Bear Bryant is quoted in 1974 as predicting the ruin of college athletics once schools were made to comply with Title IX .
Bryant ’ s broad prediction did not come to fruition , of course , but there have been downsides . Tift coach Ivey Vickers pointed to the colleges that have had to drop some athletic programs because of funding . “ I don ’ t like when it takes away ,” she said .
Notably , nearly all SEC teams have done away with wrestling since the 1970s .
Tift County High ’ s competitive athletic offerings in 1972 for women amounted to basketball . Tennis was not mentioned until a couple of years later in “ Talisman ” yearbooks . Girls track did not exist at that time , but boys track was not established , either . The Blue Devils did not have a home track in 1972 and efforts at a track team had flittered for more than a decade and was not a permanent sport until 1975 .
It was not until 1976 that Tift had its first girls track team . Technically , their first female track participant . The “ Talisman ” said that Susie Taylor ran distance races , competing twice with girls at meets in Sylvester and once against boys .
New athletic director ( and legendary football coach ) Gene Brodie vowed to build Tift a home track that year and it made its debut in 1977 . Brodie soon became a great friend to women ’ s athletics .
“ He wanted everything to be right ,” said Vickers . “ Sometimes , he had to make it or build it .”
During her Tift County Athletics Hall of Fame speech in January 2022 , Lindy Bengston
The Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Deers provided a rare opportunity for women to play college basketball in the years before Title IX , even though the Deers ’ opponents were almost exclusively high schools . Photo courtesy of ABAC
said Brodie was very supportive of starting a swim team . “ That got me started ,” said Bengston , who went on to swim at Florida State .
“ I was very blessed to be under Gene Brodie as a player ,” said Julie Conner . “ He treated every athlete as an athlete .”
When Conner was in middle school , basketball was limited in grades . She and other players asked to try out for the team above them . Brodie and John Smith , she said , made it happen . Conner and Vanessa Burns ended up making the squad .
Almost as soon as the women ’ s athletic program expanded at TCHS were women at the forefront .
The first women to win a state championship at Tift County High were Darby Cottle and Becky Thomas , who won the state doubles title in tennis in 1978 .
Nanci Bowen , later an LPGA champion , joined Tift ’ s golf team in 1981 . It would many years later
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