Countless examples of how Bill Fennelly and his staff turned a once-downtrodden Iowa State women’s basketball program into a perennial winner lurked within the closing moments of a momentous win over UConn in the 1999 NCAA Sweet 16.
Five decades after the passage of Title IX, many challenges remain for women’s sports — both at Iowa and across the country.
Ranking the top nine women’s sports moments at UNI since Title IX, including the rise of women’s basketball.
Moment No. 1 in our series of the top 50 moments in Iowa women’s athletics history: On Feb. 3, 1985, 22,157 fans flocked to Carver-Hawkeye Arena and shattered the women’s basketball attendance record.
Lisa (Koll) Uhl already had secured two NCAA titles, so the 2010 “double” win simply capped a record-setting and decorated collegiate career — and rightly sits at No. 2 in our countdown of top moments in Iowa State women’s sports history since the adoption of Title IX 50 years ago.
Moment No. 2: Iowa women’s basketball overcomes tragedy on its way to the first and only Final Four in program history.
Moment No. 3: Iowa’s 1986 field hockey team became the first Iowa women’s team to win an NCAA championship.
50 years of Title IX at Iowa State: Led by Peg Neppel-Darrah, the Cyclones won four AIAW cross country national titles from 1975 to ’78.
Moment No. 4: The University of Iowa, under leadership of then-president Sandy Boyd, elevated 12 women’s teams to intercollegiate status and hired Christine Grant as the women’s athletics director.
From the “front lines” of the fight to keep Title IX’s implementation in sports alive to the focus on women’s athletes’ well-being, Christine Grant left quite the legacy both at Iowa and across the country.
Kicking off the countdown of Iowa State’s most unforgettable moments since the advent of Title IX in 1972.
Moment No. 5: For the first time ever, an Iowa women’s team went to a Final Four in 1984.
Moment No. 6: Lisa Bluder and Megan Gustafson became the first player-coach duo from the Big Ten to sweep the Naismith National Coach of the Year and National Player of the Year awards.
Moment No. 7: Christine Grant pulled off what she later described as her “best recruiting job I ever did in my life,” swaying C. Vivian Stringer to come to Iowa.
Moment No. 8: In a 22-day period, Iowa women’s basketball won two Big Ten championships and had three sellouts at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
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