John Langel ‘74 was not always a likely candidate to be the champion of women’s sports that he has become. Now retired from Ballard Spahr where he served for decades as a partner, Langel spent much of his career representing clients in the sports industry. But for his first twenty years of practice, Langel’s experience was representing male athletes like Philadelphia legends Ron Jaworski, Reggie White, and Doug Collins. Langel’s two sons played Division I basketball, one of whom, Matt, is now the head men’s basketball coach at Colgate. His firm, Ballard, had a long-standing relationship with the Philadelphia Phillies. As Langel said in an interview for Marietta College in 2017: “I had only known a man’s world. In the man’s world, you are treated very well. I learned pretty quickly that it wasn’t the same way for the women.”[1] Langel’s education came when the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) enlisted his help in the late 1990s. The women of the National Team were embroiled in a fight with U.S. Soccer over unfair treatment. …