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Estes was linchpin in UNM’s reach for sports equality

Linda Estes, watching from her home on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, thoroughly enjoyed the 2022 women’s NCAA basketball tournament as televised on ESPN.

“You’re seeing how (the athletes) are treated and what skill levels they have,” Estes, the former University of New Mexico women’s athletic director and senior woman administrator, said in a recent phone interview. “That’s wonderful.

“But … I do think that athletes today take (athletic opportunities for women) for granted. They don’t know how hard people had to fight for that.”

For more than 30 years, Estes fought as hard as anyone.