More than 700 high school students, most of them female athletes from across Lake County and beyond, crowded the Deerfield High School auditorium Monday to hear Sarah Spain, an ESPN sports journalist and former Lake Forest resident, share some of her experiences in the world of women’s sports.
Her keynote speech was part of the first EmpowerHER conference in Lake County, which included a variety of resources and education for female athletes, ranging from training on injury prevention to social media best practices.
Although she emphasized positivity, Spain also highlighted the challenges both the student-athletes, and those in the world of women’s sports, could face in the future.
Molly Tomlinson, assistant athletic director at Deerfield High School and one of the organizers of the event, said the conference was meant to “inspire” their female athletes. She was thrilled to get Spain as the event’s speaker.
“It’s extremely valuable for our young athletes to hear from an expert who’s been in their shoes, but in a different generation,” Tomlinson said. “I think it was incredible for our younger generation to hear a little bit about where female athletics have been … and recognizing how far we’ve come to be here, and other steps we can take to continue to succeed in our fields.”
A longtime sports journalist, Spain got her start in the world of sports in Lake County, participating in everything from track and field to basketball, later going on to be a heptathlete at Cornell University.
Speaking to the hundreds of young athletes, Spain tried to give them the “intentional conversation” that she didn’t get growing up. She talked about her struggles with body image — she said she had been unusually tall for her age, and literally standing out was upsetting to her.
“It was pretty uncomfortable to be this height,” she said. “I was very confident when it came to friends and sports, but I was pretty insecure about boys, about my height.”
Spain was blunt but honest with the students, talking about the unwanted advances she received as a young teen from older men who assumed she was older, her struggles with eating disorders and the tension caused by an underlying culture that emphasized a body type she could never match.
She also discussed how people’s understanding of women’s bodies and health has changed over the decades. Women’s bodies peak athletic performance, Spain said, has been found to be later than men’s. Female athletes have faced unfair expectations early in their sports careers because of sports environments “built by men,” she said.
“We fold and smash women and girls into a male-based infrastructure, then scratch our heads when the same friction points show up again and again,” she said.
Spain emphasized the importance of pushing against the disparity in resources seen between men’s and women’s sports. Girls and women need to “be treated with respect and resources,” she said.
Despite some of the challenges she faced growing up, Spain had an overall positive outlook to share with the athletes in the room. She was glad to see such a crowd, even on a holiday, showing up for women’s sports, and spoke about the growing opportunities in the field.
“There’s just so much passion for women’s and girls sports right now, to have all these athletes in different schools showing up and really getting some great messaging is really cool,” Spain said.
However, she also expressed her worries about what lies ahead for women’s sports, including threats to Title IX, and policy changes that could impact resources and investment into women’s sports.
“But I also know how many years of fight have gone into this,” Spain said. “It would be really hard to unravel that quickly. I think the key is fighting at every turn to remind folks of not just why it matters … but the economic opportunity.”
