Alex Morgan Quotes

In recent generations, women's sports have been a blessing. Some of us can remember the bad old days in the '50s, when we would discover in casual schoolyard play that a girl could outrun most of us or hold her own in basketball or hit a softball - but there were no teams, no coaches, for girls.

Women's sports is still in its infancy. The beginning of women's sports in the United States started in 1972, with the passage of Title 9 for girls to finally get athletic scholarships.

When I was really young, the women's national team wasn't on a grand media stage, so my role models were male basketball and male American football players.

I grew up watching Mia Hamm, Brandi Chastain, watching them achieve.

We knew it was going to be the biggest event scheduled in the history of women's sports, but we didn't ever fathom we would be playing before sold-out stadiums all over the country.

When I was growing up, you didn't know there was a women's national team. Now girls grow up dreaming of playing for Canada.

Growing up in the time of Title IX - it was passed when I was 10 - I got a front-row seat to so many great moments in women's sports. Of course I didn't know it at the time.

That's the awesome part. Little girls now have a chance to look up and see women playing soccer, basketball, softball and now hockey - and know they can win a gold medal, too.

I think it's important that we try to showcase what we're about as women footballers.

The WNBA changed everything. It started in 1997, and I graduated from high school in 1998.

I'm enormously proud that I can do a deal with the National Women's Soccer League to showcase the power and passion of women athletes as positive role models, not only for my daughter but also for my son.

Women's sprinting is something the sport should appreciate more.

I've proved I'm in love with the women's game, and I think the quality is unbelievable.

This was something I always dreamed and wanted to be part of, when women's wrestling was freakin' cool, and now it is.

In 2015, I was privileged to host the first ever televised Women's Test match during the 2015 Women's Ashes on Sky Sports, which saw every game covered of the multi-format series.

For me looking at the success of some of the women's football World Cups, the crowds they've drawn, the spectacle it has created and the event that it's been I think it's really great cricket is having a go at that as well.

When I was a kid, the women like Mia Hamm and Brandi Chastain were paving the way for female players in the States. Things like that are important so girls realise there is a future for them if they want to play. It is something they can aspire to, to be not just a hobby.

I think we have to keep putting women's sports in the limelight. I thought the Women's World Cup did a wonderful job of showing the quality of women's soccer. But we also need coverage and marketing and press and getting these female athletes to become household names.

As a result of Title IX, and a new generation of parents who want their daughters to have the opportunities they never had, women's sports have arrived.

Because I was a tennis player, Billie Jean King was a hero of mine.

The growth of women's soccer and women's sports all around the world has been slow.

The Women's Sports Foundation holds a unique position in developing opportunities for girls and women of all abilities to be active whether recreationally or competitively, and I'm excited to help lead the organization to impact even more lives. It is an honor to continue to build the legacy created by Billie Jean King and all of our leaders.

In the seventies we had to make it acceptable for people to accept girls and women as athletes. We had to make it okay for them to be active. Those were much scarier times for females in sports.

When I was growing up, there were very few women athletes. I remember watching Olga Corbett, but Peggy Fleming and Janet Lynn were my role models. I never dreamt that I could be at that level. I remember thinking they seemed so elegant and regal and powerful and feminine.

But the reason that women's football is still unknown is because it's not on television and not widely publicised for a wide majority of the leagues in the world.