ABSTRACT
As women’s athletics enters into a mid-life growth pattern, following an initial explosion in women’s intercollegiate programs in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, it faces great uncertainties. The absorption of the defunct Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) by the NCAA, 1 the effects of the Supreme Court’s Grove City College v. Bell decision 2 on enforcement of Title IX in athletics, 3 the loss of football television revenues by the NCAA, 4 and its potential effect on the funding of non-revenue producing sports championships, 5 and the failure to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the federal Constitution 6 all pose serious questions to those individuals concerned with continued development of women’s athletic programs. With little time to reflect on how far and how fast they have come with their programs, 7 women’s athletic program administrators and the legal experts who represent their interests face new and increasingly difficult problems to solve. 8
