Agent helps solidify respect for women in sports

by StephanieMasucci managing editor

John B. Langel has been in the presence of the greatest athletes in the world. He has met with basketball legend Michael Jordan, Philadelphia football star Reggie White and Detroit's own basketball star Grant Hill. This sports agent and attorney however, does not only represent or mingle with male athletes. In fact, he is the U.S. women's national soccer team's agent.

A father of two boys, Langel never saw the disadvantages of being a female athlete firsthand. He noted that his boys always had new equipment and the finest of facilities to play on or in. In 1972, Title IX was passed making it illegal to give women's sports less equip- ment, uniforms, field time, etc. quietly in the back.

For the past thirty years, women in sports are still trying to gain the respect that they deserve.

In 1987, the first Title IX lawsuit was held when women athletes from Temple University sued their school. After three weeks of trial, the athletes won the case when Temple agreed to give its men's and women's teMOS equal treatment. Temple also added more women's teMOSto its athletic program.

Ten years in 1997, after this event took place in Philadelphia, Langel received a phone call from a woman who was on the U.S. women's national soccer team. Michelle Akers was on the other end of the phone telling Langel how she did not feel that women's soccer was getting the respect it deserved.

Langel was familiar with Akers who was the Most Valuable Player at the U.S. Women's Cup '96. She wanted to know if he could help her team.

''I left that room with goosebumps;' Langel said.

'Those women were the most charismatic, bright and passionate people I ever met."

Since that first meeting., Langel has been trying to gain respect for women's soccer from the United States.

In Dec.1997, Langel walked into a room and saw a group of women sitting -around a table. He recognized Mia Hamm, who was sitting

Gymnastics, tennis and ice skating are the only sports, presently, where men and women earn the same amount of money. When the women's soccer team won the World Cup in 1999, they received $450,000 to split among the 20 players. If the men had won the World Cup in 1998, they would have split $4.5 million.

1he 1999 women's World Cup proved that the United States is in- terested in women's soccer. These athletes were posted on everything from cereal boxes to magazine covers to Barnie dolls. Langel organized the tour that the women did after the World Cup and he is presently representing the 160 women who will be in the women's professional soccer league. The league will start on April 15, in Washington, D.C. Langel believes that women's soccer will improve in this country since our players will now be mixed with international stars. When U.S. national soccer player Carla Overbeck was asked what made her think that she could capture the hearts of America, she said, "I can see it in their eyes."

Langel loves the fact that girls and even boys now have these great female athletes as role models.