i Jeffrey L. Engbers Health Exercise and Sports Science This ...

male and female athletic departments merged as one and the male AD typically took over
both athletic departments (Sagas & Cunningham, 2004). Growth of women’s
opportunities in collegiate sport, specifically with the NCAA, has steadily grown
(Heckman, 1992). Today, eighty-eight championships are sponsored by the NCAA in
twenty-nine sports for men's and women’s college teams (Kennedy, 2007). Despite
increased athletic opportunity for females, females in leadership roles such as AD were
essentially eliminated (Acosta & Carpenter, 2010).
The takeover of women's athletics was not the first example of NCAA expansion
(Washington, 2004). The NCAA also expanded in 1952 when they changed their
membership criteria to attract lower level schools in the National Association of
Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) (Washington, 2004). The expansion of the NCAA to
include all levels of intercollegiate athletic competition came at a great expense to the
NCAA. Despite lack of revenue and television contracts from these institutions, the
NCAA has chosen to be the governing body that controls all levels of intercollegiate
competition. The NCAA receives little revenue from tournaments and television
contracts at the Division III level compared to what they generate at Division I
universities (Washington, 2004). Control of the NCAA was also relinquished, however,
at the institutional level in 1997 when additional responsibility was given to member
college and university presidents (NCAA, n.d.a).
The connection between athletics and academics in higher education in the United
States has not always been strong or even present at all. Higher education was in
existence for nearly 200 years before athletics became a part of university life (Gerdy,
1997). It began in the 1930's when university presidents believed that success on the
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