Female Firsts
2000 - present
2000 - ABC airs a movie about the life of Special Olympics athlete Loretta Claiborne who was partially blind, ran in twenty-five marathons, and carries the torch in the International Special Olympics where she won medals in dozens of events. "The Loretta Claiborne Story" details her life both on and off the track.
Loretta Claiborne
2000 - Monica Seles is awarded the Flo Hyman Award.
2000 - At a conference in Paris to commemorating the 100th anniversary of women's participation in the modern Olympics, International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch calls for more women in sports administration.
2000 - According to the International Olympic Committee, women will compete in the same number of team sports as men in Sydney for the first time in the history of the Olympic Games.
2000 - Twins Kelly and Coco Miller become the first athletes in the Sullivan Award's history to be nominated as a joint entry.
2000 - The International Olympic Committee is planning to discontinue the controversial gender testing which has been in use since the 1968 Summer Games. The IOC agreed to refrain from performing gender tests at the Sydney Olympics on an experimental basis.
2000 - The 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Australia, open with a record 120 events for a record 4,100 women competitors, about forty percent of the total athletes in these games. 2000 marks the 100th anniversary for women being allowed to compete in the Games.
2000 - "The Breakfast of Champions" will feature three Olympic women, swimmer Brooke Bennett, pole vaulter Stacy Dragila, and diver Laura Wilkinson, on boxes of Wheaties.
Brooke Bennett
2000 - Venus and Serena Williams recieve the Sportswomen of the Year award by the Women's Sports Foundation.
2000 - Sandra Baldwin is elected the first female president of the US Olympic Committee.
2001 - As part of the 15th annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day celebration, the Women's Sports Foundation honors two-time Olympic gold medalist Lisa Leslie as the Flo Hyman Memorial Award winner.
2001 - In Brentwood Academy vs. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association, the US Supreme Court rules 5-4 that state high school athletic associations are "state actors" and therefore subject to the US Consititution's nondiscrimination requirements. The ruling will help ensure equality for female and minority students in school sports.
2001 - 34,148 soccer fans watch the first match of Women's United Soccer Association, pitting the Bay Area Cyberrays against the Washington, DC Freedom.
2001 - The Williams sisters make it a historic US Open in the first women's final televised in primetime.
The Williams Sisters
2002 - The theme for the 16th annual Women and Grils in Sports Day is Celebrating 30 Years of Title IX.
2003 - Olympic gold medalist Nawal El Moutawakel was awarded the Flo Hyman Memorial Award.
2003 - For the first time, two female drill sergents capture the titles of Drill Sergents of the Year for both the active-duty and reserve components.
2004 - The National Women's Part presents the 2004 Alice Award to Billie Jean King for her contributions to women in sports through lobbying for Title IX, founding the Women's Sports Foudnation, and for her dedication, and for her dedication to ensuring equality and leadership opportunities for women and girls in all facets of their lives.
2004 - In the United States Olympic delegation, we see the Title IX generation at thier best. Since Title IX went uunti effect in 1972, the number of young women playing sports in college has increased by more than four hundred percent and the number of young women playing interscholastic sports in high school has increased eight hundred and fourty-seven percent. The payoff is clear: US women's team sports dominated - with soccer, softball, and basketball taking the gold, and gymnastics taking silver.
2004 - The United States Olympic Committee announces that the USA Softball Women's Olympic team is the 2004 "Team of the Year" for their perfect 9-0 performance on the field and third consecutive gold medal.
2004 USA Softball Team
2005 - According to the latest NCAA gender equality report, women accounted for forty-four percent of the athletes at NCAA Division 1 colleges in 2002-2003. In Division II, women's participation rose from thirty-nine to forty percent, and in Division III from forty to forty-two percent. When the first survey was done in 1991, Division I women's participation was thirty-one percent, Division II was thirty-two percent, and Division III was thirty-five percent.
2005 - The Supreme Court rules 5-4 in favor of whistleblowers who speak out against discrimination in school sports in a case beought by Roderick Jackson, a high school basketball coach. The Supreme Court rules that coaches and teachers may sue for retaliation is they are fired for complaining on behalf of others.
2005 - The 13th Annual ESPY Awards winner included Cat Osterman (Best Female College Athlete), Annika Sorenstam (Best Female Athlete), Team USA Softball (Best Athletic Performance), Maria Sharipova (Best Female Tennis Player), and swimmer Erin Popovich (Best Female Athlete with a Disability).
Annika Sorenstam
2006 - The NCAA has set up a task force to include more women and minorities in coaching and administrative positions to the current situation in which almost ninety percent of men's teams at the largest universities and almost sixty percent of women's teams were coached by white men.
2006 - The NCAA commemorates its 25th Anniversary of Women's Championships with a 2006 Gender Equity and Issues Forum from April 30 to May 2.