This one’s for you, Kathy Keeler…

A story that begins with a man whose name was so ridiculous that he had to teach people how to pronounce it. When he ran for the Senate in 1962, his campaign jingle was, “Hey, look him over, he’s your guy. His first name is Birch and his last name is Bayh.”

Almost immediately after winning his seat, he was thrust into the center of one of the most important moments in American history. When JFK was assassinated in 1963, there were only vague policies regarding presidential disability and succession. So Bayh introduced some language that was argued over and voted upon and eventually became the 25th Amendment to the Constitution in 1965. Bayh was also behind the movement to lower the voting age from 21 to 18, which was codified by the 26th Amendment, passed in 1971. As such, Birch Bayh is the only person other than the Founding Fathers to have drafted more than one Amendment.

And yet, that pales in comparison to something Birch Bayh did in 1972. At that time, the Congress was dealing with the ramifications of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was intended to end discrimination based on such things as race, religion and color, but which did not end sex discrimination by persons employed at educational institutions. Bayh and others were working on what would become known as the Equal Rights Amendment – which would not be passed – and he pulled one of the provisions out of that draft, which stated, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” He presented it to Congress, and on June 23, it became national law, under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

Title IX was not specifically intended to create equality in sports. But with its passage, any institution receiving federal funding now had to provide the same athletic opportunities for women that it had been providing for men. And that, quite literally, was a game changer.

Since the passage of Title IX, the number of women participating in publicly-funded sports has grown from 1-out-of-27, to 2-out-of-5; the number of women participating in high school sports has increased nine-fold; the number of women competing at the college level has grown 450%; today, there are over 9,000 women’s collegiate teams, competing in, most predominantly, Basketball, Volleyball, Soccer, Track and Softball.

Put more bluntly, Title IX created a first generation of women, like my cousin Kathy, who were allowed to compete in ways never before imaginable, and who would go on win trophies and medals for their hometowns, universities, and even their country. And because of Title IX, young American women today will never know a world where they can’t compete just like the boys.

Yesterday, Birch Bayh, “the father of Title IX,” died at the age of 91. He was a great man with a funny name. And he changed the world.

For my cousin Kathy. And millions of Americans with names like Abby and Mia and Florence and Picabo and Serena and Megan and…