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Like my two older brothers, my life has been centered around sports. It is where I met my closest friends and shaped the values that have made me a successful athlete, student and role model.

I started playing softball when I was 5 years old. I grew to appreciate the opportunity for me and other girls to get on the field and play ball, like the boys.

As an adult, I know that I had the opportunity to play sports, like my brothers, because of Title IX, the landmark law passed 34 years ago this month that requires schools — from elementary to college — to provide equal athletic opportunities for boys and girls.

Because of Title IX, we have a professional women's softball league and the WNBA is celebrating its 10-year anniversary. In school athletics programs, young women's participation has grown at the collegiate level from 32,000 to more than 150,000. Girls' participation in high school sports has increased even more dramatically, from 300,000 to close to 3 million.

Girls who participate in sports are less likely to smoke, use drugs or engage in other risky activities. Playing a sport also leads girls to perform better in the classroom. Sports participation also decreases women's chances of developing heart disease, osteoporosis and other health problems late in life.

This progress is under attack. Last year, the Department of Education quietly issued a new Title IX policy that gives schools a way to deny women equal athletic opportunities. The policy allows schools to show compliance with the law simply by sending all female students an e-mail survey asking about their athletic interests. Schools can claim failure to respond indicates a lack of interest in additional opportunities.

While this may seem reasonable at first glance, a close look quickly reveals otherwise.

Not many people open e-mail surveys — let alone take the time to respond to them. As a student I was preoccupied with classes and practice. I doubt I would have paid attention to such a survey.

The NCAA passed a resolution last year urging the Department of Education to withdraw its policy, and it encouraged its more than 1,200 member schools not to rely on the flawed e-mail survey.

Advocates for equity in education have criticized this policy. Boys and men have never had to prove they are interested in sports to get a chance to play, nor should they be asked to do so.

We don't yet know what impact this new policy will have, but it is clearly filled with peril. Colleges could rely on this new e-mail survey to stop expanding sports opportunities for women.

Without Title IX and the participation it has fostered on college campuses and off, I might not have had the opportunity to play softball at the University of Arizona and might not have been a pitcher for the gold medal-winning 2004 U.S. women's Olympic softball team.

Young women today should have the same opportunities as I had to build character and discipline through participation in sports if they choose.

For 34 years, Title IX has enabled female athletes to do that, and the next generation deserves no less. The Department of Education should reverse its year-old policy that threatens this progress. Preserving Title IX is simply the right thing to do.