Diversity is a focal point for Toyota's racing program, from the grassroots level up, and officials will tell you point-blank a push is being made not just to find talented youngsters and help them advance, but to find talented female youngsters and help them progress.

Ask any intergender wrestler why he or she feels comfortable with the performances they're putting out in the world, why they don't balk at a man and a woman wreaking violence on one another, and they'll inevitably point to the fact that they are stunt athletes. Women will question the logic of being able to train and practice with men wrestlers but not actually face them in a match. And they'll laud the empowerment they feel or the equality they seek to promote.

Being a female athlete, Horner is somewhat used to the negative talk, the haters and the self-doubt that often prevents women from attempting something difficult. But she wants to show her community of #Ashletes -- she has nearly 600,000 followers on Instagram -- that no matter what anyone says, just show up and put in the work. "I really want to empower women. I hear all the time [from] girls and women who want to run a 10K or a marathon, or they say, 'My whole life I've wanted to do that.' Well why haven't you f---ing done it? Just do it! Just sign up for one. Don't let things scare you away."

There remain societal challenges in building professional women's sports that men's sports never faced. Men's pro leagues had to work to establish financial viability, but men didn't face scorn, derision or resistance for simply being athletes. "Look, we're not over here saying we should be paid the same as the men or anything like that," says Sue Bird of the Seattle Storm. "We're realistic. We understand that this is a business and that their revenue is insane compared to ours. But there is a bias that exists, and some people won't even acknowledge that it's there."

"What I'm doing in NASCAR is so much bigger than me. It's been so rewarding to be part of history while at the same time inspiring others to take on challenges they thought might not be possible."

Earlier this year, wrestler Cassy Lopez was losing to a male opponent by eight points in the final period. That's when she went against standard technique and pinned him with one second left in the match. "Don't count her out," Harman said. "She can get a guy to his back when they least expect it. On paper, that guy was probably a better wrestler than her. But that's the kind of stuff she would do."

When you talk to women players, whether they play basketball, soccer, tennis or ice hockey, they mostly want to be seen as athletes and workers, and not simply as stand-ins for "pure" sports as men's sports continue to grow as businesses and male athletes continue to reap those benefits. If people are willing to bet on women's sports, and are in turn willing to watch women's sports at higher rates than now, it should only stand to benefit those athletes. Not coincidentally, both concepts ring true when it comes to college athletes and the myth of amateurism.

"What I love about it is we bring in every guest without an agenda," says August. "We don't bring in women and say 'Let's make sure we talk about how hard it is to be a female athlete and a mom.' If that comes up, it comes up. Let's come in and talk basketball and if the conversation leads to being a working mother, so be it. Same with the guys. We don't bring Rasheed [Wallace] in and ask him about his personal life, unless he brings it up and goes there. Our female guests shouldn't be treated any differently." While it's certainly still useful -- necessary, in fact -- to address issues of sexism, equal coverage and underrepresentation in women's sports head-on, there's also a need for exactly what "Area 21" does so well, which is to just put athletes -- men and women -- on an even playing field where shared wisdom and experiences see no gender.

"You can open up front-office career paths in areas with crossover skills like finance, legal or media relations. But in sport-specific operations departments, where people help decide who's on the field, who gets drafted and who's on the team, the ranks of women become more scarce. For baseball, that means more than creating equal opportunities, or advertising them. It has meant finding the women who are ready, and preparing those who could be. In short, it's asking baseball people to solve a baseball problem: finding baseball talent who happen to be women."

"It's because of women like Bernadette Mattox and Stephanie Ready that I have been given this opportunity," Curry says. "I watched with pride and awe as Bernadette took the sideline in Kentucky, I hope that girls and women see me on the sidelines [at Maine] and realize that they too can coach men's basketball. Their gender shouldn't be a limitation."