The tense and determined young lacrosse player on this week's cover is not a superstar. Nor is it her team we are celebrating, though it happens to be the national champion. Instead, our cover story is about the revolution that is taking place on the country's playing fields as, at all ages and levels, women have moved into the world of sport.

By no coincidence, Associate Editor B.J. Phillips, who wrote the cover, is a woman. She is also our regular sportswriter and a diehard baseball fan who spent a Southern small-town childhood hoping to make the major leagues. She did enjoy a brief career on the sandlot, but when at 14 she came home bleeding from a spike wound, her mother took a hard stand. Says Phillips: "That's when I became a proper young lady."

Not until she joined TIME's Central Park softball team in 1970 did Phillips get back out on a diamond. This time she stayed. She treated herself to a $60 fielder's glove--"nobody's autograph, a real pro glove"--and she also became a hitter, with a .427 average last season. Reports Phillips: "Last week I hit a home run, a good, honest, hard hit. And I couldn't go to sleep that night, I was so excited. I tingled from the wonderful freedom and joy of connecting with that ball." Ellie McGrath, who wrote the accompanying story on physiology and how it affects women's sports, was also steered away from athletics as a child. Three years ago she began long-distance running as a diversion, took on the Yonkers marathon to test herself, survived the 26.2-mile course and was hooked. Now she averages 30 to 40 miles a week up New York's Riverside Park to the George Washington Bridge and back. She also trains and competes regularly on one of the best amateur women's teams in the country, the Greater New York Athletic Association.

McGrath's experience in the New York City marathon underlines the thesis of our story. In 1976, running the 26.2-mile course in 3 hr. 46 min., she was the 22nd woman to finish. That year 88 women started in the race. Last year 260 started, and 68 finished in 3 hr. 45 min. or less. Something is happening out there. Fast.

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