The History
WKU had a women's basketball team beginning in 1915. Like several sport programs on The Hill, the team was discontinued while the United States was in conflict after 1930. The team wouldn't return to athletic competition for nearly 60 years.
Following the discontinuation of the women's basketball team, Kathy Kulp became the first female to compete in an intercollegiate athletic competition in 43 years when she played in a tennis co-ed doubles match in 1963.
In June of 1972, Title IX came into fruition:
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, including collegiate athletics.
On January 29, 1973, President Dero Downing approved intercollegiate athletic competition for women. Since then, we've never looked back.
Betty Langley worked in the physical education department and had tried out for the men's tennis team as a student. Energized by the approval from President Downing, Langley immediately went to work on creating women's intercollegiate athletics on The Hill.
Within just two weeks, WKU had a gymnastics team competing and individuals playing in golf tournaments.
By the fall of 1973, Pam Dickson coached the women's basketball team, Ray Rose was the coach of the gymnastics squad, Langley coached tennis and track was led by Dr. Shirley Laney.
Laney also coached the golf team once it became a squad in 1974-75. Volleyball replaced gymnastics in 1981 while women's swim and dive was added in 1997 followed by softball in 2000 and soccer in 2001.
Since its inception in winter of 1973, women's sports at WKU have thrived in every sense of the word. Lady Topper Basketball made its first postseason tournament appearance in 1977, just four seasons after its creation. Adele Gleaves Haswell was in the inaugural class in the WKU Athletics' Hall of Fame having competed in gymnastics from 1973-76. Brenda Chapman, a basketball letterwinner from 1975-78 and tennis letterwinner from 1974-75, was inducted in 1992.
WKU Athletics has had seven female Olympians including Breda Dennehy-Willis (Track & Field), Claire Donahue (Swimming), Michelle Finn (Track & Field), Larissa Franklin (Softball), Laura Igaune (Track & Field), Jessica Ramsey (Track & Field) and Gwen (Van Rensburg) Griffiths (Track & Field).
Lady Topper Hoops has three Final Four appearances, six Sweet 16 appearances and one championship game appearance. WKU Women's Basketball has won more C-USA titles than any other women's basketball program since joining the league in 2014-15. Former Lady Topper Hoops legendary coach Paul Sanderford, who has a retired uniform after coaching the Lady Tops for 26 years, was named to the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in February 2022.
Volleyball has won 14 of its possible 16 championships within its time in C-USA. The Hilltoppers have 11 30+ win seasons, 14 NCAA appearances overall and one appearance in the Sweet 16.
WKU Track & Field and Cross Country has collected 174 individual conference titles on the women's side, in addition to 32 team conference championships. The programs have also produced 33 All-Americans. Gayle Harris Watkins of the Track & Field program was WKU's first female All-American in 1979. Katie Isenbarger was the latest at the 2022 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships where she tied for fifth and finished First-Team in high jump.
Most recently, women's programs won four of WKU's five titles in the 2020-21 season. Overall, the female sport programs hold 25 of the department's 35 conference championships in the C-USA era.
