As we mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX, landmark legislation that enabled girls and women to participate fully in interscholastic sports, I regret that I never met Toni Stone.

Unfamiliar with the name? I’m not surprised. Instead, my editors directed me to write articles about a white, San Francisco 49ers football player whose injuries they always deemed headline news. In a rarity for a 1980s Black woman reporter, I once interviewed, at home plate, then-Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda. In hindsight, I would have gladly traded the experience for a chat with Toni Stone.