Title IX and Women’s Athletics at Utah State University
Women’s athletics at Utah State University have come a long way since the passing of Title IX in 1972. Athletic Director Marilyn Weiss worked hard to gain more resources for female athletes. During her time at Utah State, three women’s athletic teams won national championship titles. She helped to lay the foundation for the long-term success of women’s athletics at USU.
Women have been involved in athletics since the early days of Utah State University. As early as 1901, USU boasted an organized softball team and hosted basketball tournaments. Due to a lack of funding, however, women’s athletics stayed local and small. This began to change after Title IX became law on June 23, 1972. The law prohibited sex-based discrimination in any institution that receives federal funding. Initially created to encourage more women to pursue higher education, today the law is mostly associated with college and high school athletics and promoting equality between men’s and women's sports.
Title IX changed the college landscape, in the classroom and on the court. Schools were required to give women more support and resources. Before Title IX, women’s athletics didn’t offer athletic scholarships. As of 2021, there are 74,173 athletic scholarships available to women compared to 77,784 available to men.
Marilyn Weiss was the USU Athletics Director for Women’s sports from 1975 to 1981. Under her leadership, Utah State formed its first volleyball team in 1976. Weiss served as the USU’s women’s basketball coach, volleyball coach, and track coach during her tenure with the university, and knew that not much had changed at USU after the passage of Title IX. She was determined to change that. In 1976, Weiss hired Mary Jo Peppler and Marilyn McReavy, both former Olympians, as co-head coaches of the volleyball team. They recruited strongly from across the country to bring great talent to USU.
Weiss knew that the women’s programs would have to operate under a very tight budget, but she was determined to succeed. If the Aggies wanted to compete against the top teams in the country, they had to get to the West Coast. In the off-season, the team traveled in a fifth-wheel trailer to southern California to challenge powerhouse teams like USC and UCLA. Although the budget was small, the coaches and athletic director made it work and their efforts paid off. The USU Volleyball team became National Champions in 1978, winning the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) volleyball championship. They were runner-up the following season. During Weiss’s time at USU, the softball team also won two national titles in 1980 and 1981.
Weiss filed a Title IX complaint against the university a few years before she left. Although USU saw success while she was here, she knew womens’ athletics were still being underfunded. Marilyn Weiss and the coaches and players laid a foundation to move women’s athletics forward at Utah State University. As of 2024, USU has 8 women's varsity teams and over 180 women rostered. USU offered $3,106,721.54 in scholarships to female athletes in 2024, among 149 athletes.
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