As part of the NCAA Centennial celebration in 2006, The NCAA News is publishing features on each of the Top 25 Defining Moments in NCAA history. In this issue: The approval of a governance plan that includes women’s athletics programs within the NCAA structure.

For a list of all 25 moments and events selected, see the January 2 issue of The NCAA News.

In the last 25 years, the NCAA has become a staunch proponent of Title IX and a defender of a woman’s right to equal opportunity in athletics. But as much of the country was struggling with the equal-opportunity law when it was adopted in the mid-1970s, so did the members of the NCAA work to find a comfort level with legislation that changed the face of intercollegiate athletics.

Before the NCAA voted to establish women’s championships and include women’s sports in the governance structure in 1981, the Association actually worked against many provisions allowed for under the federal anti-discrimination law commonly known as Title IX. But that one vote, commonly referred to as the adoption of the governance plan, changed the course of women’s participation in intercollegiate athletics. Because of its far-reaching impact on athletics, that January 13, 1981, vote at the 75th annual NCAA Convention was chosen as one of the 25 Defining Moments of the NCAA’s first 100 years.

In his NCAA Centennial book “In the Arena: The NCAA’s First Century,” University of Nevada, Reno, President Emeritus Joseph N. Crowley chronicles the sometimes-sticky relationship the NCAA has had with women’s athletics. The vote that solidified the Association’s support of women in intercollegiate competition wasn’t easily made. In fact, it was opposed by the governing body for women’s athletics at the time — the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW).

According to Crowley, the NCAA did not begin paying much attention to women in sports until the latter half of the 20th century.

“Although one finds occasional references to women’s sports in NCAA Convention and committee discussions through the decades, the members seemed generally content to focus on the men’s game, where both the promise and the problems of intercollegiate athletics were more familiar to the general public,” he wrote. “Attitudes began to change in the early 1960s, leading to cordial exchanges between Association representatives and women’s sports leaders.”

With the passage of Title IX in 1972, Association members began to question whether they could legally keep women from participating in their championships and other programs, offered only to male student-athletes at that time.

At the 1975 Convention, members voted to commission a comprehensive report to be completed by the NCAA Council, with an opportunity for comment extended to the AIAW. The completed report, distributed to presidents of both NCAA and AIAW member institutions, concluded that female student-athletes should be included in the NCAA structure. AIAW members strongly opposed the report, foreseeing the demise of their organization should the NCAA ever offer opportunities for women.

‘Separate but equal’

Convention delegates were not ready to shoulder the responsibility of incorporating women into the NCAA for several years. Proposals in Divisions II and III failed in 1978 and 1979, respectively. The Council created another study group in October 1979, chaired by Lincoln University (Missouri) President James Frank.

While the committee was working, Divisions II and III adopted proposals at the 1980 Convention paving the way for the NCAA to sponsor women’s championships in basketball, field hockey, swimming and diving, tennis, and volleyball.

The committee worked through January 1980 before sending a report to member presidents for review.

“Some counseled further consultation with the AIAW, even though previous discussions had not been fruitful. Others expressed concern about the costs to the Association,” Crowley said. “Some respondents expressed strong support. The legal problem engendered by operating men’s and women’s programs under different rules — specifically the possibility or even likelihood of discriminatory consequences — was raised once more by Association attorneys. ... The trend toward integrated athletics departments, and away from the old system of separate entities based on gender, had been accelerating. Most member institutions by this time had moved into a single department approach. The fundamental question was whether the time had arrived for the NCAA to adopt this approach.”

The AIAW was divided on the answer to that question — with many lobbying to oppose the committee’s work and others expressing enthusiasm about the opportunities the NCAA could offer to female student-athletes. The AIAW banned paid visits for recruits, permitted only limited athletics scholarships and did not pay for championships expenses. Some NCAA member institutions agreed with the AIAW’s official position of continuing separate national associations for men and women.

Frank, who headed the committee and was also the first African-American president of the Association, drew on his own experience in forming his opinion on the topic. According to Crowley, Frank said, “I think it is fallacious thinking ... that ‘separate but equal’ is the answer. I, for one, know that ‘separate but equal’ does not lead to equality.”

By the end of 1980, the NCAA membership was reviewing a plan for governance and championship administration for women’s athletics, as well as a plan to provide more opportunities for female administrators and coaches in the governance structure.

The final approved plan, after some struggle with passing the championships clause in Division I, included 19 new championships across all three divisions and the availability of 215 positions in the Association’s governance structure for women. Once passed by the delegates, the AIAW effectively disbanded and the face of the NCAA changed for good.

Early opposition

Before that moment, the Association actually had led efforts to exempt athletics from the scope of Title IX enforcement, including supporting several failed amendments to the law that would have accomplished that goal. The Association was involved in litigation that also sought to free itself from the requirements of the anti-discrimination legislation,

primarily because the fiscal demands of sponsoring women’s sports would eat into revenues produced by football and men’s basketball.

After the absorption of women’s programs, things changed.

“Most institutions needed time to adjust to the new vision for women’s intercollegiate athletics, especially to deal with the resulting financial demands,” Crowley writes. “Abiding concern emanated from campus officers, not just athletics directors and coaches. The Title IX mandates were much on the minds of presidents as well, and on the agendas of booster organizations, governing boards and other national higher education associations. Finding the necessary dollars to comply would be difficult, and painful decisions appeared unavoidable.”

Financial concerns aside, women made immediate inroads in the governance of the NCAA, with appointments on all major committees and the establishment of the “primary woman administrator” (later the senior woman administrator) at member institutions. During the 1981-82 academic year, 29 women’s championships were conducted. Women gradually became represented among award recipients at the annual Honors Dinner. The Committee on Women’s Athletics was established in the late 1980s, and with its counterpart, the Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee, created many programs to assist women in the athletics arena.

In 1991, Judy Sweet became the Association’s first female membership president and in 1994 Judith Albino became the first woman to chair the Presidents Commission. The 1994 Gender-Equity Task Force report pushed further reforms, and the NCAA slowly became a strong and important leader in gender-equity issues.

That leadership has continued under current President Myles Brand, who vocally opposed a federal government clarification to Title IX policy in March 2005 and established the new office for diversity and inclusion within the NCAA.

When the Association voted to absorb women’s intercollegiate athletics in 1981, the membership began a process that changed the course of NCAA history. The effects of that decision are still felt in today’s governing decisions, making that vote truly one of the 25 Defining Moments of the NCAA.

Coming in the February 27 issue of The NCAA News: Simpson College wrestler Nick Ackerman stood tall in intercollegiate athletics without the use of his legs.