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Page 1 of 2 Jenny Fulle: Pioneer blazed a trail in Little League
By Kaki Flynn
For Outsports.com
I love this story, because it is, at its heart, about kid courage. The kind where a kid finds herself surrounded by adults that keep telling her no, no, no, and she just keeps pounding patiently on doors until finally she gets a yes.
It's also a story about growing up and getting – at least to any kid that ever dreamed of being Spider-Man or devoured comic books – one of the coolest jobs in Hollywood.
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| Jenny Fulle |
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Jenny Fulle is the executive vice-president and executive producer of Sony Pictures Imageworks. Her film credits include the just released "I Am Legend," all three "Spider-Man" movies, two of the "Matrix" movies, "The Chronicles of Narnia," "Ghost Rider," "Surfs Up!," and "Open Season."
The journey of how Fulle got there starts back in the 1970s in Marin County, Calif., where she grew up, and begins with a little kid that really, really just wanted to play baseball.
Any girl who has been turned down for anything just because she is a girl will appreciate this part of the story.
Jenny was just 9 when, after having spent time playing baseball near the schoolyard with kids since she was 5, she decided to sign up to play Little League, and was turned down because of a rule added in 1951 that prohibited girls from playing.
At the time, there were more than 8,000 Little League teams in 31 countries, and none of them allowed girls to officially play. Fulle was one of many girls who had been turned down to play.
Donna Lopiano, who recently stepped down as chief executive officer of the Women's Sports Foundation, and who is frequently ranked as one of the most powerful women in sports, has talked about how being shunned by Little League in 1958 when she was just 11 had a major impact on her life.
"The one thing I've wanted to do most in life, I've never been able to do," she said in a recent speech. "I've wanted to be a pitcher for the New York Yankees."
Lopiano, after trying out for her local Little League, was drafted as the starting pitcher, only to be told by a father while she stood in line for a uniform that "no girls were allowed." Little League eventually started a softball league for girls. Many women like Lopiano gave up on baseball, and switched to softball and other sports.
Fulle, unlike Lopiano and other girls, didn't take no for an answer. Her journey to play Little League can be traced through a series of clippings from newspapers and letters she has kept.
In the clips, you can dive back into the world of the early 1970s, and hear the voice of one spunky, tenacious, hilarious little kid.
Jenny, who you can see from the pictures and read in the articles, is taller and bigger than most of the boys she plays with. An Amada Whurlitzer look-a-like, as a kid she had long blonde hair and blue eyes. Bats left handed, throws right-handed. Can throw a softball 140 feet, farther than most boys. Very opinionated.
Why didn't she just give up and play softball?
As she told the Mill Valley Record newspaper in a 1973 story, she just wasn't a huge fan. She was consistently hitting home runs in softball, but it was too easy. "They're so dumb," she told the paper. "Last year girls were out there picking flowers. How can't you hit home runs when they're out there picking flowers?"
Dear President Nixon
Jenny decided the next season she was going to do something about girls not being able to play, so she did the logical thing:
On Feb, 7, 1973, she wrote a letter to President Nixon – marking it "private" so that he would get it - telling him she didn't think it was fair she couldn't play, and that she sincerely hoped he could do something about it.
"Most girls who even want to try out are good enough to at least make minor without any trouble. I sincerely hope you will do something," she added in the letter.
"I'm not sure he actually read the letter," said Fulle in a recent interview in her office at Imageworks, "He had a few other things going on – like Watergate."
She did, however, get a response a few months later, on April 1, from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
Those guidelines referred to in the letter would apply to the Title IX amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the amendment that is now synonymous with the fight for equality in women’s sports.
"If Little League uses public school facilities, your complaint falls into the category of sex discrimination and we are in the process of preparing guidelines to handle this type of discrimination," read the letter, promising to contact Fulle when the guidelines were completed.
Peter Holmes, the director of the Office for Civil Rights, supported Jenny, and told a newspaper months later that there were many battles to be fought in the arena of discrimination based on sex, including the issue of homosexuality.
Jenny then called local Little League president Peter Wolffe, who told her, according to Jenny, "All this mushy stuff," which basically means "no."
Little League had been to court a few times before over the rule keeping girls out and won. Wolffe told the Record that every year he had girls who wanted to play, but he just turned them away.
Jenny contacted "a lot of ladies" for help, but "they said they really hoped I'd get somewhere … the men just said no," Jenny told the paper, adding that for her, there was "no last straw."
"I just decided I was so mad and so frustrated – everyone kept saying "no-no-no," she added.
"I didn't ask for this sex," she told the San Francisco Examiner. "If I'd been born a boy, there wouldn't be any problem. There are a lot of girls that want to play," she added, "and lots of boys who want us to play. It's just that most girls are afraid to ask."
Locker Room Mentality
The Little League president argued that,"If girls were allowed on the field, they might upset the close relationship between the young male ballplayers and their coaches. I don't know what relationships managers can strike up with little girls."
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