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NCAA News Archive - 2007
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Roots of change
Seeds of women’s sports success planted in predecessor organization
Seeds of women’s sports success planted in predecessor organization
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By Leilana McKindra
The NCAA News
The NCAA News
As recent celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of NCAA women’s championships attest, female collegiate athletes have taken the proverbial ball and run far and fast in just over two decades.
So far and so fast, in fact, that it is difficult to imagine when that wasn’t the case.
It was, though, before a daring endeavor by women — and for women — called the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women was created. The AIAW was the sole provider of intercollegiate athletics and championships for women for almost 10 years before the NCAA began sponsoring championships in 1981. Much of the progress that has been made since that time rests on a foundation carefully laid by the AIAW.
Although the organization ultimately dissolved due to financial and legal concerns, its presence left a deep impression that still reverberates through the NCAA and the broader sports landscape.
Longtime University of Iowa athletics administrator Christine Grant was one of a few hundred women who gathered in an Overland Park, Kansas, hotel meeting room in 1972 to establish the first national organization to provide highly competitive opportunities to females in collegiate sports.
“Even then I think we sensed this was going to be the beginning of a revolution, but I don’t think we realized the magnitude of the revolution we were starting,” said Grant. “Now when I look back over the decades it seems to me we not only changed the role of women in sports in the United States, I think we helped change the role of women throughout the entire society.”
In its first year of operation, the AIAW sponsored championships in basketball, golf, gymnastics, swimming and diving, track and field, volleyball and badminton. Rowing, cross country, field hockey, bowling, soccer, softball and skiing were added in later years.
Through sport, Grant insisted, the AIAW helped develop young women who were accomplished, competent, confident and determined. The organization achieved that in a number of significant ways.
“The AIAW constantly reiterated that the emphasis had to be on the student,” said Arlene Gorton, a former Brown University athletics administrator. Gorton chaired the AIAW’s ethics and eligibility committee, a group charged with ensuring student-athletes were not being used by institutions and keeping the students at the forefront of the structure. “If the AIAW has contributed anything, it was sending the message that you must be a student first.”
That guiding principle was reflected throughout the organization. Student-athletes composed 20 percent of the executive board and held full voting privileges. In addition, the AIAW passed a student-athlete bill of rights and encouraged institutions to establish campus-based student-athlete advisory boards and to bring a student-athlete representative to annual delegates assemblies.
The AIAW also featured a unique championships structure. Every team had an opportunity to participate in postseason competition. Eventual national champions advanced through state and regional play before reaching national championships competition. Further, in part because the AIAW strongly disagreed with major and minor sport classifications, the television deals the group struck with ESPN and NBC included coverage of all its divisions. Any television revenue was equitably distributed among all institutions.
Equal opportunity also extended to recruiting. Prospects, not institutions, paid for their transportation to official visits. Alfreeda Goff, senior associate commissioner and chief of staff at the Horizon League, said that allowed smaller schools with good athletics programs to attract quality athletes. The strategy helped keep programs grounded, according to Goff, who coached women’s track at the University of Pittsburgh from 1975 to 1982 and was involved in the administration of AIAW championships at the regional level.
“Many women’s programs were struggling, especially programs at women’s institutions,” Goff said. “The AIAW provided opportunities for all women athletes, regardless of an institution’s status.”
Leadership as a career
Though the founding and guiding principles for the AIAW leadership revolved around developing well-rounded student-athletes, they weren’t the only ones who benefited from the structure. The AIAW also provided opportunities for female administrators and coaches. Grant estimated that the AIAW created about 1,200 leadership positions for women as its state, regional and national levels.
“Nobody had ever seen anything like that for women before,” she said.
Goff, who came into intercollegiate athletics from a high school teaching and coaching background, certainly hadn’t. She became familiar with the AIAW only after she arrived at Pittsburgh. But she said one of the hallmarks of the AIAW was that women coming into the business had an opportunity to actually run athletics programs. Goff went on to do just that. She served as athletics director at Virginia State University from 1994 to 1998.
Former University of California, San Diego, Director of Athletics Judy Sweet was another beneficiary of the AIAW. She was just beginning her administrative career in the early years of the organization. Sweet said one of the highlights of being involved with the organization was watching, listening and learning from notable female leaders such as Grant, Charlotte West, Donna Lopiano and others.
“Those experiences early in my career significantly impacted my career path,” said the now retired Sweet, who was later elected as the NCAA’s first female president in 1991. “Had it not been for the AIAW, female student-athletes in the 1970s might not have had the championships experiences they did, and female administrators would not have had the leadership opportunities and engagement in governance that the AIAW provided.”
An alternative model
The AIAW did more than fill a void of competitive opportunities for collegiate women and provide leadership opportunities for female administrators. It also proved there was an alternative to the model under which intercollegiate athletics was being administered.
Brown’s Gorton said the AIAW’s early emphasis on developing a sports model that was in women’s best interests was a crucial part of the organization. Grant agreed.
“I and a lot of women in the AIAW felt we created an alternate model of sport,” Grant said.
The AIAW ceased operations on June 30, 1982. Some coaches and administrators who had been part of the AIAW elected to go their own ways rather than operate under NCAA guidelines and policies. Others, like Grant, Goff, Sweet and Gorton, stayed on.
“The NCAA was really a men’s organization formed and developed by men, and women hesitated because they had something really good that women had created. They did not believe they could impact the NCAA,” said Grant. “That was something I strongly thought about, too. I decided I would stay and see if there was something I could do to make things better, not just for women, but for men and women. The people who were in the AIAW and who stayed on when the NCAA took over have made a difference.”
That difference is seen throughout the Association today. According to Grant, the NCAA is well-grounded in serving the student-athlete and staying true to the collegiate model of athletics as an integral part of higher education. “Part of the legacy of the AIAW has been to create some reform in the NCAA for the betterment of both men and women,” she said.
She said the AIAW’s most significant legacy, though, was its fierce protection of Title IX. Every AIAW president, including Grant, had to fight that battle. “There was never any relief from it,” she said.
While many agree the NCAA has done a good job of making sure the AIAW’s history isn’t lost, those from that era hope current student-athletes honor it.
Sweet said women’s athletics would not be where it is today had it not been for the AIAW. She noted that the dramatic progress in opportunities for young women was a result of the foundation laid by the AIAW.
“It’s important that female athletes not take for granted the opportunities and support they now enjoy,” she said. “They need to know that it hasn’t always been like it is today, and that the progress is due to the commitment of the women and men who have fought for equal opportunity over the years.
“The AIAW opened the door for opportunities for women in athletics and then fought to make sure that door remained wide open.”
Ten former presidents of the AIAW, as they appeared in 1981. They are (front row, from left) Carol Oglesby, Temple University; Carol Gordon, Washington State University; Lee Morrison, James Madison University; Laurie Mabry, Illinois State University; and Peggy Burke, University of Iowa. Second row, from left: Donna Lopiano, University of Texas at Austin; Christine Grant, University of Iowa; Carole Mushier, State University College at Cortland; Charlotte West, University of Southern Illinois at Carbondale; Judith Holland, University of California, Los Angeles. Not pictured: Merrily Dean Baker, Michigan State University.
So far and so fast, in fact, that it is difficult to imagine when that wasn’t the case.
It was, though, before a daring endeavor by women — and for women — called the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women was created. The AIAW was the sole provider of intercollegiate athletics and championships for women for almost 10 years before the NCAA began sponsoring championships in 1981. Much of the progress that has been made since that time rests on a foundation carefully laid by the AIAW.
Although the organization ultimately dissolved due to financial and legal concerns, its presence left a deep impression that still reverberates through the NCAA and the broader sports landscape.
Longtime University of Iowa athletics administrator Christine Grant was one of a few hundred women who gathered in an Overland Park, Kansas, hotel meeting room in 1972 to establish the first national organization to provide highly competitive opportunities to females in collegiate sports.
“Even then I think we sensed this was going to be the beginning of a revolution, but I don’t think we realized the magnitude of the revolution we were starting,” said Grant. “Now when I look back over the decades it seems to me we not only changed the role of women in sports in the United States, I think we helped change the role of women throughout the entire society.”
In its first year of operation, the AIAW sponsored championships in basketball, golf, gymnastics, swimming and diving, track and field, volleyball and badminton. Rowing, cross country, field hockey, bowling, soccer, softball and skiing were added in later years.
Through sport, Grant insisted, the AIAW helped develop young women who were accomplished, competent, confident and determined. The organization achieved that in a number of significant ways.
“The AIAW constantly reiterated that the emphasis had to be on the student,” said Arlene Gorton, a former Brown University athletics administrator. Gorton chaired the AIAW’s ethics and eligibility committee, a group charged with ensuring student-athletes were not being used by institutions and keeping the students at the forefront of the structure. “If the AIAW has contributed anything, it was sending the message that you must be a student first.”
That guiding principle was reflected throughout the organization. Student-athletes composed 20 percent of the executive board and held full voting privileges. In addition, the AIAW passed a student-athlete bill of rights and encouraged institutions to establish campus-based student-athlete advisory boards and to bring a student-athlete representative to annual delegates assemblies.
The AIAW also featured a unique championships structure. Every team had an opportunity to participate in postseason competition. Eventual national champions advanced through state and regional play before reaching national championships competition. Further, in part because the AIAW strongly disagreed with major and minor sport classifications, the television deals the group struck with ESPN and NBC included coverage of all its divisions. Any television revenue was equitably distributed among all institutions.
Equal opportunity also extended to recruiting. Prospects, not institutions, paid for their transportation to official visits. Alfreeda Goff, senior associate commissioner and chief of staff at the Horizon League, said that allowed smaller schools with good athletics programs to attract quality athletes. The strategy helped keep programs grounded, according to Goff, who coached women’s track at the University of Pittsburgh from 1975 to 1982 and was involved in the administration of AIAW championships at the regional level.
“Many women’s programs were struggling, especially programs at women’s institutions,” Goff said. “The AIAW provided opportunities for all women athletes, regardless of an institution’s status.”
Leadership as a career
Though the founding and guiding principles for the AIAW leadership revolved around developing well-rounded student-athletes, they weren’t the only ones who benefited from the structure. The AIAW also provided opportunities for female administrators and coaches. Grant estimated that the AIAW created about 1,200 leadership positions for women as its state, regional and national levels.
“Nobody had ever seen anything like that for women before,” she said.
Goff, who came into intercollegiate athletics from a high school teaching and coaching background, certainly hadn’t. She became familiar with the AIAW only after she arrived at Pittsburgh. But she said one of the hallmarks of the AIAW was that women coming into the business had an opportunity to actually run athletics programs. Goff went on to do just that. She served as athletics director at Virginia State University from 1994 to 1998.
Former University of California, San Diego, Director of Athletics Judy Sweet was another beneficiary of the AIAW. She was just beginning her administrative career in the early years of the organization. Sweet said one of the highlights of being involved with the organization was watching, listening and learning from notable female leaders such as Grant, Charlotte West, Donna Lopiano and others.
“Those experiences early in my career significantly impacted my career path,” said the now retired Sweet, who was later elected as the NCAA’s first female president in 1991. “Had it not been for the AIAW, female student-athletes in the 1970s might not have had the championships experiences they did, and female administrators would not have had the leadership opportunities and engagement in governance that the AIAW provided.”
An alternative model
The AIAW did more than fill a void of competitive opportunities for collegiate women and provide leadership opportunities for female administrators. It also proved there was an alternative to the model under which intercollegiate athletics was being administered.
Brown’s Gorton said the AIAW’s early emphasis on developing a sports model that was in women’s best interests was a crucial part of the organization. Grant agreed.
“I and a lot of women in the AIAW felt we created an alternate model of sport,” Grant said.
The AIAW ceased operations on June 30, 1982. Some coaches and administrators who had been part of the AIAW elected to go their own ways rather than operate under NCAA guidelines and policies. Others, like Grant, Goff, Sweet and Gorton, stayed on.
“The NCAA was really a men’s organization formed and developed by men, and women hesitated because they had something really good that women had created. They did not believe they could impact the NCAA,” said Grant. “That was something I strongly thought about, too. I decided I would stay and see if there was something I could do to make things better, not just for women, but for men and women. The people who were in the AIAW and who stayed on when the NCAA took over have made a difference.”
That difference is seen throughout the Association today. According to Grant, the NCAA is well-grounded in serving the student-athlete and staying true to the collegiate model of athletics as an integral part of higher education. “Part of the legacy of the AIAW has been to create some reform in the NCAA for the betterment of both men and women,” she said.
She said the AIAW’s most significant legacy, though, was its fierce protection of Title IX. Every AIAW president, including Grant, had to fight that battle. “There was never any relief from it,” she said.
While many agree the NCAA has done a good job of making sure the AIAW’s history isn’t lost, those from that era hope current student-athletes honor it.
Sweet said women’s athletics would not be where it is today had it not been for the AIAW. She noted that the dramatic progress in opportunities for young women was a result of the foundation laid by the AIAW.
“It’s important that female athletes not take for granted the opportunities and support they now enjoy,” she said. “They need to know that it hasn’t always been like it is today, and that the progress is due to the commitment of the women and men who have fought for equal opportunity over the years.
“The AIAW opened the door for opportunities for women in athletics and then fought to make sure that door remained wide open.”
Ten former presidents of the AIAW, as they appeared in 1981. They are (front row, from left) Carol Oglesby, Temple University; Carol Gordon, Washington State University; Lee Morrison, James Madison University; Laurie Mabry, Illinois State University; and Peggy Burke, University of Iowa. Second row, from left: Donna Lopiano, University of Texas at Austin; Christine Grant, University of Iowa; Carole Mushier, State University College at Cortland; Charlotte West, University of Southern Illinois at Carbondale; Judith Holland, University of California, Los Angeles. Not pictured: Merrily Dean Baker, Michigan State University.
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