The fall of that 1976-77 academic year began with UT sponsoring seven sports-basketball, field hockey, gymnastics, swimming, tennis, track & field and volleyball. With $25,000 appropriated for scholarships by the UT Board of Trustees at its January 1976 meeting, a $20,000 donation from the men’s athletics department and additional funding sources in place (such as student activities fees), women’s athletics began 1977 with an approved budget of $126,000. Ray reported directly to Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Dr. Former UT graduate assistant Gloria Ray, who at that time was working at the Mississippi University for Women, emerged from a pool of more than 50 applicants as Tennessee’s first director of women’s athletics, effective Aug. Nancy Lay to relinquish her administrative duties of directing the women’s sports programs Lay had concerns that a business-minded approach would adversely affect educational values. The decision to move women’s athletics from the College of Education to a business model fashioned after the men’s program compelled Dr. After years of discrimination, they deserve it. Women’s athletic programs need university funding if they are to exist at all. Despite the obstacles, things are looking up for the female athletes at UT and around the country. The fight for comparable training and housing facilities, medical care and scholarships is far from won. These scholarships are a step in the right direction, but many more are needed to make up for the lack of them in the past. The money is only approximately one tenth of what is available to the men because, proportionately, there are fewer women athletes. women athletes are receiving scholarships for the first time this fall. is contributing $20,000 to the women’s budget for 1977.
University funds constitute the bulk of the women’s athletic budget. funding is “minimal” according to the chancellor’s task force report and needs to be beefed up if there is to be further improvement and expansion. Women’s intercollegiate athletic programs are making great strides, but the hurdles have been high and the progress slow. Boling’s staff later that summer to establish the Department of Women’s Intercollegiate Athletics as a single, freestanding unit, separate from the men’s program and reporting to the vice chancellor for Student Affairs. The task force’s data gave the UT administration the direction it needed and prompted Reese’s staff and UT President Dr. The group presented its final report, which included 17 specific recommendations, to Reese on April 1, 1976. Jack Reese appointed a Task Force on Women’s Athletics. President Gerald Ford in May of 1975, University of Tennessee Chancellor Dr. The Lady Vols brand stands as one of the most iconic in women's athletic across all levels of sport.Īs the final federal Title IX regulations were signed by U.S. To learn more, read The Legend of the Volunteer. This tradition lives on to present day with UT women's teams, including the eight-time national champion women's basketball program, still proudly bearing the Lady Volunteers name and logo. Upon formation of the Women's Intercollegiate Athletics Department in 1976, Tennessee's female student-athletes were known as the Lady Volunteers. Polk, another native son, made an appeal for 2,600 nationwide volunteers at the beginning of the conflict that resulted in more than 30,000 soldiers from his home state alone.Īs long as teams have represented UT on the field, those squads have carried on the name and tradition of the original Tennessee Volunteers. The name truly took hold during the Mexican-American war, when President James K. Andrew Jackson led more than 1,500 soldiers from his home state to fight for the United States at the Battle of New Orleans. The history of the "The Volunteer State" began with the War of 1812, when Gen. The bravery, heroism, wisdom and ferocity of the Volunteers place them on a pedestal of great American legends.Īs the land grand university for the state of Tennessee, UT adopted the state's moniker of "The Volunteer State" for its athletic teams.
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