Budgets, benefits and Joan Cronan: How Title IX made the playing field more even for women

When Joan Cronan was the volleyball coach at College of Charleston in 1974, the Cougars made it to the regionals of the national tournament. If her team, an NAIA program at the time, wanted to compete, Cronan had to transport them more than 700 miles from Charleston, South Carolina, to Martin, Tennessee.

Cronan also was coaching women's basketball and tennis at the time, something unheard of at the collegiate level today. She had a "shoestring" budget, and making the trip to volleyball regionals was going to be difficult.

"I actually rented a yellow school bus and personally drove the yellow school bus to Martin, Tennessee," Cronan said. "These girls had worked so hard, and I wanted to get them to regionals."

Cronan, now Women's Athletic Director Emeritus at Tennessee, noted that coaches at major college programs today would never have to personally transport their teams. In fact, it'd be considered a huge liability.

Increased budgets and benefits are one of the major impacts of Title IX on college sports. Fifty years ago, 37 words passed into law made an indelible impact on women's sports in the U.S. In just one sentence, Title IX created opportunities for girls and women at every level of athletics.

Title IX turns 50. Where have we been? Where are we going?

► As Title IX celebrates 50 years reshaping women's athletics, a reminder there's much work to be done

► 'Fighting, scratching and clawing': Title IX equity in high school athletics still a work

► Why women coaches are underrepresented in high school sports 50 years after Title IX

Today, women's college athletics are leaps and bounds from where they were in 1972 in terms of resources. While not a perfect one, the world of women's sports in 2022 is in many ways a direct result of those 37 words.

The law does not require schools to provide the same amount of funding to all men's and women's sports. A sport like football, with rosters of more than 100 players and millions in revenue, doesn't have to receive the same amount of funding as a women's golf team.

What the law does require, however, is that institutions “provide equal athletics opportunities for members of both sexes." The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, which enforces Title IX, reviews a so-called "laundry list" of treatment issues. This includes items such as the provision of equipment and supplies, travel expenses, compensation of coaches and more.

TITLE IX AND RACE: Are Black women being left behind in the push for equity?

It's this "laundry list" that means coaches no longer have to pinch pennies and rent school buses to get to competitions like Cronan did in the '70s.

"I don't like to say schools had to be forced to do the right thing, but in some ways that had to happen," said Bev Lewis, former women's athletic director at Arkansas. "That's why there had to be laws with equity. I don't think we'd be where we are without Title IX."

Progress was slow and hard-fought

But the passage of Title IX didn't flip a light switch. In fact, its effects on athletics were unforeseen in the early days of the law, and athletic administrators pushed for exemptions. Progress was slow and hard-fought.

Like Cronan, Lewis started out as a coach. She led the women's track and field program for eight years starting in 1981.

Before Title IX, Lewis said athletic opportunities for women at Arkansas were mostly limited to extramural archery, bowling, golf, gymnastics, swimming and tennis. Arkansas formed its Department of Women's Athletics in 1972 with a budget of $5,000, which brought the former club sports into a more legitimate athletics department.

By the time Lewis arrived nine years later, the women's track and field program was five years old. Lewis still had to teach classes, serve as strength coach, academic counselor and, like Cronan, drive the bus. It wasn't until Arkansas, along with many other major programs, joined the NCAA in the early 1980s that women's programs started to have the resources for coaches to simply coach.

Helen Grant was the Senior Woman Administrator at Southern Miss in the '90s and now works as a consultant helping athletics departments determine their compliance with Title IX. She sees the move from the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women to the NCAA as a major part of the progress women's college sports have made. The NCAA was able to provide financial support that the AIAW was not.

"I will always say that if we had stayed that course," Grant said, "I don't think we would be anywhere (near) where we are with what's provided for women's sports."

More opportunity, scholarships, participation

Fifty years after the passage of Title IX, women's college sports have come a long way from the days of Cronan's yellow school bus. The proportion of women participating in NCAA athletics has nearly tripled since before Title IX, according to data from the Women's Sports Foundation.

Schools have more women's sports available, too, and more scholarships for women athletes. Arkansas, for example, now has 10 varsity women's sports, compared to five in 1972.

There is still progress to be made in terms of equity in sports. New NCAA name, image and likeness rules have come with questions about Title IX compliance. Recent years have brought up concerns about discrepancies between men's and women's NCAA Tournaments, especially basketball.

But Cronan believes Title IX is working.

"I don't even have to do a study," Cronan said. "All I have to do is, say, get on an airplane and introduce myself as Women's Athletic Director Emeritus from the University of Tennessee. I'm sitting next to a couple, and they immediately say, 'Oh, I have a daughter, or I have a granddaughter, who...' and they explain the athletic abilities of their daughter or granddaughter.

"Title IX is working when moms and dads and grandmas and granddads want that same experience for their daughters as their sons. And I think that has happened."

This article originally appeared on Fort Smith Times Record: How Title IX increased resources for women's college sports