JOHNSTOWN — Female athletes today realize that they have many opportunities to participate in sports at the collegiate level.

In that quest, they can also compete for those valuable college scholarships that so many Division I and Division II colleges offer in the 21st century.

That was not the case in the 1970s, prior to President Richard Nixon’s signing of Title 20 of the Equal Opportunity Education Act.

That act stated that “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance…”

No one could have foreseen then how much an impact Title IX, as it became known, would have on women’s athletics over the past 40 years.

Women’s sports were in their infancy in the 1970s, and high school athletes were just being introduced to athletic competition.

Just ask Jodi Gault and Sue Panek.

Gault played at Slippery Rock University in the 1970s and then professionally before putting together a hall of fame coaching career at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown.

Panek, who is now an assistant coach and director of basketball operations with the Atlanta Dream of the WNBA, played at the University of Maryland before starting her coaching career.

Gault credits Pitt-Johnstown with providing her program with the same quality of services that the men had.

“When I first got there in 1982, we were traveling around in vans,” Gault, who retired in 2007, said. “But, in a few years, we were traveling in buses like the men were. Some schools drag their feet on these (regulations), but I have to credit (former athletic director) Ed Sherlock. He was very good at treating the women just as well as the men. I had no problems with equity in the time I was at Pitt-Johnstown.”

Pitt-Johnstown now has 12 sports, seven women’s programs (soccer, volleyball, basketball, indoor track, outdoor track, cross country and golf) and five men’s (soccer, baseball, basketball, wrestling and golf).

Panek earned an athletic scholarship to the University of Maryland in 1988. She led the Bishop Carroll Lady Huskies to a PIAA Class A championship as a junior in 1987.

Her teams at Maryland reached the Final Four in 1989 and the Elite Eight in 1992.

Gault was named head women’s basketball coach at Pitt-Johnstown at a very young age: 24. Sherlock, the athletic director at that time, took a chance on Gault based on her promise, and she led the Lady Cats to unparalleled success. Over the next quarter-century, Gault’s teams compiled a 540-156 (.776) record while moving from Division III to Division II.

Pitt-Johnstown became a regional and national power during those years, and Gault realizes that her success would not have been possible without Title IX.

“You have to start with the scholarship money and at the funding of the programs,” she said. “When I played (in the 1970s), men got a lot more things than we did. But by the time that I started coaching, over a period of eight or nine years, you had equal funding at the college level. That gave women’s sports a shot in the arm.”

Panek also understands the importance of Title IX.

“Basically, Title IX has given young female athletes the knowledge that they can actually participate in sports, whether they are in middle school, high school, and even into college and the professional ranks,” Panek said. “There are many opportunities for young women because of the scholarships that are being awarded today.”

Panek said the women’s team was not on the same level as the men in some areas in the early part of her career there.

“The ACC scholarships were fully-funded when I was there, but you could see differences between the way we traveled and stayed in hotels when I first arrived there,” Panek said. “However, by my senior year, we were given more money for them and were treated much the same as the men were.”

Gault’s teams performed very well in Division II, earning two consecutive East Region titles in 1987 and 1988. The Lady Cats advanced to the NCAA Division II Final Four in 1987 after defeating the top seed, Delta State.

Money was important in that run.

“When we became Division II in 1986, we had as much scholarship money as the men did,” Gault said. “That would never have happened (without Title IX).”

Panek sees the popularity of the women’s game growing because of women’s college basketball.

“The college programs are becoming more popular, and you can watch a game every night (during the season) on television,” Panek said. “That is going to continue to grow. The WNBA feeds off of that popularity.”

Gault has been inducted into the Pitt-Johnstown and Cambria County halls of fame, along with the Slippery Rock Hall of Fame, while Panek will be inducted in the Cambria County Hall of Fame in July. That is just another step in the recognition of how far women’s athletics have come over the past 40 years.