The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women was founded in 1971 to govern collegiate women's athletics and to administer national championships. During its existence, the AIAW and its predecessor, the Division for Girls' and Women's Sports (DGWS), recognized via these championships the teams and individuals who excelled at the highest level of women's collegiate competition.
After the 1981–82 academic year, the AIAW discontinued sponsorship of national championships and later was legally dissolved. At this time, the NCAA assumed sole sanctioning authority of its member schools' women's sports programs.
Governing bodies of women's collegiate athletics through 1982
The Division of Girls and Women's Sports (DGWS), a division of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education and Recreation (AAHPER), was the first nationally recognized collegiate organization for women's athletics and the forerunner of the AIAW. The Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (CIAW) operated under the auspices of the DGWS. The CIAW governed from 1966 until February, 1972,[1] and conducted championships in eight sports.
During the 1972–73 season, the first full academic year of its operation, the AIAW offered its first eight national championships in the same eight sports (badminton, basketball, golf, gymnastics, softball, swimming & diving, track & field, and volleyball).
In years when small-college championships (Division II or III) were not contested, and in sports without divisions, there was open competition among eligible teams.
Except as noted below, the NCAA sponsored its first women's championship in each sport in the 1981–82 academic year. Individual athletic programs and, in some cases, individual teams within a program were permitted to choose to participate in either the AIAW or NCAA competitions (or both in a few instances). The NCAA has never sponsored championship competition in badminton, synchronized swimming, or slow-pitch softball.
In the sports of fencing, lacrosse, rowing and tennis, for completeness, the champions listed below include those bestowed by each sport's governing body prior to the beginning of AIAW championships in those sports.
Compilations of collegiate records by the NCAA, continuing into 2006, have ignored or segregated the contributions of AIAW athletes.[2][3][4] Major college basketball's career women's scoring leader, Lynette Woodard of the University of Kansas, speaking on the exclusion of AIAW statistics, said, "Basketball doesn't just start with when the NCAA blessed it. And it's not about Jackie [Stiles, NCAA career scoring leader] and it's not about Lynette. It's about history. History is history."[2]
After the last AIAW competition, collegiate badminton assumed the authority of its own national tournament committee in conjunction with the United States Badminton Association. The USBA continued the sponsorship of national collegiate championships from 1983. Wisconsin won in 1983. Arizona State won all ten titles from 1984 through 1993, when ASU dropped badminton.
The NIWFA has continued to sponsor national collegiate championships from 1983 through the present. From 1990 through the present the NCAA has sponsored a combined men's and women's team championship.
Gladys Palmer from Ohio State University initiated the women's intercollegiate golf championship in 1941. After World War II, the DGWS, known as the National Section on Women's Sports until 1957,[7] crowned an individual collegiate golf national champion from 1946 through 1971, when it became an AIAW event.
Only AIAW championship was in 1982. The National Women's Rowing Association (NWRA) sponsored an annual open eights national championship from 1971 to 1979, among college and non-college teams. (There were no eights prior to 1971.) During this period, only in 1973 and 1975 did a college team win the national eights championship outright. According to USRowing, contemporary news reports in 1976 and 1977 do not mention a national collegiate title. Beginning in 1980, the NWRA sponsored the Women's Collegiate National Championship in varsity eights.
NWRA Open Eights top college finishers, 1971–1979 (champion in parentheses):[10]
A medalist in the 1975 NWRA regatta stated that the 1975 regatta was the 10th annual national women's rowing championship, as emblazoned on T-shirts from the event.
One citation from 1996 states, "(The Cal Women's Crew) in 1979 finished second in the U.S. National Collegiate Championships. ... The 1980 Cal Women's Crew dominated the National Championships, ... They won the varsity eight, Cal's first ever varsity national championship in any women's sport."
One citation from 1999 states, "1980. First Women's Collegiate Rowing Championship held in Oak Ridge, TN."
One citation from 2001 states, " Just seven years after its first race, the (Yale) women's team claimed its first national championship in 1979."
After the last AIAW competition, the National Collegiate Rowing Championship was held from 1983 through 1996. Washington won the varsity eight in 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987, and 1988. Wisconsin won in 1986. Cornell won in 1989. Princeton won in 1990, 1993, 1994 and 1995. Boston University won in 1991 and 1992. Brown won in 1996.
From 1997 through the present the NCAA has sponsored the women's collegiate rowing championship.
The 1980 tournament was not officially sanctioned by the AIAW. North Carolina, Harvard, Texas A&M, UCLA, Cortland State, Northern Colorado and Colorado State participated. One reason for the tournament was to earn an official sanction for the sport, by complying with and fulfilling guidelines set forth by the AIAW.
From Fall 1982 through the present the NCAA has sponsored a women's championship.
From 1969 to 1982, the women's collegiate softball championship was also known as the Women's College World Series and was promoted as such.[12] The Women's College World Series was played in Omaha, Nebraska, through 1979 and in Norman, Oklahoma, during 1980–1982.
AIAW championship 1973–82. Previously administered by the Amateur Softball Association and sanctioned by DGWS from 1969 to 1972. Co-sponsored by the AIAW and ASA through 1979.
After the last AIAW competition, collegiate national championships in slow-pitch softball were conducted in 1983 and 1984 by the Amateur Softball Association.[14][15] The University of South Florida won both. It appears that most of the college women's slow-pitch teams at that time were from Florida and North Carolina.
United States Synchronized Swimming has continued to sponsor national collegiate championships from 1983 through the present. From 1983 through 2004, Ohio State won 19 of the 22 titles. Arizona won in 1984. Stanford won in 1998, 1999, 2005 through 2008, 2013 and 2016. Ohio State won in 2009 through 2012, and 2015. Lindenwood won in 2014.
Division I (no division 1968–1976, Large College 1977–1979)
AIAW championship 1977–82. Team championships were also bestowed from 1967[19][20] to 1979[21] by the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA). From 1958[22] to 1979,[21] the USLTA also crowned individual collegiate national champions in singles and doubles. (The 1979 USLTA team award appears to have been based on the AIAW results.[23][24])
The USBC (formerly ABC/Women's International Bowling Congress) has conducted a women's intercollegiate bowling championship annually since 1975, although it was not an AIAW sport.[25]
↑ "Utah Athletics Tradition"(PDF). UtahUtes.com. 2004. p.82. Archived from the original(PDF) on September 11, 2017. Retrieved December 20, 2015. The women's cross country team won the Division II AIAW Championship in 1981 (it joined the other Ute teams in Division I the following year).
↑ Goodloe, Dr. Nancy R. (2014). Before Brittney: A Legacy of Champions. FriesenPress. pp.10–12. ISBN978-1460230329.
↑ Mary L. Littlewood (1998). Women's Fastpitch Softball - The Path to the Gold, An Historical Look at Women's Fastpitch in the United States (firsted.). National Fastpitch Coaches Association, Columbia, Missouri. pp.145, 208. ISBN0-9664310-0-6.
↑ Plummer, William; Floyd, Larry C. (2013). A Series Of Their Own: History Of The Women's College World Series. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States: Turnkey Communications Inc. ISBN978-0-9893007-0-4.
↑ Greenberg, Mark I. (2006). University of South Florida: The First Fifty Years, 1956-2006. University of South Florida. p.95. Retrieved March 14, 2017. After many winning seasons, women's slow-pitch softball won USF its first national title in 1983 when it bested Florida State University in the American (sic) Softball Association Tournament. They won again the next year before joining the NCAA's fast-pitch league in 1985.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
↑ ""Remember When" at USF". Retrieved March 14, 2017. 1985 ... USF Women's Softball Team after winning two National Slow Pitch Softball Championships switches to fast pitch softball.
Virginia Hunt, "Governance of Women's Intercollegiate Athletics: an Historical Perspective," (Doctoral Dissertation, University of North Carolina - Greensboro, 1976), Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms (1977), 1-319
Suzanne Willey, "The Governance of Women's Intercollegiate Athletics: Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), 1976–1982," (Thesis (P.E.D.), Indiana University, 1996), Eugene, Oregon: Microform Publications (1997), 1-351
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