Over the last four decades, The University of Texas at Austin Women’s Basketball program has taken on the reputation as a national powerhouse in the sport. As Pat Summitt, Hall of Fame Tennessee Volunteers coach, said of UT’s program upon Jody Conradt’s retirement, “When we built our own program at Tennessee in the 1980s, we used Texas as our model.” The program stands as the sixth most winningest in NCAA Division I history with 867 wins through 2011 and has enjoyed 22 total conference championships and 25 NCAA Tournament appearances. An Evolution presents a historical view of the transformation of The University of Texas Women’s Basketball program from its formation at the turn of the 20th century until the retirement of legendary head coach Jody Conradt in 2007. This online exhibit tracks notable moments that laid the groundwork for UT Women’s Basketball today and documents the success of the program through the use of digital representations of original photographs and other archival materials.
This timeline of The University of Texas at Austin Women’s Basketball program was created by Miriam Richards as part of her Spring 2012 Capstone project requirement. She did all of the original research, selecting materials for exhibition, and web content writing. She would like to thank the Stark Center, especially Cindy Slater and Jan Todd, for sponsoring this project and for all of their support. She would also like to thank the following individuals for all of their guidance and help provided during the course of the project: Karen Pavelka, Capstone Advisor; Susan Sigmon, Communications Department, UT Athletics; Margaret Tiedeken, Sr. Administrative Associate, UT Athletics; Sonja Reid, Registrar, Harry Ransom Center; Jody Conradt, Former UT Women’s Basketball Coach; Aryn Glazier, Photo Services, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History
The Stark Center made an addition to the timeline. We included the tenure of Rodney Page, the first head coach of the Women’s basketball team (1973 to 1976) and the first African-American head coach for all sports at UT.
