When Pam Pine played softball at Kansas University in the early 1980s, the team didn’t have locker rooms or a field on campus. When they traveled, they took vans.

“The female athletes work just as hard as the male athletes do,” said Pine, now Free State High School’s softball coach. “It’s about time that they get the recognition they deserve.”

As Pine’s story illustrates, it took time for Title IX to take hold. Friday marked the 34th anniversary of the landmark rule, which bars discrimination in schools. The law forced sweeping changes at KU and other schools, enabling women an equal shot at the athletic glory long afforded to men.

“It’s just given an open door to women’s athletics,” said KU women’s tennis coach Amy Hall-Holt. “I don’t think we would have that open door without Title IX.”

The anniversary is a reminder that it wasn’t all that long ago that female athletes were backstage, if on a stage at all.

Monte Johnson, KU athletic director from 1982-87, recalled working at KU in the 1960s.

“You really didn’t have that much in the way of emphasis on women’s sports,” he said. “It just didn’t seem like it was as important to the total picture of college athletics as it became after that.”

Leveling the field

Among other things, schools have been challenged to have the percentage of women athletes proportionate to each school’s population.

In KU’s 2004-05 report to the U.S. Department of Education, the 9,161 women outnumbered the 9,010 men on campus, while the 279 male athletes outnumbered the 231 women playing sports.

Jim Marchiony, associate athletic director, said it’s a challenge for schools, including KU, to make sure participation numbers and facilities are equitable.

“It’s something you have to continue to monitor every single year,” he said.

KU’s first intercollegiate women’s sport was basketball, which started in the late 1960s. It was followed by track and field, softball, cross country, golf, volleyball, tennis and swimming in the 1970s.

And in 1994, KU added women’s crew and soccer.

“By sponsoring these additional two sports, the University of Kansas will approach a participation ratio of male and female student-athletes comparable to that of the undergraduate student body,” Bob Frederick, former athletic director, said when KU announced the approval of the teams in 1994.

But the changes haven’t been without pain. KU cut its men’s tennis and swimming and diving intercollegiate teams in 2001, blaming budget constraints and pointing out that, among other challenges, the “commitment to equity and compliance with federal law related to financial aid, operating budgets and participation opportunities has greatly increased our overall costs,” according to a 2001 KU news release.

Not easy

On Friday, Frederick said the cuts weren’t made because of Title IX.

“Those were financial decisions,” he said. “Those were not Title IX decisions.”

The cuts weren’t without criticism.

“What I don’t like is when you have to get equality by dropping men’s sports,” Johnson said.

He said the cutting of the sports was an easy out that hurt the entire athletic program.

“I just don’t think you should ever cut off an arm or a leg and hope to save the body,” Johnson said.

Bob Stanclift, KU softball coach from 1976-88, recalled the times when many coaches also served as the bus drivers and groundskeepers. The changes at KU came slowly, he said.

“Every year I got additional money for the team,” he said. “It was continually getting better. I didn’t expect that we were going to make huge jumps over night.”

Though Pine recalls having less-than-equitable support, she said few talked about it at the time.

“I just wanted to play ball,” she said. “I think that’s pretty much what most of the girls thought.”

Coaches of women’s teams say the law has been a tremendous boost.

Hundreds of women have participated in crew since KU added the intercollegiate sport, and they’ve reaped the benefits, crew coach Rob Catloth said.

“I can only see the upside,” he said. “It’s amazing how many of the women who will leave here who will say, ‘I got a job and all they talked about was my rowing.’ I get calls like that all the time. I imagine none of these women’s mothers ever had that opportunity.”

Abby Rosdahl Johnson, a former KU crew member and assistant coach, said she thinks some have the misconception that rowing is inferior because many members didn’t row before they joined the team.

“All the women that I rowed with were very dedicated athletes, just as dedicated as people in any other sport,” she said.

Nicole Cauzillo, a KU soccer player, attested to the fierceness of female athletes.

Cauzillo started playing soccer as a little kid because she wanted to do everything her big sister did. She first kicked the ball at age 3, playing on the peewee team with the 5 year olds.

She played on teams with boys until she was 12.

“I had to play with boys when I was younger because that was the best competition,” she said.

Cauzillo, a small, skillful midfielder, has goals of playing soccer professionally, either in the U.S. or Europe. But for now she’s enjoying going into battle with her collegiate team.

“We’ll just fight for anything,” she said.