| Although formalized intercollegiate athletics for women began only in 1972 (with the 1971 formation of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women) and the federal mandate banning sexual discrimination (Title IX of the Education Amendments), the world of women's collegiate sport has undergone dramatic changes in the 24 years that followed.;The 1982 beginning of NCAA governance over women's intercollegiate athletics brought changes in sport model, sport philosophy, and even the purposes undergirding the intercollegiate sport experience. The commercial, professionalized model of the NCAA contrasts the educational origins of the AIAW sport model. Likewise, the extrinsic focus of sport, which values benefits to institution, community, and constituencies, challenges the intrinsic origins of women's sport which valued its existence for the benefit of sport to the individual student-athlete, as a part of her educational experience. The 1966 female intercollegiate sport experience has undergone a rapid transition from intrinsic-to-extrinsic, educational-to-commercialized, individual-to-institutional priorities, which has altered the nature and the texture of that experience.;This qualitative study sought to explore the nature and texture of the sport experience of Division I of the NCAA women's basketball. Strategic leaders representing each program included team captain(s), starting point guards, one player, the head coach, an assistant coach, the senior women's administrator (SWA) representing the athletics director, for a total of seven respondents from each of the four elite programs. In-depth, on-site, audio-taped interviews were conducted with each of the 28 respondents during field visits to each institution. The conceptual framework (which in turn, shaped the interview protocol), reviewed key issues to higher education administrators: (a) the purpose of the female intercollegiate athletic experience, (b) the role of the athletic scholarship, and (c) the effects posed by the "dual worlds" (i.e., athletic and academic) of female intercollegiate basketball players as demonstrated by their interactions with coaches and professors.;The qualitative analysis yielded an aggregate portrait of the female intercollegiate athletic experience through 12 cultural themes that describe in the words of the respondents the consequential realities of the female intercollegiate sport experience in Division I basketball. |
