A Title UCLA’s Women Cherish

UCLA is taking a moment to pause tonight, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its women’s athletic programs with a gala dinner at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

Of course, the first reaction is to look down the honor roll and marvel at the names, which include such luminaries as Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Florence Griffith Joyner, Ann Meyers-Drysdale and Natalie Williams.

Then it hits you. Twenty-five years? That’s not a lot of time.

Where would the men’s athletic history be if you limited it to what happened after 1974? You would have to take away nine of John Wooden’s 10 championships, the school’s only national football championship and Gary Beban’s Heisman Trophy, take away Lew Alcindor, Gail Goodrich, Walt Hazzard and the rest of the great players from the heart of Wooden’s dynasty, remove Jackie Robinson and Arthur Ashe.

So just think how many more there could have been if women’s athletics had been fully funded before 1974.

It took the passage of Title IX in 1972 to ensure that colleges would provide more than club or intramural sports for women. The official start of women’s athletics at UCLA began two years later, when Ann Meyers received the first full-ride women’s athletic scholarship.

In 1978, Meyers, Anita Ortega and Denise Curry led the Bruins to the Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women championship.

That’s one of 28 national titles UCLA women’s teams have won, in addition to 76 individual championships won by female athletes.

There were Lisa Fernandez and Dot Richardson in softball, Liz Masakayan in volleyball, Gail Devers in track.

It all adds up to an impressive standard of excellence at UCLA.

“I think the four letters really hold a lot of clout,” Meyers-Drysdale said. “It holds character, it holds quality.”

“It means everything to me,” Masakayan said. “That’s why I went there. Being a UCLA Bruin was always something that meant a lot more than a Stanford Cardinal.”

Masakayan’s final choices were UCLA, Stanford, Texas, USC and Pacific.

“At that time, those were the schools that had great programs,” she said. “I knew that any one of my choices was going to be good for an education. What it came down to was the athletic program.”

Meyers-Drysdale credits long-term leadership for strengthening the programs. The long list includes basketball coach Billie Moore, volleyball coach Andy Banachowski, softball coach Sharron Backus, golf coach Jackie Toban-Steinmann and track and field’s Pat Connolly and Bob Kersee. Judith Holland was the top women’s administrator for 20 years, which included entry into the NCAA in 1981.

It’s a higher-quality program now than 25 years ago, when the women’s athletic offices were in a green trailer. There are more benefits and post-collegiate athletic opportunities for women today.

When you hit the big time, you get everything that comes with it. Unfortunately, the clearest case of gender equity might be the concern that earlier waves of athletes have about today’s athletes, male and female. They’ve gone from Title IX to a sense of entitlement.

“I feel grateful to have come along when I did and hopefully make some impact, hopefully make some changes,” Meyers-Drysdale said.

But, quoting Wooden, she said: “ ‘Progress is change, change is not always progress.’ Even though there’s been so much progress made and there’s been so much change, has progress been made with the attitudes?”

Masakayan said there wasn’t enough. That’s one of the reasons she left after serving as an assistant volleyball coach in 1991 and 1992.

“I think the athletes are expecting more,” Masakayan said. “That they don’t have to train as hard, you don’t win at all costs. You want to treat them well, but at the same time, make sure you get the potential out of them.

“The schools are so competitive for the athlete that they’re willing to make compromises for the athlete. The athlete has a lot of leverage these days. I think the athlete looks more at what can I get from who. To some extent, that may be the schools’ fault as well.”

Tonight it’s time to acknowledge those who came before, who put in the sweat to make the program what it is today.

Meyers-Drysdale still remembers those practices, every day from 4 to 6 p.m., which didn’t give her enough time to get back to the dorms before the cafeterias closed.

“I always missed dinner,” she said.

All the more reason for her and her colleagues to be honored with a banquet.

J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com.