VALDOSTA — Last summer, Abby Wambach and the United States women’s soccer team captivated the nation during the Women’s FIFA World Cup. From an upset victory over favored Brazil all the way to an appearance in the championship match, the U.S. women had the nation on the edge of its seat. Fans anxiously awaited the next goal, the next big stop, the next big win.

Unfortunately for Team USA, the championship never came. But that didn’t stop the members of the team from becoming national celebrities that earned endorsements from companies like Wheaties, Nike and Gatorade.

All this was made possible by the passing of Title IX. The passing of the Educational Amendment in 1972 opened doors to female athletes and has since allowed those very same athletes to become iconic images within sports.

From Lisa Leslie to Kerry Scruggs to Venus and Serena Williams to Abby Wambach to Jennie Finch, Title IX opened doors that were previously shut for female athletes.

With the open doors, female athletes have shined, both on the field and on the courts to work within local communities. Former Georgia high school basketball standout Mya Moore has turned her celebrity status, earned through her time at the University of Connecticut, where she led the Huskies to 90-straight wins, into a positive, as she now uses her free-time to teach the game to younger players from underprivileged communities.

A player like Mia Hamm took the country by storm and helped lay a solid foundation for today’s women’s soccer stars, like Wambach. During her time with Team USA, Hamm was named the FIFA World Player of the Year in 2001 and 2002. She is now a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, an honor known very little to women.

Before the passing of Title IX, a player like Lisa Leslie, known as one of the greatest women’s professional basketball players, would have never shined on the court. Instead, Leslie became one of the greatest athletes, male or female, of all time. The 6-foot-5 center led Team USA to Olympic gold medals in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008, as well as to world championships in 1998 and 2002.

It is clear, Title IX opened the door for women’s sports to shine and gain national recognition. While male sports leagues like the NFL, NBA, MLB and MLS garner much of the national media attention, female sports like college softball, Olympic sports and soccer have started to take off in recent years.

In fact, that 2011 Women’s FIFA World Cup finals match between the United States and Japan, which was won by Japan in heartbreaking fashion for the Americans, was the most-viewed and highest-rated soccer match in history, averaging 13.5 million American households. The 2011 game beat the previous high, the 2010 U.S. men’s soccer match against Algeria in the World Cup, which averaged just 6.16 million viewers, according to numbers released by TV by the Numbers, a website that monitors television viewership.

Since the passing of Title IX, female         participation within athletics has sky rocketed. According to the Women’s Sports Federation (WSF), nearly 3.2 million females competed in high school athletics last season, compared to the roughly 294,000 that competed the year prior to the passing of Title IX.

At the college level, there were nearly 30,000 female athletes before Title IX. Last year, there was nearly 200,000 women athletes in college — 186,480 of which compete in the NCAA.

The increased number of female high school and collegiate athletes has also been helped by the development of professional sports organizations catered towards women. Since Title IX was passed, several professional sports organizations have formed for women. In 1986, the Women’s Professional Volleyball Association was formed, and to this day volleyball is one of the most-watched Olympic sports. In 1996, the National Basketball Association created the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), which currently fields 12 teams. The league runs for three months during the summer.

In 1997, the National Professional Fastpitch was established. Despite being a professional organization, college softball has garnered more national recognition and remains more popular. While women’s soccer has taken off in recent years, thanks to the foundation laid by Hamm and others, the Women’s Proffesional Soccer league was created in 2007. The league currently has 8 teams.

The passing of Title IX didn’t just help grow women’s sports participation numbers, it has helped build a large fan base for them too. In May, the Valdosta State softball team hosted a super regional series against Florida Southern. Game 1 of the series drew a school-record 849 fans, a total that surpassed every home VSU baseball game and five home men’s basketball game totals this season.