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I think we have to realize several things...
1) In many communities, the school facilities benefit from summer leagues. IOW, the baseball fields will be upgraded due to shared use with LL or Legion ball. Private funds, therefore, are raised to improve the facility. The school benefits, but its not their money being spent.
2) Baseball leagues are way ahead of softball leagues in history, and therefore in many cases in organization, and number of players, and that leads to funds.
3) Title IX has nothing whatsoever to do with privately funded improvements. If the girls in such communities want the softball facilties improved, raise the money, just like the boys do.
In my community, the girls fastpitch softball association raised the money to improve several of the Junior High softball fields, which they have been sharing with the schools for years. Of course, the school ball teams benefit, too.
Our biggest conflict with facility quality, etc., is with the fields shared with the slowpitch leagues. They are too cheap to share any of the costs, and we (the girls fastpitch folks) have been reluctant to use our private funds with no cost sharing from another private organization who will also benefit.
Having said all of that, there are still many communities that could use a letter from a lawyer to shake up the status quo.
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Tom
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