Light the Way: The Campaign for Berkeley

Men weren’t allowed to attend the historic game. (More than a decade passed before a men’s basketball team was formed.) Even Cal’s coach, physical education professor Walter Magee, could not be courtside. After a 1−1 halftime tie — the lack of a backboard inhibited scoring — Stanford prevailed by one point. Reporter Mabel Craft, an 1892 Berkeley alum and future San Francisco Chronicle editor, called the game “the first great struggle in feminine athletics.”

Women student-athletes have long striven for equity in their chosen sports. That’s why Cal Athletics, which sponsors 16 women’s sports teams, spent a year celebrating the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the landmark 1972 legislation that prohibits gender-based discrimination in federally funded education programs or activities.

The Title IX anniversary also saw the successful culmination of an $8 million capital campaign — Cal’s first to focus on elevating women’s sports. More than 200 donors contributed to building new facilities for women’s softball and beach volleyball. Bill Ausfahl ’61, co-chair of the campaign, was moved to honor the girls and women in his family, including Trudy, his wife, who had been denied the right to compete as a young athlete.