The 1972 federal law, which bans sex discrimination in school activities, helped open athletic opportunities for Redmond and Schwegmann, as it has for millions of young women. But it hasn't bought them freedom from pain or heartbreak.

It bought Redmond, 16, a junior at Highlands High School in Fort Thomas, days of grueling roadwork in the June heat, followed by a six-day weekly practice and game schedule with the girls' soccer team. It bought her the disappointment of riding the bench more often than not-up to and including the night of Nov. 5 in Georgetown, when she walked onto the field in sudden death and buried a shot in the net, winning her team its first-ever state title.

It bought Schwegmann years of basketball success at Bishop Brossart High School in Alexandria, where she holds the school records for points scored and steals, and where she capped off her five-year career by being named Kentucky's Miss Basketball in 2001.

But it also bought her the agony of nine, soon to be 10, knee surgeries, and the heartbreak of seeing her playing career ended by injury at the completion of her freshman season at Miami University. Her history of pain and therapy influenced her choice of a career: Schwegmann, 23, is studying toward a master's degree in physical therapy at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati.

Redmond and three teammates from the Highlands soccer team had to start basketball practice - another six-day-a-week commitment - just two days after winning the soccer title. And after basketball season, for Redmond, comes fast-pitch softball.

So far, her playing career has been injury-free, but sacrificing her social life outside sports has been hard. When friends invite her to a weekend activity, "I always can't, because I have to go to practice or a game," she said.

Schwegmann's high school athletic experiences and those of her mother are a measure of how much things have changed in the Title IX era. Pat Schwegmann, 53, of Camp Springs, graduated in 1970 from Bishop Brossart, where she was a cheerleader - the only sport then open to girls at the school.

A Sunday Challenger review of Title IX compliance records for the 2004-5 school year shows most high schools in Northern Kentucky measure up well on one test of commitment to giving girls a chance to savor the rewards and endure the costs of athletic participation.

Out of 24 high schools in Boone, Campbell and Kenton counties that enroll both boys and girls, 11 reported athletic participation by girls that matched or exceeded, in percentage terms, female enrollment at the school.

This measure, known as "substantial proportionality," is one of three tests commonly used to show Title IX compliance. It compares the percentage of a school's athletes who are female to the percentage of all students enrolled who are female. In computing it, multi-sport athletes count once for each sport they play. Rachel Redmond, for example, counts as three female athletes.

Even at those NKY high schools where females are underrepresented among the school's athletes, it's usually by a narrow margin. At nine schools, the gap between female enrollment and female athletic participation was less than 5 percent. The gap was greater than 10 percent at only one of the schools reviewed: Newport High School, where 53.6 percent of all students but only 39.6 percent of all athletes were female.

At some schools, the rate of female athletic participation outstripped female enrollment by as much as 9 percent. On average, among all 24 schools reviewed, female athletic participation lagged behind female enrollment by less than 1 percent.

Spending on boys' and girls' sports is a different story: On average, the 24 high schools reviewed spent $329 on each male athlete last year and $275 on each female athlete. Some athletic directors attribute spending disparities to the high costs of football, but nine schools - including at least two football powers, Boone County and Conner high schools - spent more per athlete last year on their girls' teams than on their boys' teams.

The Sunday Challenger's study included all but one of the dual-sex high schools in the three counties that have athletic programs. Staff members of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association (KHSAA), which monitors Title IX compliance, could not locate the 2004-5 report for Lloyd Memorial High School in Erlanger.

No compliance reports are required from schools that enroll a single sex, such as Covington Catholic High School, where all students are male, or Notre Dame Academy, where all are female.

Schools may also demonstrate Title IX compliance through a history and continuing practice of expanding athletic programs for girls (or boys, if that's an issue) or by proving they fully accommodate their students' interests and abilities.

Based on its Title IX report for last school year, Beechwood High School appears not to fulfill any of the three compliance tests, according to the KHSAA status report on the school. KHSAA auditors who inspected Campbell County High School in January 2001 and Dixie Heights High School in September 2003 found that neither school appeared to comply with any of the Title IX tests, but the most recent compliance reports indicate both schools now meet KHSAA standards.

Larry Boucher, KHSAA assistant commissioner and its chief Title IX monitor, said most Kentucky high schools make a good-faith effort "to do for girls what they do for boys," but some have trouble affording facilities such as on-campus softball fields comparable to boys' baseball fields. Within the past seven years, about 75 softball fields have been built at schools around the state, and "that takes a lot of money," he said.

Boucher said some schools also have trouble scheduling at least 40 percent of their home basketball games for girls in "prime time" - Friday nights and weekends - as the KHSAA requires them to do.

Mel Webster, the athletic director at Bishop Brossart, said scheduling enough non-tournament home games for the girls' team "gets a little tricky sometimes" because every other team on his schedule must meet the same requirement. Even when the home schedule is firmed up, a team on it may cancel - as Silver Grove High School did recently, announcing it would not field a varsity girls' team this year.

Jay Sprague, Dayton High School's athletic director, said the KHSAA's insistence on counting only home games toward the prime time requirement "doesn't make a lot of sense," but Boucher said it does if families' convenience is factored in. Parents who want to see the girls' team play should be able to "get home from work and clean the kids up and get a bite to eat and come to the games," and they can't do that if the game is 35 miles away, he said.

In 2003-4 Sprague's school spent 64.3 percent of its athletic budget on its male teams. The main reason, he said, is football equipment costs that can run to $350 for a helmet and nearly that much for shoulder pads. Ron Dawn, athletic director at Newport Central Catholic High School, called football equipment costs "a killer."

Boucher said that if there's a big spending gap, "it raises a red flag," but rather than immediately take a school to task the KHSAA will examine the quality of the athletic experience the school provides for the dollars spent. If a school buys top-of-the-line football equipment for $1,000 per player and top-quality volleyball equipment for $250 per player, "both genders are getting the very best there is, so that is Title IX compliant," he said.

The KHSAA conducted on-site audits of each member school between 1999-2000 and 2003-2004, and a second round of audits is under way. The association also requires schools to survey students to determine athletic interests.

Jaime Walz Richey, Rachel Redmond's basketball coach at Highlands High School, has seen some of the changes that KHSAA's steady pressure has helped bring about. Richey played for Highlands for six years, beginning in 1990, when she was in seventh grade. She won Kentucky Miss Basketball and Gatorade national player of the year honors in her senior year and set a slew of state records that still stand.

"When I played in high school, it was always said that the girls played Monday and Thursday night," rather than on Fridays or weekends, she said. Lacking their own locker room, Richey said, the girls dressed for games in a classroom, and not until her junior year did cheerleaders perform at the school's girls' games.

As a coach, she said, she can see that having regular Friday games helps girls academically, since "they don't have to worry about homework when they get home."

Richey said that today, ensuring equal treatment for girls in Highlands' athletic program is "not an uphill battle at all." Like every KHSAA member school, Highlands has a Title IX compliance committee, on which Richey serves, and when "something's not right, they want to get it taken care of," she said.

For an athlete, the flip side of equal opportunity can be equal risk, and Katie Schwegmann's medical history bears witness to the risks that can haunt athletic success.

Schwegmann, who was also a top cross country and middle-distance runner at Brossart, said a lot of people ask her whether it was all worth it in the end. Asked that question again, she answers slowly, carefully and with conviction.

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