Ivy League Sports

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 Penn 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 Penn 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 Penn 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 Penn 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 Penn 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. Penn'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 Penn'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.

2003 Two-time Ivy League Player of the Year Hana Peljto was named to the academic all-America first team, while helping lead Harvard to a 14-0 Ivy record (22-4 overall) and ranking 10th in the nation in scoring with 21.3 ppg. The senior also was named Rookie of the Year and is majoring in Psychology.

2003 Twins Kate and Laura O'Neill were side by side throughout their career at Yale. Earning all-America status after finishing second and fourth respectively in the 10,000-meter run at the NCAA Championships, the twosome also earned academic all-America honors. The duo holds the fastest times in League history for the 5,000 and 10,000m, and were named co-athletes of the meet at the Outdoor Heptagonal Games. Additionally, Kate was named Mondo District Athlete of the Year and NCAA Woman of the Year for the state of Connecticut.

2003 Touted as one of the best defenders in the nation, Rachael Becker helped Princeton earn two consecutive national lacrosse titles and raked in honor after honor in 2003. The three-time all-American was the recipient of lacrosse's prestigious Tewaaraton Trophy and the Honda Sports Award, as well as being named Ivy League Player of the Year. En route to the national title, Becker anchored a defense that allowed only 4.5 goals per game, culminating in a 5-3 victory over Loyola (Md.) in the national tournament.

2003 After 30 years, Radcliffe (Harvard) women's crew took the national team and varsity eight title, beating out rowing powerhouses such as Michigan, Stanford, and Washington in a time of 6:26.98 and 59 team points. The varsity eights also took All-Ivy first team honors, while head coach Liz O'Leary earned the Coach of the Year award from the College Rowing Coaches Association (CRCA).

2003 After finishing last at every Cross Country Heps in which it competed from 1978 to 1997, Columbia jumped to a fifth-place finish in 1998 before finishing third in each of the last three seasons. In 2003, the Lions raised the bar, dominating Heps with five top-10 finishers. Their 29 points was just six points off the League mark of 23 set by Dartmouth in 1995 and 1997, and their 63-point margin of victory was the widest in Heps history.

2003 Two-time Olympic medalist Jennifer Botterill has taken Ivy League women's hockey to a new level. The Ivy League Player of the Year and the only two-time Patty Kazmaier award winner led the nation in goals with 39 and is the all-time leading scorer not only at Harvard but in Division I ice hockey history, surpassing the record set by Michigan State's Tom Ross.