Fabulous 50: How Title IX Changed Women’s Sports

In honor of the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the Special Collections Research Center has compiled some facts about women’s sports at NC State University. We have also updated our Historical State Timelines website (shown below) with timelines that cover every women’s sport on campus, including basketball, cross country, track and field, swimming and diving, and more. 

Prior to Title IX, women joined coed teams on campus to participate in intercollegiate sports that were officially supported by the university athletics department. The Wolfpack cheerleading team added four women to its permanent roster in 1955, although the cheer squad was already coed in the previous decade. The rifle team was another early coed sports team on campus, as Alma Williams and Pam Lias earned spots on the Wolfpack squad in the fall of 1965. In the same year, NC State cheerleader Diane Ramsey joined the varsity fencing program, which at the time was not actively recruiting women. 

In 1972, Title IX became instrumental in developing a strong women’s athletic program at NC State. Title IX was a comprehensive law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in all programs or activities in federally-funded educational institutions, including NC State and other local universities. Following the enactment of Title IX, there was a dramatic increase in athletic opportunities for girls and women across the country.

One of the first women’s sports teams created at NC State was women’s basketball, which was led in the early years by legendary head coach Kay Yow. The women's basketball team was established in 1974 and was an integrated team with two African American players, Gwen Jenkins and Cynthia Steele. The program won its first ACC tournament in 1980 led by legendary players such as Genia Beasley and Trudi Lacey. Lacey was the first African American woman to receive a four-year scholarship in women's basketball at NC State in 1978, and she went on to have a successful career with the WNBA. The program’s history of success included multiple ACC tournament wins and NCAA tournament appearances, with a record-breaking three consecutive ACC tournament wins in 2020, 2021, and 2022. 

Cross country, track and field, and swimming and diving are other areas where Wolfpack women excelled post-Title IX. Joan Benoit Samuelson was a two-time cross country All-American (1977-1978), an Olympic gold medalist in women's marathon, and two-time winner of the Boston Marathon. The women's cross country team won back-to-back national championships in 1979 and 1980 with All-American cross country runners Julie Shea and Mary Shea at the forefront, and Betty Springs won two NCAA individual championships in outdoor track and field events in 1983. This success continued, as the women’s cross country team won the NCAA championship in 2021, which  was the university’s first NCAA team title since the men’s basketball team won in 1983. Swimming and diving was also quite accomplished with team and individual ACC titles from 1979 to 1982 and numerous Olympic appearances throughout program history. 

Other women’s sports teams at NC State created in the 1970s and 1980s include softball, gymnastics, volleyball, tennis, golf, and soccer. In the following years, women’s sport teams on campus experienced tremendous success and growth as Title IX gave athletes the right to equal opportunity in sports. The number of women competing in collegiate sports at NC State continued to grow as a result of Title IX, although progress was still underway for gender equality in sports. 

To learn more about sports history at NC State, visit the newly updated Historical State Timelines website. Additionally, the Special Collections Digital Collections website contains many images and videos of women's sports on campus. Special Collections has numerous records related to sports history, including North Carolina State University, Athletics, Other Sports Audiovisual Materials, North Carolina State University, Athletics, Director of Athletics Records, and the University Archives Photograph Collection, Athletics Photographs. 

If you have any questions or are interested in viewing Special Collections materials, please contact us at library_specialcollections@ncsu.edu or submit a request online. The Special Collections Research Center is open by appointment only. Appointments are available Monday–Friday, 9am–6pm and Saturday, 1pm–5pm. Requests for a Saturday appointment must be received no later than Tuesday of the same week.