Judy Barton

Judy Barton is a long-time Senior Games participant and a founding member of the Fabulous 50s senior basketball team. The team, most recently called the Fabulous 80s, has played all across the county. They have played and medaled in multiple National Senior Games, and have even been featured in a documentary film called “Granny’s Got Game”. Judy played basketball in a high school church league because there were no school sports for women at the time pre-Title IX. 

After graduating High School, Judy went to work for a large company in New York. While there, she took night classes to earn a college degree so she could be competitive in business. She saw first-hand the difference in opportunities afforded to men versus women. “There was definitely a difference in the women’s world and the men's world in business,” she says. When she left in 1970, she had just started to see large businesses showing an interest in giving women more opportunities. “You know, we are very grateful and happy that Title IX did come about but it was needed for many, many years before that.”

“Girls are a lot more fortunate today, they have a lot more opportunities”, she says. Judy now gets to see the impact Title IX has had on her granddaughters’ lives. “My granddaughters now not only play sports in middle school and high school, but they play club sports outside of that!”