Looking back on the history of women’s sports at Baylor

When you think of the greatest moments in Baylor women’s athletics history, you likely think of highlights like Women’s Basketball’s three national championships, Acrobatics & Tumbling’s decade of dominance, and Softball’s six Women’s College World Series appearances.

Not surprisingly, many of those moments have come in the last quarter-century, as Baylor’s increased investment in women’s sports has set a high bar for excellence.

The story of women’s sports at Baylor, however, goes back more than a century. In The History of Baylor Sports, historian Alan Lefever (BA ’84) writes that the first published notice of women’s sports came in 1900, when a magazine highlighted women’s basketball and golf teams at Baylor. While limited to intramurals, these represented the early beginnings.

Unfortunately, Baylor students would have to wait a half-century for the first intercollegiate women’s competitions (the “University Girls Olympics,” in the 1950s), and 60 years for a true women’s athletic program. That arrived in 1961, when future women’s basketball coach Olga Fallen took over the Division of Girls and Women’s Sports. The 1960s and ’70s helped set the stage for what was to come. (BaylorBears.com offers a deeper look back at the impact of Title IX legislation on the growth of women’s sports at Baylor in this article from 2022.)

Female student-athletes took advantage of increased opportunities, finding success on the sport’s biggest stages. Baylor’s women’s teams have won 14 national championships and 38 conference titles, along with a slew of conference tournament champs and countless all-America, all-Big 12 and Olympic performers.

Every varsity women’s sport at Baylor has won at least one conference championship and/or national title. Women’s Basketball leads the way with 13 regular-season conference championships, and Women’s Tennis is not far behind with 11 (a big part of the reason Baylor has earned the second-most conference titles in Big 12 history). Softball has reached four NCAA College World Series (plus two more when women’s sports were governed by the AIAW).

And then, of course, there are the biggest wins of all. Women’s Basketball won the first women’s national title at Baylor in 2005, and followed that up with two more in 2012 and 2019. Equestrian claimed the Hunter Seat national championship in 2012, and Acrobatics & Tumbling, of course, has set a standard that few can match with 10 straight national titles (and counting!).

A&T head coach Felecia Mulkey, the inventor of the sport, saw her dream realized this year when Acrobatics & Tumbling was adopted as an NCAA Championship sport beginning in 2027. That validation will likely prompt other schools to adopt the sport, creating scores of new opportunities for female student-athletes.

And that’s really what it’s all about. For every legendary student-athlete we justifiably celebrate — stars like Brittney Griner (two-time women’s basketball national player of the year), Stacey Smith (winner of Baylor’s first individual national title in the indoor triple jump), Whitney Canion-Reichenstein (who rewrote the Baylor softball recordbooks and led the Bears to two WCWS), or Zuzana Zemenova (2005 NCAA women’s tennis singles winner) — countless others have impressed, both on the field and beyond.

At a university now led by a former collegiate women’s basketball standout, there’s no telling where the next generation of student-athletes will lead Baylor — both in and out of their chosen sport.

Sic ’em, Baylor women’s sports!