1970s Female Athletes Recall Their Sports Days at Livingston High School

By Steve Sears

Sherie (Berkowitz) Wolpert, an

Epidemiologist

and Coordinator of Public Health Preparedness for the Middlesex County Department of Public Safety and Health, played both field hockey and basketball for Livingston High School in the early 1970’s.

“I was taking a trip down memory lane,” she says after pulling her high school yearbook off a shelf. “I have not actually thought about this in so many years. I looked at pictures of me, and showing my kids the pictures of me were to contrast that my granddaughter currently plays several sports without any idea that there once had to be a Title IX.”

Her former teammate, Mary E. Schalkoff, Ph.D., HCLD, is a recently retired clinical laboratory director who had worked in numerous infertility practices since 1986. Schalkoff says, “It was a wonderful experience all around. We were teammates, but we also grew to be close friends with each other. I think in a sense we were sort of groundbreaking, if you will. We did not know what Title IX was or what it was going to be. I am happy for women who have benefited from it, from not having to change in an extra small gym or a closet, or to not have nice uniforms or anything like that.”

Title IX, adopted in 1972, would have a significant effect on the future of women’s sports. As defined courtesy of www2.ed.gov, “The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) enforces, among other statutes, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Title IX protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.”

Livingston Life recently visited with Wolpert, Schalkoff,