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The article discusses the study "Barriers to the Hiring of Women for the Independent School Headship," based from one-on-one interviews conducted with female search consultants and female heads of school in 2021 to better understand the barriers to headship. Findings include significant role of societal gender as a barrier to women's advancement, limitations place by women on themselves that delay or halt their own advancement, and the underrepresentation of women as hiring decision-makers.

The article discusses sex differences in education, how boys and girls learn differently, and what Wamsley Elementary School in Rifle, Colorado has done to help both genders to excel academically. The socioeconomic status of the students at Wamsley is discussed as is the school's failure to meet adequate yearly progress (AYP), prompting it to consider raising gender equality because girls outperformed boys academically. The school district started to single-sex middle school academies which have been successful. Strategies for effectively teaching boys and girls are provided.

The article reports on Douglass Elementary School in Boulder, Colorado, which noticed a significant literacy gap between boys and girls. Male students underperformed girls in grades 3-5, and were overrepresented in special education classes, prompting the school board to institute new curricula tailored to the needs of boys. By utilizing brain research data, teachers were able to introduce more boy-friendly teaching strategies in the classroom and close the gender gap in just one year, while improving girls' performance as well.

The article looks at achievements in college sports in the United States, including football, water polo, soccer, cross-country, field hockey and volleyball.

The article discusses the role of football coach Urban Meyer at the University of Utah. As an outsider to the six-conference fiefdom that runs the Bowl Championship Series, Mountain West member Utah must beat every opponent convincingly to finish with the Top 12 ranking required to make an invitation to the Orange, Rose, Sugar or Fiesta Bowl a mere possibility. And so the Utes practice late in conditions that would give the FedEx man pause. They gather at 7 a.m. to study film. With this blue-collar outlook and fusion offense, Utah is unbeaten in seven games, outscoring three BCS-conference teams by an average of three touchdowns. The Utes kicked off the season with a 41-21 victory over Big 12 middleweight Texas A&M, which has gone on to win six straight. Over the next two months the Utes also felled Arizona of the Pac 10, 23-6, and the ACC's North Carolina, 46-16, and made mincemeat out of the Mountain West, most recently pounding UNLV 63-28 in a Saturday-night downpour for which the Utes had painstakingly prepared. At Notre Dame in the late '90s Meyer earned a reputation as a fiery and forward-thinking receivers coach. He would dream, day and night, about the spread attack he hoped to one day install. On his own time Meyer also studied Randy Walker's empty-backfield sets at Northwestern, and how Louisville offensive coordinator Scott Linehan, now with the Minnesota Vikings, taught his quarterbacks to handle the safety blitz. When you do say something--such as the pronouncement by ESPN's Trev Alberts that Utah's "weak" schedule made it unworthy of a BCS bowl bid--the Utes won't forget it. "I just can't stand people who have never been here, never talked to our players, showing such disrespect," says Meyer. "They have no idea what's going on around here."

This article focuses on the high school football program at De La Salle High School in Concord, California. Here, in the hills fanning east from the San Francisco Bay, perch some of the most pleasant suburbs in all of California. For anyone lulled by the mellow rhythm of these suburbs, the scene at one particular Contra Costa County high school can be a shock to the senses. While football may start with the school year elsewhere, it's a year-round preoccupation for a team that is shouldering perhaps the heftiest expectations in all of sports. By the end of the 2003 season, De La Salle had won 151 straight games, a record for an American football team at any level. Besides winning 12 straight North Coast section titles (California, because of its size, does not have a single state championship), De La Salle has twice toppled Long Beach Poly, a Southern California pipeline to the NFL, and has also beaten Louisiana's mighty Evangel Christian while finishing No. 1 in USA Today's high school rankings five times in the past six years. De La Salle is among 45 U.S. high schools that are operated by the De La Salle Christian Brothers, an order that follows the teachings of St. John Baptist de La Salle, the 17th-century saint who emphasized the importance of faith and community service in education. Aaron Taylor, who would go on to be a standout offensive lineman at Notre Dame before spending six seasons in the NFL with the Green Bay Packers and the San Diego Chargers, was a self-described 14-year-old drug dealer in Marin County when he and his mother, Mardi, saw a news segment about the Spartans on television in 1986. Knowing that her son's sole healthy ambition was to become a football star and that De La Salle offered a stronger academic program than the school Aaron attended, Mardi found a job and a house in Concord and set about trying to enroll her son in the school. INSET: One Terrible Loss.

This article discusses the latest developments in Louisiana State University's football team. During a recruiting stop in May 2002 coach Nick Saban quickly concluded that 17-year-old LaRon Landry could become LSU's next great defensive player. As a senior the following fall, Landry threw for 1,639 yards and 16 touchdowns for the 11-2 Hahnville Tigers. Typically the best athletes on their high school teams, quarterbacks have long been recruited and turned into running backs, wide receivers, defensive backs or even, like Florida sophomore standout Earl Everett, linebackers. Cornerback Deion Sanders's experience as a part-time receiver in the NFL paved the way for college DB-WRs such as Heisman Trophy winner Charles Woodson of Michigan, All-America Champ Bailey of Georgia and All-America Chris Gamble of Ohio State. Reserve tailback Joseph Addai (a quarterback in high school), strong safety Ronnie Prude and cornerback Corey Webster all worked out at wide receiver.

The article mentions changes in the Olympic games. When the ancient Olympics began, the event lasted one day, only Greeks took part, athletes competed naked and married women were not even allowed to watch. The Games, with a break of about 2,000 years, have been evolving ever since. This year, in the 18 days of competition in Athens, a record 202 countries will be represented, athletes will don the latest aerodynamic bodysuits and carbon-fiber-soled footwear, and women will, for the first time in Olympic history, wrestle. New sights at these Games will include ultrafast needle-nose canoes, hard-shell swim caps, a redesigned gymnastics vault (sloped in front, and with a larger surface area to ensure safer takeoffs) and, if anyone is daring enough to try them, strapless swim goggles. After the Salt Lake Games, NBC Sports boss Dick Ebersol decided he wanted to televise the Olympics on an unprecedented scale, and so the network and its affiliates (MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Bravo, NBC HDTV and Telemundo) will air a staggering 1,210 hours from Athens--nearly three times the record 441 1/2 hours of coverage from Sydney and more than the 1,133 hours from the past five Summer Games combined. A Phi Beta Kappa at Stanford, Patricia Miranda has been accepted at Yale Law School and hopes to become a role model for women who want to take up the sport--and plenty do: Some 4,000 U.S. girls competed in wrestling last year, 20 times the number of competitors in 1991.

This article focuses on the reaction of Louisiana State University to the news that its football team was selected to compete in the national championship Sugar Bowl. From Midnight to sundown on Sunday the debate raged across Louisiana bar tops, bed pillows and supermarket aisles. Were the Tigers geauxing to the big game or not? LSU received the answer in private just after 2 p.m. from SEC commissioner Mike Slive, who relayed a message from the BCS to university chancellor Mark Emmert, who gave the nod to assistant athletic director Sam Nader, who ran off in search of Tigers coach Nick Saban--who was busy conducting a team meeting in the school's football complex. Not surprisingly in a region where college football is king, Saban is revered like a royal. With such low-wattage stars, LSU hovered behind other, flashier teams in the polls through the better part of this season: Yet the Tigers finished November ranked first in the nation in scoring defense (10.8 points per game) and first in the SEC in scoring offense (34.9 points per game). For Saban, beating Oklahoma will be the challenge that keeps him at the football complex late at night through the holidays. INSET: BRING ON OKLAHOMA.

The article reports on college football. David Greene, Georgia's starting quarterback, and David Pollack, the Bulldogs' star defensive end, are about as close as two college guys can be. They are lifelong best friends, teammates from the age of six and highlight-reel regulars since last year, when Greene was named to the all-SEC first team and Pollack was the conference's player of the year. They're also twin points of light for Georgia followers, whose moods fluctuate with their team's poll standing--which, after last Saturday's 27-8 win over Vanderbilt, was a healthy No. 4 in the BCS rankings. For 21 years the lives of Georgia's two best players have been as parallel as uprights. Three days in June 1982 separated Pollack's birth in New Brunswick, N.J., and Greene's in suburban Atlanta. Soon afterward Norm and Kelli Pollack moved David and his olderbrother (by two years), Jason, to Snellville, Ga., about three miles from where Rick and Kay Greene were raising their son and his older sister (by two years), Leslie. In Snellville, social networks often grow from church and football affiliations, so the two families became acquainted in 1988, at the first practice of the Shiloh Generals youth-league team. Jim Donnan, then the Georgia coach, saw that both players had the promise to match their passion, and he recruited Greene in 2000 and Pollack in '01. Georgia has won three straight since, including a 41-14 thrashing of Tennessee in Knoxville in which Greene connected on 22 of 27 passes for 228 yards and a score and Pollack had eight tackles and two sacks. They talk about the dream possibility of playing for the same pro team.

Brock Berlin led the University of Miami football team to a come-from-behind victory over the University of Florida, his former school. The talk coming out of Florida's locker room and practice field last week ranged from mildly disparaging to outright threatening. But each time a reporter relayed to Brock Berlin another dig at him from a former Gators teammate, the Miami junior quarterback batted it away with an aw-shucks grin or a "he-didn't-mean-it" response. While observers marveled at Berlin's seeming passivity, his former high school coach, Dennis Dunn, knew better. "I'll tell you a little secret," Dunn said last Friday, two days after he talked to Berlin on the phone. "There's a fire in Brock's belly like you wouldn't believe." Of Berlin's final 20 throws, 18 were completions, including touchdowns of 26 yards to senior receiver Kevin Beard and six yards to freshman wideout Ryan Moore. Berlin's 62-yard pass to Beard set up a touchdown plunge by sophomore tailback Frank Gore that cut the lead to 33-25, and on Miami's last drive Berlin led his team 89 yards in 11 plays, with Gore carrying 12 yards for the touchdown that put the Hurricanes up for good. After a bitter overtime loss to Ohio State University in the national championship game, Miami bid farewell to Ken Dorsey, the winningest quarterback in school history, as well as running back Willis McGahee, wide receiver Andre Johnson, and defensive linemen Jerome McDougle and William Joseph, all four of whom were first-round National Football League (NFL) draft picks.

Jonathan Vilma, a finance student, linebacker, and top defensive player for the Hurricanes football team at the University of Miami, was named to the All-Academic team in the Big East conference. Miami, as many envious coaches will tell you, boasts more than its share of unusually swift, physically imposing athletes. As a 6-foot, 215-pound junior last season, middle linebacker Jonathan Vilma was not only smaller than the outside backers who flanked him, D.J. Williams and Roger McIntosh, but also undersized compared with 11 of the 13 starting middle linebackers Miami faced. A finance major with a 3.5 grade-point average, Vilma was one of 10 Hurricanes among the 69 players named to the Big East's All-Academic team. For players like Vilma--a finance major, with a minor in management, and captain of the Miami defense--college indulgences such as sleeping in and hanging out with buddies don't fit into the schedule during football season. The key is whether the players are able to learn their game assignments by Saturday and then execute properly. INSETS: A Day in the Life;Disruption by Design.

Just past dawn on most Sundays, Mike Doss, suit pressed, shoes polished, arrives at the First Church of God in Columbus (Ohio) for worship. He can usually rouse a teammate or two to accompany him, but following Ohio State's season-opening 45-21 win over Texas Tech on August 24, 2003 and a long night of celebration in Columbus (Ohio), Doss's only acquaintance in his pew is longtime girlfriend Jasmine Evans. Twenty-four hours after tearing through the stadium tunnel, the two-time All-America strong safety was still waxing poetic about the way in which the sight and sound of 100,000 fans stirred warm feelings for his family, friends and fellow Ohioans. Still, having spent part of his childhood living in the projects of East Cleveland (Ohio), Doss is well aware that there are things that require money, sometimes more than you have. That helps explain why Doss believes that athletic departments should grant a monthly stipend to all student-athletes -- from Doss himself, whose number '2' jersey is selling for $50 at bookstores on and around campus, to the third-string goalie on the field hockey team.

Growing up in Berea, Ohio, Jim Tressel learned everything he needed to know about football from his father, Lee. After school Jim would cut through his backyard to reach the Baldwin-Wallace College field, where he would watch his dad -- who led the Yellow Jackets to one Division III championship during his 23 years as coach -- run practice. And when he decided that he might want to become a coach, he, like older brothers Dick (now an associate athletic director at Ohio State) and Dave (a middle school teacher and former swim coach in Berea), would enroll in Lee's popular coaching course at Baldwin-Wallace. But ask Jim Tressel what was the most important lesson he learned from Lee, who died in 1981 after a battle with lung cancer, and the Ohio State coach will describe how his father opened the Tressel house to his players, who would drift in and out at all hours. In just two seasons Tressel has managed to re-create that family atmosphere at Ohio State, one of the most high-profile and, when he took over, most dysfunctional teams in the country. INSET: A BUCKEYE BORN AND BRED.

Focuses on the football game between the University of Miami and Virginia Tech University in December 2002. How the victory by the Hurricanes clinched their second-consecutive undefeated season, and their spot in the national championship game to defend their title; Record-setting performance of Hurricanes running back Willis McGahee, who ran for six touchdowns; Performance of Hurricanes quarterback Ken Dorsey; Outlook for the Hurricanes in the Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State University.

Examines IMG Academies, a high school in Bradenton, Florida, designed for athletes preparing for college athletics. How scholastic requirements are scheduled to custom-fit each student's athletic pursuit; Students preparing for careers in sports; Sports offered at the academy including baseball, basketball, golf, ice hockey, soccer and tennis; IMG Academies owned by IMG, the world's largest athlete management and sports marketing agency.

Reports on the defensive line up of the men's football team of the University of Oklahoma. Speed and strength of the defensive players; Performance of the team's defensive line; Remarks of Texas Tech coach Sonny Dykes on the performance of the team. INSET: THE TERMINATORS.

Focuses on the Worrell 1000 catamaran race, which goes from Florida to Virginia. Participation of champion racer Matt Struble in the race; Cost of entering the race; Corporate sponsorship which is sought by a number of the racers.

Discusses the Fiesta Bowl, which ended with a victory for the University of Oregon over the University of Colorado. Performance of Oregon senior quarterback Joey Harrington; Why the team did not qualify for the Rose Bowl title; View that the Oregon running game may have weakened Harrington's chances for the Heisman Trophy.

Profiles college football player Ed Reed of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. How the Hurricanes rank first in the United States in scoring defense, shutouts, interceptions, and turnovers forced, and are second in pass defense; Record number of interceptions of Reed, and how he is a finalist for the Jim Thorpe Award; View of defensive backs coach Mark Stoops that Reed is a complete player and inspires others to play with confidence; His ability to back up inspirational words with plays.

Focuses on the football team of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Performance of senior tailback Travis Stephens; How Tennessee knocked Florida out of contention for the national championship; Training of Stephens, and how he is a finalist for the Doak Walker Award; Strategy of offensive coordinator Randy Sanders; Mention of defensive tackle John Henderson.

Profiles Florida Gators' quarterback Rex Grossman. Relationship between Grossman and coach Steve Spurrier; Career highlights; Biographical details; Coaching style of his father, Dan Grossman, in football youth leagues; Possibility of winning the Heisman Trophy.

Profiles climber Tori Allen. Success of Allen, despite her short stature and young age; Relationship of Allen with climber Katie Brown; Outlook for the career of Allen.

Focuses on women's football in the Women's Professional Football League. Attitude of women football players toward their sport; Examples of companies that are interested to sponsor professional women's football teams; Sources of inspiration of women football players.

Focuses on the season of the Kenai Central high school football team in Kenai, Alaska. Details of the strategy of Jim Beeson as coach of the Kenai Kardinals; Profiles of several Kenai Central football players, including Sepa Nicholas.

Previews various components of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia which have never been utilized before. Introduction of a new wrestling hold in the Greco-Roman competition to add to the excitement; Use of bodysuits by swimmers; Ban of aluminum bats during international baseball competition; Competition of East Timorese athletes, having gained their independence from Indonesia in 1999; Others.

Highlights college sports for women in the United States during the spring 2000 season. Inclusion of attempts by the softball team of the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) to maintain its championship in the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA); Progress of Boston University's rowing team; Players in the lacrosse team of Maryland University.

Previews the activities of several collegiate sports teams in the United States for 1999 to 2000. University of Georgia Gym Dogs gymnastics team; University of Texas' indoor track team; Harvard University's hockey team.

The article discusses college football and if Colorado State can recover from last winter's recruiting scandal. The Buffaloes' traditional opener against rival Colorado State sets the tone for the season in Boulder, but there was greater anticipation than usual attached to last Saturday's game. In the wake of off-season investigations by a state grand jury and the university into allegations of rape by football players and recruiting practices that included sex and alcohol for high school players visiting the campus, team supporters were desperate for a positive start to the 2004 season. In winning 27-24, Colorado barely got off to the good start its fans were hoping for, but the Buffaloes showed a school-record crowd of 54,954 that they've emerged from the tumult with plenty of resolve. Colorado State subsequently scored on a leaping touchdown catch by wideout Johnny Walker and, on the final possession, drove to the one-yard line. But on the game's last play, Buffaloes junior safety J.J. Billingsley tackled tailback Tristan Walker for a two-yard loss to seal the victory. "Last year, when we went 5-7 and there was a lot of negative talk [among players], we would have lost this game," Colorado senior defensive tackle Matt McChesney said. "But there's no quit in this team." That attitude arose from the fallout of last winter's scandals, during which the players became objects of derision around campus even though none of them was charged with a crime, and six players transferred(though none explicitly said the move was because of the scandal or the mood on campus).

This article discusses the competition between the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma for the recruitment of high school football players from the state of Texas. By most standards Mack Brown had a signing day worthy of a champagne toast. By 9 a.m. on Feb. 4, 2004, the fax machine in the University of Texas coach's office was spitting out a steady stream of high school players' official commitments. In 1999, a year after he arrived in Austin, Texas coach Mack Brown hauled in the country's best recruiting class, studded with the state's best talent, including Cory Redding, now of the Detroit Lions. In each of the next three years the Longhorns signed the consensus top Texas senior and ranked among the top five recruiting classes nationwide. But this year, on the heels of the Longhorns' fourth straight loss to Oklahoma, a 65-13 rout in October, Brown watched the state's two best prospects head across the border: Palestine High tailback Adrian Peterson, who has drawn comparisons with Eric Dickerson, and Grand Prairie High quarterback Rhett Bomar.

This article offers a profile of University of Florida freshman quarterback Chris Leak. Few football players of any age could have been prepared for what awaited Chris Leak in Kentucky's Commonwealth Stadium on Sept. 27. The freshman didn't flinch. In the game's final 15 minutes, the youngest starting quarterback in major-college football threw two touchdown passes to lead Florida to a 24-21 win, the Gators' biggest comeback ever on the road. Almost every coach in the country has responded to the NCAA's 85-scholarship limit by suiting up more freshmen--from South Carolina's Lou Holtz, who has started first-year running back Demetris Summers in seven of the Gamecocks' 10 games, to USC's Pete Carroll, whose freshman-laden two-deep chart includes quarterback John David Booty, believed to be the first high schooler to skip his senior year (he graduated early) to get a jump on Division I football. Leak's dedication is becoming Gators lore. One story describes how this summer a fetching female student came by the football dorm to visit Florida's new quarterback. Leak, who was engrossed in game tape, made it clear he was otherwise occupied. His brother's response didn't surprise C.J. "That's Chris," he says."Make fun all you want, but he's doing something right.".

28,000 athletes turned out to compete in the Show-Me State Games held in Columbia, Mo. It was a sticky summer night, one best spent in close proximity to a ceiling fan and a glass of iced tea. But under the bright lights of an open-air track and field complex in Columbia, Mo., athletes of every shape and skill level were sprinting, leaping or throwing as an electronic scoreboard monitored their performances relative to their age groups. Conceptualized by the U.S. Olympic Committee in 1977, state games were envisioned as sports festivals to ferret out promising young athletes who might one day win Olympic gold. In 2002 a staggering 28,431 participants turned out for the three weekends of finals in Columbia, ranking Missouri second behind New York -- a state with a population more than three times greater -- in state-games participation. Along with typical fare like basketball, soccer and track, the Show-Me Games menu features activities suited to the everyday recreation-leaguer or country-clubber, including bowling, table tennis, miniature golf and disc golf (a golf-Frisbee hybrid played with discs for balls and waist-high metal baskets for holes).

Examines the undefeated football team at Ohio State University in Columbus. Recount of team troubles in 2000 including players with no grade point average and accusations between teammates; How Jim Tressel was hired to turn the program around; Tressel recruiting star running back Maurice Claret; Freshmen grade point averages rising under Tressel; View that the game with the University of Michigan is always big for the Ohio State Buckeyes.

Focuses on the defeat of the University of Tennessee by Louisiana State University (LSU), and the performance of freshman quarterback Matt Mauck in the game. Victory for LSU in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) championship game; How Mauck played baseball for the Chicago Cubs before going to college and playing football; His goal to earn a premed degree.

Focuses on the impact of terrorist attacks on the United States on the football team, the Florida Gators. How their game against the Tennessee Volunteers was cancelled due to the attacks; Skepticism regarding the decision to cancel the games; Thoughts of football players on the attacks; How the attack affected the performance of the football players.

Profiles Willie Amos, who won the world jump rope championship. His performance on the football team at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln; His view that jump rope kept him from bad influences in his neighborhood; His success at jump rope tournaments with friends Cliff Forbes and Shaun Hamilton; His thoughts on becoming successful in the National Football League and helping his parents.