before a separate women ’ s golf team began playing . Softball started at about the same time at TCHS . Tiftarea Academy had established a team in the 1970s .
Before softball got going at the high school level , it was already dynamite at the recreation league level .
The Tifton Tomboys were national champions in the 1970s . Vickers said she recalled thousands of people jammed around Sertoma Park to watch the tournaments , which drew in teams from the area and much further . Florida , the Carolinas and Alabama all descended on Tifton . Cottle ultimately starred in the sport at Florida State without benefit of playing for a high school team .
“ It was just unbelievable ,” said Vickers , crediting Tommy Cottle , Jimmy Spurlin , E . B . Hamilton and Bobby Simpson for their work . Her father , Vic
Ivey Vickers Vickers , was also a drives against big booster . Vickers said she looked
Coffee during a region championship up to the players game . she saw at the tournaments .
Basketball has always seemingly been the ground level , the easiest of sports for high schools to offer . Tifton was playing boys and girls hoops in the 1920s and it was an active sport for girls in most of the state . But not all of it . Fitzgerald was possibly the last of Georgia ’ s consolidated county high schools to add girls basketball . There had been boys and girls basketball in the Colony City , but the girls program was cut in 1957 . A junior varsity squad started back up in 1978 , with a full return to varsity in 1979 .
Fitzgerald was a peculiarity in South Georgia , but hardly alone . Tift ’ s Angels were severely limited when joining Class AAA in 1966 .
Sports were placed in a region with Macon schools . Until 1970 , traditionally white schools in Macon were single sex and girls basketball was not permitted . The Angels picked up an extra game here and there to make up for barely having region games , but did not play a full schedule .
Others not beginning ( or not restarting ) girls hoops programs until after Title IX included Glynn Academy , Brunswick , Savannah public schools , Columbus public schools , Marist and a handful of Fulton County schools .
However , Georgia was way ahead of the curve compared to
many states . Research indicates that only about 15 states held state girls basketball tournaments at the time of Title IX ’ s enactment .
It was not until after Title IX that the University of Georgia began offering women ’ s sports . Basketball made its fully-funded , nationally competitive debut in 1973 there , but not until 1976 at Georgia Tech . Valdosta State was in between , starting in 1974 .
( Tech ’ s enrollment was said by the Atlanta Constitution to be 7.5 % women in 1974 , 22 years after it first became coeducational . A female diver competed alongside men for the Yellow Jackets , but the university was waiting to fund full women ’ s teams .)
In these early days of women ’ s college basketball , there were only slight distinctions between levels . There was no NCAA championships . Instead ,
Ivey Vickers congratulates Blake Chambless on her first career varsity base hit in 2021 . Photo submitted
14 TiftonScene | JULY 2022