FEB 20, 2025 | OPINION | By Theo Braatz
In 1982, following the effects of Title IX, Colorado College was posed with a choice: demote their Division I men’s ice hockey team to Division III or create a D1 women’s sport. The school decided to create a women’s NCAA DI soccer team.
By 1982, CC’s club soccer team had already established itself as a top program after establishing their women’s club team in 1975. After the switch to DI in the 1985 season, the Tigers went 11-4-1 and eventually lost in the semifinals of the NCAA tournament. Their NCAA tournament appearance became a trend. The team made four more semifinal bids, including two trips to the national championship, but no wins.
Despite program success and Title IX, Colorado College did not equally fund or support its women’s soccer program until 1998.
In 1997, the NCAA conducted a 25-year check-up on Title IX, surveying schools nationwide and grading them on their compliance with the laws in all facets, not just athletics. They found that since 1972, the number of women competing in varsity high school athletics multiplied by 40, from less than 300,000 to 2.4 million. Evidently, there was a large pool of talent to recruit from at this time and a large group of women interested in high-level athletics.
Outside of the large pool of players, the school seemed ready for a DI women’s program, and at CC, the student body largely supported the women’s team. Soccer alum Karen Willoughby ‘89 described feeling like “a celebrity on campus.”
These factors should have led to an environment where the school and the administration supported the team wholeheartedly, granting them all the necessary resources to continue their success. This, unfortunately, was not the case.
The team faced discrimination, the most frequent being financial inequity and dismissive and diminishing narratives that downplayed their achievements.
The first and most direct way CC treated the team inequitably was through their lack of financial support. Despite the school being a non-profit, the only financial records available to students come from 1997, 25 years after Title IX was passed and 15 years after it was implemented.
At this time, six classes of female athletes passed through the school with no record of their financial aid. This period includes the golden era of women’s soccer at Colorado College, and as a result, no exact data about the funding they received is publicly available.
When the study was conducted in 1997, men’s athletic programs accounted for 72% of all athletic expenses that year while having the exact same number of varsity sports offered for men and women. This is blatant inequitable funding continuing 25 years after Title IX was passed, ironic in an institution that prides itself on its forward-thinking and inclusivity. Women’s soccer was elevated to DI as the counterpart of men’s ice hockey. In theory, their funding should be similar.
This could not be further from the case. In 1997, men’s ice hockey received $328,539 in funding from the school, while women’s soccer received only $80,054. That gap is larger than all of the money spent on all women’s athletic programs in the same year. There is no feasible explanation for this that does not involve inequitable treatment.
In addition to the team’s budgets, men’s teams accounted for 81% of all recruiting expenditures during the same year. Janine Szpara ‘88, a four-year First Team All-American CC and later member of the first World Cup-winning U.S. national team, recalled coaches spending out of their pocket to watch high school tournaments for recruiting, and the team regularly had to drive more than eight hours to play away games.
The team could not be expected to maintain their talent and high achievement when sharing only 19% of the total recruiting budget among eight other varsity women’s sports. Finally, in 1994, when head coach Carl Beal wrote to President Kathryn Mohrman requesting additional practice time and funding for the spring to avoid player injuries, he received a very dismissive response.
President Mohrman responded, saying, “There is no additional budgetary allowance for spring practice. Whatever you do must be accommodated in the funding you currently have.”
While Coach Beal’s request for rearranged timing for spring practices was accepted, he was not allowed to add more practices to the week or any additional budget to do so. The response from the administration was dismissive and didn’t provide any real change other than allowing the coach to change the timing of spring practices. The requests for actual assistance, more practices and funding were denied.
While this may seem relatively insignificant, especially compared with the egregious funding disparities mentioned above, it is another example of the administration refusing to aid the women’s soccer program. Despite its massive successes, women’s soccer was woefully underfunded during this time, with school funding disproportionately going to men’s ice hockey and other men’s athletic programs.
Women’s soccer at Colorado College between 1982 and 1997 was one of the country’s most consistently talented and successful teams. They performed at the highest level repeatedly and repeatedly proved they deserved their spot at the top. Despite this, the Colorado College administration routinely underfunded, disrespected and belittled the team.
Unfortunately, this has not changed in the 25 years since the last Title IX check-in. In 2020, the school spent over $20 million building Ed Robson Arena for men’s ice hockey, and head coach Kris Mayotte is the third highest-paid member of CC staff by nearly $50,000. All the while, women’s soccer still plays on the same field it did 40 years ago.