Who-What-When:
Theresa Moore
Contributed by Alexa Maremaa

Theresa Moore has been racing against the boys her whole life.

At a big picnic with her family when Moore was eight years old, her father entered her in a friendly foot race that was taking place among a bunch of boys. When people protested having a girl in the competition, her father stood firm and gave her a wink. Moore hustled to victory.

"The best feeling wasn't the winning," Moore recounts, "it was knowing that my father and brother had total confidence in my winning. It's the influence of faith and belief that other people have in you."

Since outrunning the guys at the picnic that day, it seems Moore has been consistently taking on the role of sole woman in a man's world. Now she looks to honor a key ingredient to her success: Title IX.

"I am truly one of those people that benefited from Title IX," says Moore, "whether I was playing little league, basketball, being a Harvard track athlete, or getting my MBA."

For many of us, Title IX means girls can play sports alongside the boys; it is the WNBA, NCAA women's hoops, and Softball World Series. But according to Moore, that is precisely the problem.

"The challenge is that people need to know the history (of Title IX) for it to have the impact. It wasn't just the reason for the WNBA; it opened up the way for women to be in school, for women to be lawyers, to work, and more. "

This is the breadth of Title IX that is often overlooked, a limitation that Moore seeks to remedy with License to Thrive, a website and TV special all about Title IX.

As creator of License to Thrive and President of T-Time Productions, the company that produced it, Moore stresses that the project pays tribute to the pioneers of Title IX while increasing knowledge of its importance and scope.

"It's not a guilt thing," Moore says. "Just know your history and build on it, move forward with it."

Moving forward is what License to Thrive is all about, both in message and in medium. The project started in June 2006 as a project commissioned by the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, to be shown at a Title IX summit during the NCAA Women's Basketball Final Four. But the project was progressing slowly and Moore, who was hired to build the creative concept, decided to take the entire project on herself, tackling all production and fundraising duties.

In October 2007, LicensetoThrive.org became reality, and on March 30, 2008, the License to Thrive television special airs on ESPN2. "A big factor was making it multiplatform," explains Moore of creating a webpage to accompany the television project.

The website provides in-depth information about Title IX, but that's just the starting foundation. The site also profiles women and organizations that reflect the positive message and effect of Title IX. One can learn about women across countless fields: politics, law, technology, education, business, media and the arts, to name a few. Noteworthy facts paired with links to videos establish education with interactivity. And by teaming up with like-minded organizations, LicensetoThrive.org reinforces women helping women, working together to propel women forward and celebrate how far we've come.

Most impressive is the excellent job it does in reaching out to females of all ages.

"The key for the site is its combination of talking to women and girls, helping them understand the history of Title IX and taking advantage of it. For young people, their medium is the web, so it's tailored to them."

But there tends to be two schools of thought on the importance of discussing Title IX. On one side, some say it's good that girls don't know about Title IX because taking it for granted means it is a normal part of women's lives. A lack of awareness, in this case, means women don't have to fight openly for their rights; Title IX has already done it for them. The other side believes that without knowledge of its history and how far the women's rights movement has come, young women will not realize when something starts to challenge those rights.

Herein lies the fear for Moore. "If rights are being taken away, it's usually like chipping away at a foundation—small in isolation so people don't pay attention. In aggregation, people see what's happening, but what if it's too late?"

Thus, License to Thrive puts Title IX on a platform and highlights the significant ways it affects women in society every day.

Sometimes it takes a statute like Title IX to pave the way. Sometimes all it takes is a wink to know that someone believes in you, a wink to know that you cannot fail.