Event teaches girls they can play as hard as the guys

Tattooed and slim, jeans hanging low on her hips, 25-year-old Chrissie Lathrop flipped her skateboard and stuck the landing.

A rapt audience of girls followed every move. "That's so cool," one whispered to another. Then the entire group grabbed their boards to give it a try.

"The most important thing is seeing other girls do it, knowing they can do whatever the guys do," Lathrop said during a break in the action at the seventh-annual Chicks Play Hard event at Miller Community Center in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Founded by Microsoft executive Anna Collins as a way for girls to try new things and build confidence, this year's free event had 60 girls handling fire hoses, scrambling up a climbing wall, composing songs, belly dancing and more.

The lineup of activities changes every year, depending on who's willing to volunteer their expertise, Collins said.

Sessions are taught by adult women and the teenage girls they mentor.

"Seeing capable, competent women doing things is a big part of it," Collins said. "And it's a safe place to take risks."

Twelve-year-old Mia Kato wasn't too keen on risk-taking as she faced the climbing wall, with its knobby hand- and toeholds. Instructor Heather Mirczak spotted her as she slowly began to make her way from left to right across the 15-foot-wide expanse.

"That's an awesome move," Mirczak said, as the girl stretched her foot as far as she could and found a perch. "You keep going."

And Kato did, reaching the end of the wall to cheers and applause.

"It's a little bit scary," she said afterward. But she pronounced the event her favorite so far.

"It's hands-on," she said.

The program is aimed at girls between the ages of 9 and 13.

"They don't have the gender stereotypes on them yet, and they've not afraid to use their bodies," said Nancy Chang, who along with Lathrop is part of Skate Like a Girl, an organization that aims to get more girls into skateboarding.

Wearing knee pads over her pink pants, 9-year-old Emma Eder wobbled when she first mounted her board. But soon she mastered the "tic-tac" technique of walking her board in a circle.

By the time the class was over, Eder was eager to ride down a hill steeper than anything the group had taken on so far.

"You sure you wanna do that?" Lathrop asked. "I'll hold your hands."

And with a zip, Eder was at the bottom — and laughing.

Peeling off her knee pads, she said she's going to keep boarding.

"I got a skateboard for Christmas, but I never used it because I didn't know how."

It's hard to gauge the program's impact, but Collins said she hears stories like that every year from parents.

"They'll say, my daughter wouldn't sign up for the team, or she was afraid to do this or that," said Collins, who is herself an athlete and musician. "I only have anecdotes, but I have enough of them to know it makes a difference."

Sandi Doughton: 206-464-2491 or sdoughton@seattletimes.com