Editor's note: June 23 is the 50th anniversary of historic Title IX legislation being passed. This is the first in a series of stories about its impact on the University of Wisconsin.
The $3,500 operating budget for the first-year University of Wisconsin women's track and field team had enough left over for two athletes to travel to the national championship in the spring of 1975.
The Badgers did quite a bit better than that, qualifying 12 athletes for the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women meet in Corvallis, Oregon. It was an important early step for the nascent program, but it quickly was met with the reality that women's sports teams often faced in that era.