranks as the study's lowest employer of women with only 25 percent.
Andrew Kreutzer, an associate professor in OU's division of sports administration, said that while the climate for women in the industry has definitely improved, gender bias is still prevalent in certain organizations.
It's far more difficult for women
even in the face of gender-based recruiting
to not only find
but maintain a career in sports industry
he said. The fact that it's not that difficult is a plus but it's not enough to pat yourself on the back and say 'job well done.'
Kreutzer did note, however, that the female pool of candidates has become too strong for these major organizations to ignore.
You don't want to go into an industry where you're banging your head against a brick wall and nothing's moving
Kreutzer said. We're an industry that's built on competition. We attract competitive women.
Kreutzer said the 1972 implementation of Title IX, a federal statute that forces schools to have roughly the same proportion of males to females in athletics as in their student population, also has had an effect on the increased female talent pool and colleges' hiring practices.
It created a population of women that are engaged in sport and find the same fascination that guys do and now want to end up working in it
