ABSTRACT
In the wake of Title IX, women's basketball programs have increased in stature, with one team bringing considerable attention to the college game. The University of Connecticut women’s basketball program, which started in 1974, had anything but an auspicious beginning, boasting one winning season in its first 11. Sports programs contain teams, which are formal organizations maintaining clearly stated norms, well defined members’ roles, and distinct objectives. This chapter considers both history and organizational development, providing information about the explosive growth of big-time college programs with their institutional logics directed toward winning and reaping the expanding financial rewards of their success. It also details about the minor-league systems in baseball and hockey, where the focus for institutional logics is on the development of players for the two major leagues in question. In England the institutional logics governing college sports is very different from big-time American programs, with little, in fact, that is big-time about them.
