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1972 The Eastern Association
of Women's rowing colleges holds its first regatta. Charter
members Barnard, Princeton and Radcliffe participate.
Princeton wins the inaugural race, while Radcliffe finishes
in second place.
1973 Lawrie Mifflin graduates in Yale's first class
to admit women as freshmen. Responsible for the promotion of
the field hockey squad to varsity status, Mifflin goes on to
become one of the first woman sportswriters for the New York
Daily News and The New York Times, and is the first Ivy
League woman to be honored with an NCAA Silver Anniversary
Award in 1998.
1974 Radcliffe claims the first official Ivy League
championship in a women's sports, winning the EAWRC Regatta
in Middletown, Conn.
1974 Three years after Pembroke and Brown unify their
athletic programs, a merger between Radcliffe and Harvard
results in the Harvard Department of Athletics assuming
complete administration of women's athletics on campus. Only
the rowing team retains the Radcliffe name, by a vote of the
team members.
1975 Princeton wins the first Ivy League title in
basketball. The following season, the Tigers win their
second of four consecutive crowns, and advance to the
National Small College Basketball Tournament.
1976 For the first time in history, women are
eligible to receive Rhodes Scholarships. Three varsity
letterwinners are selected among theh 13 women in the
inaugural class, and all three are from Ivy League
institutions: Alison Muscatine and Denise Thal, who both
play basketball and tennis at Harvard-Radcliffe, and
Princeton field hockey player Suzanne Perles.
1976 Dartmouth's Sandy Helve graduates with a
combined 11 varsity letters in field hockey, squash and
lacrosse, the maximum number possible at the college. Emily
Goodfellow collects 12 letters in field hockey, squash and
lacrosse during her four years at Princeton.
1976 Cornell wins the first Ivy league championship
in ice hockey, also the first title to be awarded in
tournament play. The Red strings five straight outright
titles together, then shares the sixth crown with Brown in
1981.
1976 Yale crew members stage a "Strip-In" in Director
of Physical Education Joni Barnett's office. Protesting the
lack of facilities for women rowers, about 20 team members
strip off their sweats to reveal "Title IX" painted across
their bare bodies; the event receives national attention and
produces an increase in resources.
1977 Dartmouth wins the first Ivy League outdoor
track and field championship in a competition held at
Cornell. That fall, Harvard captures the inaugural Ivy
league crown in cross country, and Pennsylvania wins the
first Ivy League volleyball championship.
1977 Yale wins the first Ivy League title in
gymnastics. The Bulldogs take seven of the next 12 crowns,
while Cornell wins the other five, until Brown notches its
first title in the final Ivy championship in 1990. Beginning
the following year, there is one fewer gymnastics team than
League rules require to declare an official Ivy
champion.
1977 Princeton wins the first Ivy league swimming and
diving championship, held at the University of Pennsylvania.
The format for the championship remains the same until 1982,
when other schools are added and the Eastern Women's
Swimming League Championship begins. Ivy League schools
compete in the EWSLs from 1983 through 1997, before the
Ivy-only format is restored for the 1998 championship.
1978 The Ivy League honors a women's soccer champion
for the first time. Harvard wins the title, awarded in
tournament play, with a 3-0 victory at second-place
Brown.
1979 The fall season includes the initial Ivy League
crown awarded in field hockey, won by Dartmouth. In a little
more than five years, the Ivy League has created
championships in 10 women's sports.
1980 Dartmouth wins its first League basketball
title, starting a streak of four straight outright
championships that produces the League's first appearance in
the NCAA tournament in 1983. The Big Green has won or shared
11 League basketball titles, the most of any school.
1980 Three spring sports -- lacrosse, softball and
tennis -- award Ivy League championships for the first time.
Yale wins the softball title outright and shares the
lacrosse and tennis crowns with Pennsylvania and Princeton,
respectively.
1981 Indoor track and field is added as a distinct
sport with a separate Ivy League championship. Princeton
wins the first title.
1982 Yale captures the initial Ivy League crown in
fencing, the 15th Ivy women's championship sport, and wins
the AIAW national title. The Bulldogs' Andrea Metkus wins
the individual crown at the same competition and is honored
with the Broderick Award in fencing, awarded annually to the
top performer.
1982 Dartmouth basketball star Gail Koziara,
three-time Ivy Player of the Year and the League's
second-leading scorer, becomes the first woman in League
history to earn an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship.
1982 Brown wins its second League soccer crown in the
sport's five-year history. This is the first of Brown's nine
consecutive triumphs, which produce four NCAA tournament
invitaitons and quarterfinal appearances in 1983 and
1984.
1982 Princeton Associate Athletic Director Merrily
Dean Baker ends her term as the final president of the AIAW,
which loses a lawsuit to prevent the NCAA from governing
intercollegiate women's athletics.
1982 Ivy League soccer and basketball championships
are changed from tournament play to a full round-robin
schedule (double round-robin for basketball). The ice hockey
title is changed in the same manner the following
season.
1983 Nine years after Radcliffe's victory at the
EAWRC Regatta marks the beginning of women's Ivy League
athletic championships, Yale wins the first League title in
squash, the 16th sport to award an Ivy crown.
1983 Pennsylvania begins a string of six consecutive
Ivy fencing championships, winning the NCAA title in
1986.
1983 Cindy Cohen becomes head coach of the Princeton
softball program after its first Ivy title in 1983 and leads
the Tigers to 11 of the next 13 Ivy League crowns.
1984 Princeton ice hockey defenseman Syrena Carlbom
wins her third straight Ivy Player of the Year award in the
first three years of the award's existence.
1984 Kate Wiley of Harvard
becomes the first -- and still remains the only --
three-time winner of the Heptagonal Cross Country
Championships.
1984 The Ivy League sponsors
more sports, played by more women and more men, than any
conference in the country, and the Council of Ivy Group
Presidents begins a continuing pattern of increases in Ivy
League Office resouces to support these activities.
1985 Yale wins its second straight NCAA championship
in women's fencing, and Ivy League athletes take three of
the four top spots in the individual competition, led by
champion Caitlin Bilodeaux of Columbia.
1986 Columbia advances to the NCAA Division III
Naitonal Basketball Tournament in the first year after the
Columbia-Barnard consortium is formalized for all sports,
then moves up to the Division I level in 1986-87.
1987 Yale captures its second of four straight Ivy
cross country championships, and places third at the NCAA
championships, the League's best team finish to date.
1988 Pennsylvania reaches the semifinal round of the
NCAA field hockey tournament, the first League member to
advance beyond the first round.
1989 Columbia wins the first of its three straight
Ivy League fencing crowns and finishes in second place at
the NCAA championships.
1990 Harvard becomes the first Ivy member to claim an
NCAA women's lacross championship with a thrilling 8-7 win
against traditional powerhouse Maryland.
1990 Charlotte Joslin, a member of the Harvard
national championship lacrosse team, graduates with a
combined 12 varsity letters in field hockey, ice hockey, and
lacrosse. Princeton's Mollie Marcoux, graduating the
following year, matches the extraordinary total with 12
letters in soccer, ice hockey and lacrosse.
1991 Cornell wins the Heptagonal Outdoor Track and
Field Championships by three points, the second-closest
margin in history. The Big Red's fourth title of the decade
comes in 1997 by an even smaller margin, a slim one-half
point ahead of Princeton.
1992 Harvard begins a streak of six consecutive
seasons in which the Crimson does not lose a single League
squash match. During that period, Harvard wins five straight
Howe Cups, the national women's squash competition held at
Yale since its inception in 1973.
1992 Two undergraduate women athletes file a Title IX
complaint against Brown. The ultimate resolution of Cohen v.
Brown sets benchmarks for future rulings on participation
and resource opportunities for women athletes.
1993 Princeton's Kristen Beaney wins the 5,000-meter
run and is named the Outstanding Performer at the Heptagonal
Indoor Track and Field Championships. She matches her
performance the following year, adding a victory in the
3,000-meter run, and becomes the first two-time winner of
the Outstanding Performer award.
1993 Cornell wins its third consecutive Ivy League
volleyball championship and becomes the first League team to
participate in the NCAA tournament, falling in the first
round to national power Nebraska.
1994 Brown outlasts Dartmouth in overtime in the
first-ever League basketball playoff game and gains the
Ivies' first automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The Bears
then enter the second half of their first-round contest tied
with the University of Connecticut before falling 79-60.
1994 Princeton wins sole possession of the Ivy League
lacrosse crown, the first time in eight years that Harvard
has not at least shared the title. In the postseason, the
Tigers win a 14-13 overtime classic against defending
champion Virginia in the national semifinal and then outlast
Maryland by a 10-7 count to win the national
championship.
1994 Through private donations, the Ivy League
enlists sculptor Timothy Maslyn to create a series of new
championship trophies for several sports. Maslyn constructs
his first work of art, the Lajos S. Csiszar Trophy, in the
likeness of Pennsylvania fencer Mary Jane O'Neill, who won
the NCAA individual title in 1984. By 1997, Maslyn has
constructed trophies for four women's sports, including
softball, tennis and rowing.
1994 The Council of Ivy Group Presidents approves the
appointment of a Senior Women's Administrator to the Ivy
Policy Committee. Pennsylvania's Carolyn Schlie Femovich is
the first appointee.
1995 Princeton wins the NCAA Softball Play-In against
Rider. The Tigers, who at one point that season won 29 games
in a row, then earn the right to host an NCAA Regional. With
a win against Hofstra and two wins against Connecticut,
Princeton becomes the first Ivy League representative in the
College Softball World Series. the Tigers make the return
trip to the World Series the following year as well.
1995 Pennsylvania's Barrie Bernstein becomes the
seventh singles player in League women's tennis history to
be a four-time first team All-Ivy selection, but it's
Cornell's Olga
Itskhoki who wins the
League's inaugural Player of the Year award.
1996 Princeton's field hockey team surprises national
powers Iowa and Old Dominion to advance to the championship
game of the NCAA tournament. The Tigers fall to North
Carolina in the title contest, but the following season
successfully maintain an undefeated streak of 25 games in
the League dating back to 1993, and make a return trip to
the national semifinals.
1997 The Bethpage, N.Y. Golf Course is the site of
the Ivy League's first women's golf championship, and Yale
cruises to a 38-shot victory. Princeton senior Mary Moan is
the first-ever individual medalist.
1997 The inaugural NCAA women's rowing championship
is crowned on Lake Natoma in Sacramento, Calif. Princeton
and Brown finish second and third, respectively, in the
overall team totals, with Dartmouth, Radcliffe and Yale also
receiving bids. Yale Associate Athletic Director Barbara
Chesler is the inaugural chair of the NCAA Women's Rowing
Committee.
1997-98 Columbia field hockey and lacrosse programs,
recently elevated to varsity status, play a full Ivy League
schedule for the first time, making a full eight-team league
possible for both sports.
1998 The United States women's ice hockey team wins
the first-ever gold medal in the sport in the 1998 Olympic
Games in Nagano, Japan. Eight team members have former or
current Ivy League connections: Lisa Brown-Miller (former
Princeton coach), Katie King (Brown '97), A.J. Mleczko
(Harvard '99), Tara
Mounsey (Brown),
Sarah
Tueting (Dartmouth '98),
Gretchen Ulion (Dartmouth '94) and Sandra Whyte (Harvard
'92), and head coach Ben Smith (Harvard '68).
1998 Brown topples New Hampshire, 4-3, to become the
first Ivy League school to win an ECAC women's ice hockey
crown. The Bears receive an automatic bid to the inaugural
USA Hockey national collegiate championship, where they beat
Northeastern in the national semifinals before falling in
the championship game to New Hampshire.
1998 Harvard basketball sensation Allison Feaster is
the first-ever athlete in any sport, men's or women's, to be
dually honored as an Ivy league Rookie of the Year and a
three-time Ivy League Player of the Year. Feaster leads the
nation in scoring her senior season, averaging 28.5 ppg.,
and is the first Ivy League athlete in history to be named a
Kodak All-American, an honor bestowed annually on the top 10
players in all of women's college basketball.
1998 The Harvard women's basketball team produces one
of the biggest upsets in college basketball history,
becoming the first No. 16 seed to beat a No. 1 seed in
either the NCAA men's or women's tournament, with a 71-67
defeat at Stanford. The victory ends the Cardinal's 59-game
home winning streak and moves an Ivy League women's team
into the NCAA second round for the first time ever.
1998 Columbia's Cristina
Teuscher, a member of the
gold medal-winning 800-freestyle relay team in the 1996
Olympic Games, becomes the first Ivy League woman to win an
NCAA swimming championship. She captures the 500-yard
freestyle in a time of 4:35.45, the second-fastest time in
U.S. history and more than three seconds ahead of the second
place finisher. The following day, she wins her second
title, this time in the 400-meter individual medley.
1998 The Ivy League begins a year-long commemoration
of 25 years of Ivy women's championships. The celebration
honors past athletes for their accomplishments, marks
prominent transitions in Ivy League women's athletic
programs during thhe 25-year period, and helps plan a future
direction.
1999 For the first time in League history, four Ivy
teams are chosen for the NCAA Women's College Cup soccer
tournament. Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, and Princeton are all
selected, and Dartmouth and Harvard advance to the second
round. The League would again send four teams to the
national tournament two years later.
1999 Harvard women's ice hockey claims its first
League title in 10 years. The Crimson advance to the ECAC
tournament where the squad defeats Dartmouth in the
semifinals and New Hampshire in the final. Next, it was on
to the United States Women's College Hockey Championship in
Minneapolis where Harvard defeated League foe Brown in the
semifinals and then squared off with New Hampshire for the
second time in less than a week. The Crimson earned a 6-5
overtime victory over the Wildcats to become the 1998-99
national champion for women's ice hockey. Harvard forward
A.J. Mlezcko wins the League's Player of the Year award and
goes on to claim the Kazmaier trophy as the NCAA's top
women's ice hockey student-athlete.
1999 The Ivy League concluded its year-long
celebration of 25 years of Ivy women's championships by
publishing "Silver
Era, Golden Moments." The
book marks the cultural importance of women's athletics,
narrating the integration of women into all eight Ivy
schools, and into higher education nationally, and the
growth of women's athletics following the enactment of Title
IX in 1972. The 25th anniversary celebration culminates with
the Silver Anniversary Symposium on April 23 and 24. The
symposium is the final stop for the 25th Anniversary
Traveling Exhibit and several of the League's most prominent
former female athletes are welcomed as speakers and
panelists.
2000 Columbia's Cristina
Teuscher becomes the first
Ivy student-athlete ever to win the prestigious Honda
Broderick Cup. The cup is awarded annually to the top female
student-athlete in the United States. Later that year,
Teuscher helps establish the Cristina Teuscher Women's
Intercollegiate Sports Endowment. The endowment, which is
the first of its kind in Columbia Athletic history, is part
of the school's continued commitment to the growth of
women's athletics, and "will be allocated to enhance the
quality of the intercollegiate experience for women's sports
participants" at Columbia.
2000 Dartmouth wins its fourth of five consecutive
Ivy lacrosse championships, but it's the Princeton squad
that upsets Duke in the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament
and advances all the way to the NCAA championship game
before falling to Maryland.
2000 For the second straight year, Dartmouth wins the
Ivy women's basketball championship and nearly pulls off an
upset in the NCAA tournament first round. Trailing
fourth-ranked and eventual national champ Purdue by 13
points at half (44-31), the Big Green outscored the
Boilermakers 35-26 in the second half before succumbing,
70-66, on Purdue's home floor.
2001 Harvard's Brenda Taylor wins the NCAA
championship in the 400 and is named the Honda Award winner
as the top woman collegiate athlete in Track & Field.
Taylor is the second consecutive Ivy athlete to be
recognized by Honda in their season-ending national awards
for exceptional student-athletes.
2001 The Penn women's tennis team won their
first-ever Ivy title, then pulled off a stunning upset of
19h-ranked Pepperdine before losing to Baylor in the second
round. Quaker freshman Sanela Kunovac becomes only the
second women's tennis player to win both the Freshman of the
Year and Player of the Year in the same season.
2001 Princeton's field hockey team advances to the
NCAA tournament semifinals for the fourth time in six
seasons after defeating defending national champion and
second-seeded Old Dominion, 2-1, in a classic field hockey
contest. The Tigers would eventually succumb to eventual
national champion Michigan in the semifinals.
2002 Princeton's senior lacrosse players stepped up
in the 12-7 win over Georgetown in the Women's Lacrosse
National Championship game in Baltimore, Md. Tiger seniors
scored seven goals as Princeton won the national title in
front of some 4,400 people. "There was never a doubt in my
mind that we would win this," said senior Lauren Simone. "We
proved in the Maryland game that even a five-goal deficit is
not too much to overcome. I think the whole team had
complete confidence in out ability to come back and win this
game."
2002 Twelve Ivy League women's ice hockey players --
five Canadians and seven Americans -- took home medals from
the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in February. On the
gold-winning Canadian team were Dana Antall (Cornell),
Jennifer Botterill (Harvard '02), Becky Kellar (Brown '97),
Cherie Piper (Dartmouth '05, deferred) and Tammy Schewchuk
(Harvard '01). Representing the U.S. and bringing back
silver medals were Julie Chu (Harvard '05, deferred), Andrea
Kilbourne (Princeton '03), Katie King (Brown '97), A.J.
Mleczko (Harvard '99), Tara Mounsey (Brown '01), Angela
Ruggerio (Harvard '02) and Sarah Tueting (Dartmouth
'98).
2002 JoAnn (Josie) Harper, a prominent figure in
collegiate athletics and a highly regarded coach who had
been Senior Associate Director of Athletics at Dartmouth
since 1999, was named Dartmouth's Director of Athletics and
Recreation. With that appointment, Harper became the first
woman to hold such a position in Ivy League history.
2002 To honor the spirit and courage of Amanda
Walton, Yale University presented Walton with the first
Amanda D. Walton Award, which is presented at the discretion
of the Department of Athletics to an outstanding athlete who
has excelled on the field of play and who has shown spirit
and courage in transcending unforeseen challenges. After her
sophomore year, Walton, who was a field hockey and women's
lacrosse standout at Yale, was involved in an automobile
accident which put her career on hold. She overcame a coma
and physical injuries with hard work and dedication.
2002 Princeton's Lauren Simmons finished her senior
track and field season in amazing fashion. After running a
personal best 2:03.87 in the qualifying rounds at the NCAAs
in New Orleans, she clocked another superb effort in the
final. Finishing in 2:05.08, she trailed only North Carolina
sophomore Alice Schmidt.
2002 Cornell lacrosse star Jaimee Reynolds, a senior
from Baltimore, Md., became just the 13th Ivy Leaguer to
earn first-team Academic All-America status twice in a
career as she was named to the Verizon Academic All-America
Women's At-Large Team. The 2002 Ivy League Player of the
Year maintained a 3.77 grade-point average in Agricultural
and Biological Engineering.
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