39 JUNE 2022

For one decade,

women’s college

sports were

governed by women.

Then schools had

to choose:

THE

AIAW

OR THE

NCAA

BY MARK BECHTEL

FORGOTTEN CHAMTHOMAS P. COSTELLOPIONS

ON MARCH 28, 1982, No. 7 Rutgers beat No. 5 Texas to win the

country’s most established women’s college basketball tournament.

On March 28, 1982, No. 1 Louisiana Tech beat No. 2 Cheyney State

to win the country’s most competitive women’s college basketball

tournament. It was a strange day, but those were strange times.

For the first time in its history—and nearly 10 years after the

passage of Title IX—the NCAA was sponsoring women’s champion-

ships. Until the 1981–82 school year, that had been the province of

the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, which both

came into existence and held its first basketball tournament in ’72.

With the two governing bodies each offering a trophy, schools could

choose their tournament. That Tech and Cheyney went with the

NCAA—which offered more perks, such as paying for transporta-

tion—was no surprise. Of the top 20 teams, 17 made the same choice.

How Rutgers wound up in the AIAW has been lost to time. “It was

definitely above our pay grade,” says Mary Klinger, who, then known

as Mary Coyle, ran point for the Lady Knights, playing alongside her

twin sister, Patty. Even the team’s coach, Theresa Grentz, isn’t sure—

the call came down from above and was never explained. “This was

1982,” she says. “The reasoning I got was, You’re lucky you’re even here.”

As for Texas, though, there was never any doubt that the school

whose women’s sports were overseen by Donna Lopiano was going

to ride it out with AIAW.

D

URING THE bubbled 2021 NCAA women’s tournament,

players highlighted on social media the wide gap between

their facilities and the men’s (page 50). Their posts

sparked outrage—and pressured the NCAA into provid-

ing more equitable treatment this year. Similar pressure led to the

women’s tournament finally being able to use the sobriquet of

“March Madness” this season. To Lopiano, this was nothing new.

TI

TL

E^

WHERE

WE’VE BEEN

WHERE

WE ARE

WHERE

WE’RE HEADING O