A full-court press: How Pat Summitt and team led fight for Tennessee women's basketball | Opinion

The high school basketball player was 15-year-old Victoria Cape of Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Like Pat Summitt before her and female basketball players across Tennessee, she wanted to play full court basketball. But the rules for high school basketball in Tennessee were made by the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (TSSAA).

The all men TSSAA rules committee felt girls were not physically able to play full court basketball. So they limited girls to a six-player half-court game, with each team comprised of three forwards and three guards. Forwards handled the ball and shot on the other team’s basket on one half court, while guards played defense on other half court. There were no fast breaks, as players were not allowed to pass the half court line.

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Leading the charge

But two young lawyers — Dorothy Stulberg and Ann Mostoller — were hired by Victoria Cape’s father, James — and they moved the fight for girls’ full-court basketball from a basketball court to a courthouse.

They filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of Victoria and all female high school basketball players in Tennessee against the TSSAA contending that limiting girls to a half-court game was discrimination prohibited by Title IX.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Knoxville and assigned to Judge Robert Taylor. The Judge quickly set the case for trial.

And then the legal team of Stulberg and Mostoller inserted another player in the courtroom line-up. At trial they called an expert witness, coach Pat Head.

The coach testified that Victoria and other female high school basketball players in Tennessee were capable of running the full court. And then she added dramatic expert testimony that prophesied what Title IX was going to do. She said that colleges, including her own University of Tennessee, would soon be offering scholarships to female athletes, thus giving young women across America the chance to compete and excel in the classroom.

Finally, she testified that Victoria and her sister female athletes in Tennessee could not be a part of the new generation of scholarship student athletes so long as they were prohibited from playing the full-court game.

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The ruling and aftermath

Based in large measure by the young coach’s expert testimony, Judge Taylor ruled that the TSSAA rules confining girls to half court was discrimination, and Victoria and her sister players in Tennessee should be allowed to play full-court basketball.

The TSSAA sent the case into overtime, appealing Judge Taylor’s ruling to the federal court of appeals. A year later, the appellate court reversed Judge Taylor, finding there was no proof of discriminatory intent by the TSSAA rules committee. It appeared that Tennessee female high school basketball players would still be confined to half court.

But coach Pat had the last word. Shortly after the decision by the appellate court, she announced that she would no longer recruit girls from the state of Tennessee to play for the Lady Vols until the TSSAA changed its rule and let Tennessee girls play the full-court game.

And with that, the full-court press launched by Victoria Cape, her lawyers and the soon-to-be legendary coach worked. The TSSAA voted to allow girls to play the full-court game.

Coach Pat Head Summitt went on to lead the Lady Vols to eight national championships and 1,098 wins before her untimely death from early-onset dementia, Alzheimer’s type, in 2016.

On this 50-year anniversary of Title IX, we should also remember Summit's victory in a legal battle that literally changed the game for female student-athletes.

Bill Haltom is a writer living in Memphis and Monteagle. 

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: How Pat Summitt used Title IX to bring women's basketball to Tennessee