In fact, the Buffs have two undefeated seasons in women’s tennis in those unknown seasons, going 5-0 in 1969-70 and 8-0-1 in 1971-72. While records prior to 1975 when a good chunk of women’s sports became varsity are incomplete, there are some records dating as far back as 1967. One of the earliest sports that began intercollegiate competition was women’s tennis. After the end of the AIAW and after the Buffs merged the men’s and women’s athletic departments into one, the Buffs added volleyball in 1986, golf in 1994, soccer in 1996, and finally lacrosse in 2014. Skiing was then added for the 1976-77 season. Under Wahl, the varsity teams grew rapidly, as tennis was joined by basketball (reintroduced 64 years after it was last played intercollegiately on campus), cross country & track and field, gymnastics, and swimming for the 1974-75 season. In 1974 CU hired Jane Wahl as its Coordinator of Women’s Sports, and a year later Wahl was named the Women’s Athletic Director, a position she held until 1979. The CU Athletic Department has tennis records as far back as the 1967 season. The AIAW came into being in 1971 and grew in stature and popularity throughout the 1970s, posing a big enough threat to the NCAA’s position as the dominant and controlling body of college sports that the NCAA basically put the AIAW out of business instead of merging with the association in 1983.īack in Boulder, once the CISW was established, competitive teams began to appear again on CU’s campus. In 1966, the predecessor to the AIAW, the Commission on Intercollegiate Sports for Women (CISW) was put into place and began national championships for women’s sports in 1969. In 1963, it further evolved to state it was “desirable” that they exist. In 1957, the long-entrenched position statement for the Division for Girls and Women in Sport was amended to state that intercollegiate programs “may” exist. In the 1950s and ‘60s, the social consciousness of the US was evolving. When WWII ended, organizations for women in sports began to increase.
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The article goes on to explain that after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, a renewed emphasis on women participating in sports was negated by the Great Depression of the 1930s.Īs was portrayed in the film A League of Their Own, World War II led to the formation of the first women’s professional league, the All-American Girls Baseball League. But the nature of varsity competition was in conflict with the philosophy of women’s physical educators. They were determined to keep athletics in an education environment for women.”Ĭompetitive events for college women increased in the early 1900s, as was evidenced by the information presented in the Coloradoan yearbooks. According to the article, “Women’s physical educators were aware of the problems and criticisms surrounding men’s intercollegiate athletics. To summarize, we are assuming this rule was from the University of Colorado, but it unfortunately was not uncommon. A deeper dive into why that rule was put into place leads to an article in The Sport Journal titled A History of Women in Sport Prior to Title IX. That rule is what effectively put a halt to the development of women’s intercollegiate sports at CU for almost 60 years. This rule requires that the team shall not go away to play and that all games here shall be closed games.” It stated “a new rule has gone into effect this year which makes it more difficult than formerly to obtain games without outside teams.
The same yearbook that boasted of a field for women’s use and the formation of an Athletic Association also had some information that seemed to have been added as an afterthought. The early sports included basketball, field hockey and tennis. That same year an Athletic Association for women’s sports at CU began. In 1908, the yearbook mentioned that Colorado was the only school in the west that had constructed an athletic field for the exclusive use of women.
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Going off reports from early versions of the Coloradoan yearbook, as early as 1902 the CU women sponsored a basketball team and the yearbook featured a team photo, full roster, and schedule and results. What is lesser known is that back at the turn of the 20th Century, the Buffs had the beginnings of a women’s athletic association that was derailed for a variety of reasons. It is well known that women’s opportunities in competitive sports were limited in the United States until Title IX became law in 1972.
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