The following story is from the Summer 2022 edition of the "Roar Report" that came out June 30. It is authored by Gary D'Amato, the former longtime sportswriter and columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, who joined the staff as the feature writer for the Roar Report in the Fall of 2018.

TITLE IX THRU THE EYES OF THE PANTHERS
 
It isn't hyperbole to suggest that June 23, 1972 was the most important date in American sports history. That was the date — 50 years ago this June — that then-President Richard Nixon signed the Education Amendments Act. Though there was no verbiage in the legislation pertaining to athletics, the law's Title IX helped to create gender equity in sports.
 
The law stated that "no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."
 
Slowly at first, but gathering speed and energy, Title IX became a tsunami, carrying female athletes to places they'd never been. 
 
Before Title IX, organized women's sports barely existed in high schools and colleges, where athletic departments were male-dominated fiefdoms. The landmark legislation paved the way for women athletes and coaches to move from playgrounds and physical education classes into the mainstream, ultimately to be governed by the organizations — the NCAA and state high school associations — that once ignored them.
 
To be sure, there was pushback through the 1970s. Men balked at changes to their decades-old institutions. Amendments to exclude income-generating sports from Title IX were proposed and rejected. Slowly but surely, one battle at a time, women fought for and won the equity that was mandated under the law.
 
"The women started to assert themselves using Title IX and the men reluctantly and grumpily queued up," said Erika Sander, the first head women's basketball coach at Milwaukee.
 
How far have we come? Well, just look at the wildly popular NCAA Women's Final Four, the WNBA or the Olympic gold medal-winning U.S. women's soccer, softball and ice hockey teams. Those things don't happen without Title IX.
 
And there is this: Fifty years ago, it would have been unthinkable for a woman to run an athletic department at the NCAA Division I level — or at any level, for that matter. Amanda Braun, who played basketball at Siena College and now is in her ninth full year as director of athletics at UWM, oversees six men's sports, seven women's sports and a multimillion-dollar budget. She is proud to stand on the shoulders of the pioneering women who came before her.
 
"You'd better believe it," she said. "I had opportunities as an athlete because of the work they did and the sacrifices that they made early on. It's not lost on me at all. I was in that transition kind of generation that was a little more aware of the history than (young women) might be now."
 
So let's go back to the beginning …
 
Sander's first year as Milwaukee's women's basketball coach, 1971-'72, actually pre-dated Title IX. Then an assistant professor in the department of physical education, she cobbled together a team of phy ed majors to play against a squad from Carthage College. 
 
"We went down there (to Kenosha)," Sander said, "and we beat 'em."
 
Sander coached the basketball team for five years and was never paid. She also was the de facto women's athletic director, as Milwaukee added gymnastics, fast-pitch softball, field hockey and volleyball under Title IX.
 
In the late spring of 1971, Al Negratti, then UWM's athletic director, asked Sander to come up with a budget.
 
"The UWM Post, the student paper, was giving us some coverage," Sander said. "So Al says, 'Do me a favor, throw a budget together and give me a scope statement on what you want to do, and let's see what I can do.' He didn't offer to pay for coaching. That came out of our hides.
 
"As I recall, the budget (for all women's sports) in 1971-'72 was something like $3,500. What did that include? Off the top of my head, five or seven volleyball matches in the fall, basketball maybe 10 games … another colleague was willing to coach gymnastics and I think they had, I don't know, five meets. And then softball in the spring. Volleyball, the coach turned out to be a gal I played recreation volleyball with who was on staff in what is now the IT area."
 
In those early years, Milwaukee's women's teams competed in the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW).
 
"When we had our conference meetings, some of the horror stories I heard from my colleagues were appalling at the old state universities," Sander said. "Basically, it was a men's show in athletics. We're talking about grossly inequitable practice times. We're talking budgetary … oh, by the way, here are the crumbs, ladies, go play."
 
The female student-athletes in those early years were largely unskilled. Remember, high school sports before Title IX were mostly nonexistent in much of the country.
 
"The ones that were skilled were the ones that came off the playgrounds," Sander said. "The summer rec programs were really good. And there also happened to be CYO players at (St.) Margaret Mary Parish, 92nd and Capitol. The others came from various sundry backgrounds. But most of them learned their skills, if they had any to begin with, off the playgrounds."
 
The basketball team played its games at Englemann Hall. The players set up chairs around the perimeter of the court for the few spectators who straggled in. Occasionally, the women got a mention in the Milwaukee Journal because the late Tom Flaherty, a reporter for the newspaper, had taken a liking to women's basketball.
 
"He took in the postgame pizza and pitchers of beer, when you could do that stuff," Sander said. "I have wonderful memories of that era."
 
In 1978, with women making headway under Title IX, UWM hired M.A. Kelling to be the school's first full-time — and paid — women's basketball coach.
 
Kelling had played field hockey and basketball as an undergrad at Bowling Green and later taught in the physical education department for five years at Northwestern University, where she coached both sports on a volunteer basis.
 
At UWM, she no longer had to teach. She was a professional coach.
 
"Oh, I loved it," she said. "Oh my gosh, I just loved it. That was a great change. And it was because of Title IX."
 
Still, there were plenty of growing pains. The team played its games in creaky old Baker Fieldhouse, which was built in 1931 (and demolished in 1986) and where the players had to crank down the baskets and, occasionally, clean pigeon droppings off the court. Kelling drove the team van to road games in cities such as Detroit, Cleveland and Youngstown, Ohio. After stressful hours behind the wheel, she still had to coach the games. The women's team did not have a dedicated athletic trainer, so Kelling taped her players' ankles, having learned how to do it in an athletic training course in graduate school.
 
"If someone was really hurt, we could send them to the athletic trainer, which was in an all-male area," she said. "It was difficult in Baker Fieldhouse, because the men's showers were across the hall from the athletic training facility. If you were walking down the hall you might see a male athlete crossing the hall with a towel around himself."
 
Kelling also was an assistant women's volleyball coach, but she freely admitted she did more cheering than coaching.
 
"I was supposed to be head basketball and head volleyball coach and I knew nothing about volleyball," she said. "I told the athletic director, Jim Harding, 'I don't know anything about volleyball.' I'll never forget this. He said, 'Can you fake it?' I said, 'No, I can't fake it.' He said, 'OK, I'll hire a volleyball coach, and will you be the assistant?' So I said yes.
 
"Basically, I held the water for them. I was like the water girl, and I cheered for them."
 
Despite the early obstacles, Kelling's basketball teams became a force. She coached from 1978-'95 and posted a career record of 284-198, with a .589 winning percentage. Her teams won four NAIA District 14 championships, including three straight from 1983-'85. She was a four-time NAIA District 14 Coach of the Year and was inducted into the Panther Hall of Fame in 2000.
 
"As my coaching years continued, the athletic programs in the high schools, the coaches and the players, were really, really improving," she said. "The players were more skilled. I would go to the (WIAA) state tournament and it would be packed. I was like, 'Wow, this is great.' I would go to a Pius game and it would be a sellout. I thought, 'This is so cool. This is so awesome that the parents created such a supportive environment for the girls.'"
 
Today, UWM fields women's sports in NCAA Division I in basketball, cross country, soccer, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field and volleyball.
 
"Scholarship-wise, the women receive at least 50-50, if not a larger percentage," Braun said. "Our participation opportunities are right about 50-50. And then our budgets, we allocate very similarly. The operating budgets are very similar across our sports, particularly where you can compare the two. Like (men's and women's) soccer, they're almost identical."
 
Sander, a pioneer who helped get the ball rolling — literally and figuratively — still pays close attention to all sports on all levels. She is proud of the progress women have made, thanks to Title IX. The Milwaukee Athletic Department has been spending the summer highlighting the 50-year anniversary of the legislation, and Sander was thrilled to be included and tell more about the role she played.
 
"Oh," she said, "it delights me no end."