We wanted viewers to understand the way earlier generations viewed female participation in sports. We also wanted to involve players in the delivery of the information so they could learn along with the audience. A trip to a used bookstore yielded a copy of Public School Methods, assembled by editors and authors affiliated with the School Methods Company and published in 1912 by the Hanson–Bellows Company.

We knew we’d discuss that era anyway with respect to developments around World War I, American football, and the 1917 arrival of Anna Hiss to lead women’s physical instruction at the University of Texas Austin. The book, designed to “meet the urgent needs of all teachers” instructing “the primary grades,” included a section called “Hygiene and Discipline.” This chapter included some observations on “Sports and Games,” which Sydney read aloud:

“Whether alone or in company with others, competition is a powerful motive, and the greatest pleasure that a boy can feel is in overcoming some other person. He loves courage and endurance and will manfully strive to control himself and subordinate himself to others, if in so doing he and his team can win.

“Sometimes the same spirit is manifested by the girls, but to a much lesser degree. They do not care for the same violent forms of competition nor are they so much inclined to work together, but there is usually an increasing interest in games of chance, of cards, and in such table games as they are familiar with. Possibly this tendency is due to a certain extent to the fact that they are usually discouraged from entering into the lively outdoor games. The wise teacher will do all she can to interest the girls, and will keep them running, jumping or taking part in the milder games of the boys, so long as they can enter into them with interest and zest.”

Sydney reacted with incredulity to the notion that competitive pursuits only suited boys. She summarized the early-20th-century philosophy, commenting, “Girls can’t handle competition. They can’t handle taking a hit, really, they can’t be rough. They can’t be, like, If they lose, they’ll just cry. Like, that kind of thing. Which is not true, but crazy.”

The idea that women and girls needed to be shielded from many of the athletic activities pursued by men and boys reflected Anna Hiss’s outlook and much of contemporary thought in the first three-fourths of the 20th century.