UM LED THE REVOLUTION IN WOMEN’S COLLEGE SPORTS

The university’s progressive leaders put a private school in the South at the forefront of women’s college athletics in the early 1970s.

Terry Williams Munz vividly remembers scurrying into her Redland home to answer the telephone one spring day in 1993. A University of Miami athletic department official was on the other end of the line to inform her that a “Jeopardy!” game show researcher had called to confirm the accuracy of an upcoming clue:

“Golfer Terry Williams was the USA’s first woman to receive one of these from the University of Miami in 1973”

The correct response: “What is a sports scholarship?”

Had “Jeopardy!” not posed that clue, Williams Munz might never have found out that she made history on May 7, 1973, when she signed a $2,400 athletic tuition waiver scholarship from UM.

With that signature, she became the first female athlete in any sport to receive an athletic scholarship from a U.S. university. Up until that point, women played recreational sports on college campuses, but none had been awarded athletics-based scholarships. Those were reserved for male student-athletes.

A May 23, 1973, article in the New York Times read:

“The University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla., has awarded five athletic scholarships to women during the past two weeks and has 10 more to give to women high school graduates able to enter the Miami freshman class next fall. It is considered to be the first time a college with such a bigtime athletic stature has given an athletic grant to a woman. Certainly no other bigtime sports college has offered 15 women’s athletic scholarships in one year.”

Williams Munz never saw that story, so it wasn’t until the “Jeopardy!” call that she learned of her milestone.

UM’s historic decision came 11 months after thenPresident

Richard Nixon signed the Education Amendments Act on June 23, 1972. Within that landmark legislation, which addressed gender inequality in education, was a 37-word clause called Title IX that would change women’s sports forever.

It read: “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.”

Although neither

“sports” nor “athletics” are among the 37 words of

Title IX, gender equality in high school and college athletics fell under the law’s umbrella and became a battle cry that has reverberated for the past five decades.

In 1972, a total of

294,015 girls participated in high school sports in the United States, according to the National Federation of

State High School Associations. That number represented just 7 percent of the high school varsity athletes at that time.

Today, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the passage of Title IX, more than 3.4 million girls play high school sports and make up 43 percent of all high school athletes.

In 1972, fewer than 30,000 women participated in college sports. Today, that number has grown to 215,486. Women comprised 15 percent of collegiate athletes in 1972. By 2020-21, that number was up to 44 percent.

“For 20 years I didn’t know I was the first one; I had absolutely no clue until 1993,” Williams Munz, 66, told the Herald during a recent interview at the 40-acre Redland property her husband’s family has owned since the 1940s. “When I accepted that scholarship, I was just a 17-year-old kid who loved to play golf and UM was giving me the chance to get an education, do what I love, and save my parents money. I had heard of Title IX but didn’t realize it was a big deal at the time.”

Williams was an athletic kid, won best athlete at Redland Junior High, and picked up golf when she was 13. Her father was a Miami-Dade firefighter, the Redland Golf Course allowed firemen to play for free and he fell in love with the game. Williams’ mom also started to play, so she followed suit.

When she arrived at South Dade Senior High School in 1970, the only sports offered for girls were gymnastics, cheerleading and tennis. So, she joined the boys’ golf team, which was coached by Marvin Schneider, a forward-thinking man who later urged her to pursue college golf.

Williams quickly made a name for herself on the local high school golf scene, set some course records and was one of the athletes featured in the McArthur Dairy “Salutes” program.

“Competing on the boys’ team was kind of cool,” Williams Munz said. “I have grandsons now who wrestle against girls, and I can relate. The boys were respectful of me. I hit the ball hard for someone my size because I had to play the boys’ tees. I didn’t hit as far as they did, but I never got to play girls’ tees until I got to college, so it helped me get stronger.

“I never felt discriminated against because in golf. If I shot the secondbest score on the team, I was the No. 2 golfer on the team. It’s not subjective.”

Meanwhile, in Woodbridge, New Jersey, 17year-old swimmer Lynn Gienieczko was training at all-male Rutgers University alongside male swimmers under former Olympics coach Frank Elm. He ran an age-group program for girls, and Gienieczko joined when she was 11.

“I was called a tomboy, but I didn’t really know what that meant,” Gienieczko, 66, told the Herald by phone from Morristown, New Jersey, where she is an appraiser who provides guidance to clients requiring valuation of their antiques, art, and jewelry. “To me, it meant I’m faster than you and I got drafted earlier than you in kickball. I never felt insulted or shunned; everybody wanted me on their team be

WHEN I ACCEPTED THAT SCHOLARSHIP ... I HAD HEARD OF TITLE IX BUT DIDN’T REALIZE IT WAS A BIG DEAL. Terry Williams Munz

MATIAS J. OCNER mocner@miamiherald.com Terry Williams Munz, the first woman in the United States to receive a college athletic scholarship in 1973, poses recently for a photograph outside her home in Redland, near Homestead. Williams Munz, who played golf at South Dade Senior High School before getting the scholarship to the University of Miami, didn’t realize she had made history until many years later, when her accomplishment inspired a clue on ‘Jeopardy!’

Courtesy of Terry Williams Munz A photo of Terry Williams’ golf scholarship to the University of Miami is dated May 7, 1973. She received it less than a year after Congress mandated that female athletes in schools that receive federal assistance be given the same benefits as men.