50 Years of Varsity Women's Athletics at South Carolina

1960s: The Women’s Recreation Association (WRA) is established to stimulate participation of women in recreational activities and intramurals. Students can compete on behalf of their dorm or sorority. (1967)

1967: USC hosts the South Carolina Association of Recreation for College Women’s Sports Day (SCARFCW). Nine schools compete in basketball, volleyball, tennis, swimming, and table tennis. Physical Education professors Violet Meade and Helen Timmermans serve as sponsors for the event. 

1969: Women’s sports programs at South Carolina transition from the Physical Education Department to Student Affairs.

June 23, 1972: Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Richard Nixon

December 1972: The University of South Carolina joins the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW).

Sept. 13, 1973: The Board of Trustees requests that an ad hoc committee be formed to study funding for the women’s sports programs. University of South Carolina president Thomas F. Jones appoints Harold B. Hagan, administrative assistant to athletic director, to oversee women’s sports on an interim basis. The ad hoc committee submits its recommendations in a report to Jones.

1973-74: Women’s teams did quite well during the 1973-74 school year, winning the state tournament in basketball, softball and gymnastics; with basketball and gymnastics continuing on to regional play and softball going to the AIAW College World Series in Omaha, Neb. in May of 1974, the program’s first varsity season. The University of South Carolina is a member of the South Carolina Association of lntercollegiate Athletics for Women (SCAIAW) and the Association of lntercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), the national organization that governs women’s intercollegiate athletics.

January 5, 1974: University president Jones shares the findings of the report with the Board of Trustees. The board votes to place the women’s athletic program’s seven sports under the Department of Athletics.

January 5, 1974: USC Alumna (class of 1966) and physical education professor Helen M. Timmermans is named the first Associate Director of Athletics for Women. She is the department’s first women’s AD and also served as gymnastics coach, all while continuing her career as a physical education professor at South Carolina.

Women’s basketball (Head Coach Pam Backhaus), gymnastics (Timmermans), golf, softball (Backhaus), swimming & diving (Head Coach Alan Gentry), tennis (Head Coach Vicki Hamilton) and volleyball (Hamilton) are added. Physical education instructors and graduate students serve as coaches.

February 4, 1974: Women’s basketball plays in the Carolina Coliseum for the first time, taking on Anderson Junior College prior to the men’s basketball game against Canisius. Previously, all women’s home games had been played at the Physical Education Center or in the Naval Reserve Armory.

May 16, 1974: Softball made the AIAW World Series in its first season as a varsity sport. Records are incomplete for the full season, but the team did make its world series debut on May 16 against Eastern Illinois.

December 6, 1974: Women’s basketball wins its first game as a varsity program, defeating College of Charleston by an 86-74 score. The Gamecocks went on to win 18 games in year one.

February 1975: The first athletics scholarships are awarded to women; in year one, each of the six women’s programs received three scholarships.

May 14, 1976: Softball team competes in the AIAW College World Series and wins the program’s first game ever at the event, defeating Northern Oklahoma by a 5-1 score.

July 1976: Shelly Cramer competes for the U.S. Virgin Islands in the 1976 Olympic Games, hosted in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She is the first female Gamecock student-athlete to make the Olympics and is also the first female athlete in the USVI’s Olympic history. She would go on to also compete in the 1984 and 1992 games.

1977: Full-time coaches and personnel are hired to work with the women’s program. Scholarships are increased to five per team. 

April 9, 1977: Pam Parsons replaces Timmermans as Women’s Sports AD and also assumed head coaching duties for basketball. Women’s Sports AD and also assumed head coaching duties for basketball.

June 1977: Nickname for women’s programs changed from Chicks (chosen in March 1974) to Lady Gamecocks. 

March 6, 1978: Holly Booth throws the first no-hitter and perfect game in softball’s program history, shutting down Southern Wesleyan in a 9-0 victory.* Dating back to the program’s first varsity season, there have been 54 no-hitters and 11 perfect games.

July 21, 1978: Federal deadline for all colleges to comply with Title IX’s athletics requirements.

March 17, 1979: Basketball goes 3-0 to win the National Women’s Invitational Tournament, culminating with a 74-71 win over Drake on March 17. The program finished the season ranked 15^th in the country, the first appearance in the final rankings in program history. Katrina Anderson is named to the American Women’s Sports Federation all-american team, the first all-american in program history.

August 1980: Golf is permanently added as a varsity sport. Bobby Foster is named the head coach. The sport was originally added to the athletics department in January of 1974, but was dropped and added again in 1980.

1981-82: Gamecock women’s teams compete in NCAA Tournaments for the first time. Basketball, softball, swimming and diving and tennis all make NCAA post-season play.

1982: Pat Dufficy earns softball’s first All-America honors. During her two seasons at South Carolina, the Gamecocks posted a 55-19 record. She went on to have a long professional career, culminating in a place in the ASA/USA Softball National Hall of Fame in 2005.

March 14, 1982: Gamecock basketball wins its first NCAA tournament game, taking down East Carolina by a 79-54 score. This marked the first year the NCAA held the tournament for women’s basketball.

May 16, 1982: The tennis team made its first NCAA tournament and advanced to the national quarterfinals thanks to a 5-4 win over Florida.

Spring 1984: Johnna Chafin starred for Gamecock tennis from 1980-84 and earned the Metro Conference Player of the Year award her senior season. The honor came after capturing the first individual conference championship in South Carolina’s history of women’s sports. She finished the 1984 campaign with a No. 22 national ranking in singles.

Nov. 17, 1984: Gamecock volleyball made the first NCAA tournament in program history. Under head coach Bonnie Kenny, South Carolina earned its way to the tournament after winning the Metro Conference Tournament championship in straight sets over Louisville. It was the first of 15 regular season and tournament championships for the Gamecock women across all sports during the Metro Conference era.

1985: Basketball head coach Nancy Wilson earns Metro Conference Coach of the Year, the first Gamecock coach in any sport to receive the honor. She would also collect the 1991 honor, in the program’s final season before joining the SEC. The 1984-85 Gamecocks won the regular season conference title and went 18-10.

March 3, 1986: Basketball collects both the regular season and tournament title in the Metro Conference, the program’s first since joining the league in 1983, thanks to a 67-48 win over Cincinnati. The Gamecocks went on to also win regular season titles in 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1991.

1987: Women’s cross country is added as a varsity sport. Jeff Wentworth is named the head coach.

1989: Women’s indoor and outdoor track & field are added as varsity sports. Charlie Strong is named the head coach. Shannon Wyont is the program’s first-ever individual conference champion, winning the Metro Conference championship in the 800 meter event.

Oct. 2, 1992: Volleyball plays at Florida in the first sport to compete in the SEC. A week later, on Oct. 9, the program picks up its first conference win with a five-set victory at home against Mississippi State.

1993: Basketball alumna Sheila Foster is the first female athlete to be inducted into the then 41-member South Carolina Association of Lettermen Hall of Fame. Foster rewrote the record book during her career, holding onto many of those records until the 21st century. Foster was the program’s all-time leading scorer until 2018 and held school records for career rebounds and career double-doubles until 2023. The Spartanburg, S.C., native helped South Carolina to the 1979 NWIT Championship as a freshman, the AIAW Final Four as a sophomore, and, as a senior in 1982, led the Gamecocks to a berth in the first-ever NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.

February 1994: Vivián Alberty earns the first individual title for the Gamecock swimming and diving team. Along with her 1-meter diving title in 1994, she would repeat in 1995 and went on to represent Puerto Rico at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

March 1994: Women’s soccer is announced as the newest varsity sport. Sue Kelly is named the head coach in January of 1995 and the first season started in August of 1995.

1995: Women’s soccer is added as a varsity sport. Sue Kelly is named the head coach.

Spring 1995: Gamecock golf senior Siew Ai Lim had a final season to remember, earning the program’s first SEC Player of the Year honor and propelling the Gamecocks to the 1995 NCAA Championship by winning the NCAA East Regional – the first NCAA Regional title for Gamecock women’s golf. At the national tournament, she helped the team to its best-ever NCAA finish, a tie for ninth. After the season, she also became the program’s first-ever First Team All-American. To this day, she has the best record of any South Carolina player at the national championship, posting three top-20 efforts – including a tie for sixth place in 1996 and a tie for ninth in 1995.

May 12, 1995: After going four years without a postseason appearance, South Carolina tennis returns to the NCAA tournament and defeats BYU, 5-2. This starts a streak of 29 consecutive trips to the NCAA Tournament that remains to this day. Since the 64-team format began in 1999, South Carolina has advanced to the Round of 16 or better five times with two appearances in the national quarterfinals (2009, 2019). 

Nov. 29, 1995: The volleyball team won the program’s first NCAA tournament match, defeating Hofstra in straight sets.

1996: Equestrian is added as a varsity sport, the first Power Five conference school to add the sport. Janet Brown is named the head coach.

June 1996: Track and field’s Dawn Ellerbe captured the women’s program’s first national title. The future Olympian and South Carolina Hall of Fame inductee threw a mark of 209-2 in the hammer for the first of her four national titles – two in the indoor weight throw and two in the outdoor hammer throw.

July 31, 1996: Lisa Misipeka represents American Samoa at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Ga. Not only was she the first member of the Gamecock track and field program to make an Olympic team, she also was the first woman to ever compete for American Samoa at the games. Since this trailblazing moment, South Carolina’s track and field team has 27 Olympians representing six different countries. Misipeka went on to also make her national team at the 2000 and 2004 summer games, serving as American Samoa’s flagbearer at both opening ceremonies.

May 11, 1997: Softball captured the SEC tournament championship after shutting out Florida, 6-0. The tournament title came on the heels of a regular-season title for the Gamecocks, who went 25-1 in conference play and won a school-record 63 games for the season with a trip to the College World Series included. Leading the charge was current USC Hall of Famer Trinity Johnson, who went 34-4 as the staff pitching ace and struck out 399 batters in 242.1 innings pitched.

Nov. 11, 1998: In year four of the program, the Gamecock soccer team made its first NCAA tournament. 

February 20, 1999: Michelle Davison collects the swimming and diving program’s first-ever athlete of the year honor, winning the SEC Diver of the Year award. In both 1998 and 1999, Davison collected all-american honors in the 1-meter, 3-meter and platform dives.

May 16, 1999: The track and field team captured its first SEC championship, winning the outdoor event. It was the first of three titles in a seven-year span for the Gamecock women. The team title was powered by individual conference titles by Miki Barber (400m), Ellakisha Williamson (100m hurdle and 400m hurdle), Michelle Fournier (hammer), Erin Narzinski (heptathlon) and the 4x400m relay team.

May 14, 2000: Three years after a pitching phenom guided Gamecock softball to its first SEC title, a second transcendent talent led the way for title number two. South Carolina defeated 7th-ranked LSU by a 1-0 score, a walk-off double from Megan Donohoo in extra innings. Megan Matthews tossed all eight innings in the circle for South Carolina, part of a SEC tournament MVP performance that saw the then-junior (and future USC Hall of Fame inductee) throw 36 innings over the team’s five games.

April 19, 2002: Shaunzinski Gortman is the first Gamecock basketball player to be drafted, going 9th overall to Charlotte. Teammate Teresa Geter would be selected later in the same draft, going 36th overall to Washington.

April 21, 2002: South Carolina’s women’s golf team won its first SEC tournament championship, taking down the nation’s number one team in Auburn by three strokes. Kristy McPherson was the individual champion as well, her second conference title in as many years, shooting a three-day score of 209 (-7).

June 1, 2002: The University of South Carolina women’s track and field team won the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field title, hosted by LSU in Baton Rouge, La. It was the school’s first-ever NCAA title in any event. The team capped the championship meet with a then-collegiate record of 3:26.46 in the 4×400-meter relay, ending with 82 total points to surpass UCLA and Southern Cal.

Nov. 22, 2002: The inaugural event at Colonial Life Arena is held, with 17,712 fans attending basketball’s 72-58 win over Clemson. Jocelyn Penn and Cristina Ciocan led the team with 23 points each, under head coach Susan Walvius. To date, the Gamecocks hold a record of 281-67 at Colonial Life Arena and have led the nation in average attendance for 10 seasons in a row.

December 6, 2002: Softball head coach Joyce Compton is inducted into the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Hall of Fame. The winningest coach in South Carolina athletics history, Compton retired in 2010 with 962 wins at the institution. She finished her 37-year coaching career with a 1,216-602-6 overall record. At retirement, she ranked 10th among all NCAA softball coaches regardless of division. At South Carolina, Compton took the Gamecocks to 13 NCAA regional appearances, four regional titles, one super regional appearance and two Women’s College World Series.

March 18, 2004: South Carolina junior diver Allison Brennan became South Carolina’s first national champion in swimming and diving with a first-place finish in the one-meter springboard competition at the 2004 NCAA Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships.

August 24, 2004: Track and field standout Tonique Williams Darling wins gold in the 400 meters at the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, becoming the first South Carolina women’s athlete to win an individual gold medal in any sport. She also holds the distinction of being the first individual gold medalist from her home country, the Bahamas.

August 28, 2004: Shannon Johnson becomes the first basketball alumna to compete at the Olympic Games, representing Team USA at the 2004 games in Athens, Greece. The basketball program has had at least one player compete at every Olympic Games since. One of Johnson’s 2004 teammates was future Gamecock head coach Dawn Staley.

April 16, 2005: South Carolina’s equestrian team clinched its first national title, defeating two-time defending national champion Georgia. South Carolina’s first-place finish in the Hunt Seat discipline and its fifth-place finish in the Western discipline clinched the title for the Gamecocks. The championship was held at The Santa Fe Horse Park in New Mexico.

April 20, 2007: Equestrian collects its second Varsity Equestrian National Championship, hosted in 2007 by Baylor University.

Nov. 6, 2007: Soccer’s Blakely Mattern earns SEC Defensive Player of the Year honors, the first member of the program to earn a conference player of the year award. The sophomore helped the program to its first postseason appearance since 1998, anchoring a defense that finished with 12 shutouts over 23 matches.

April 21, 2008: Equestrian’s Kristen Terebesi wins national championships in equitation on the flat and equitation over fences, the program’s first-ever individual champion.

Nov. 8, 2009: South Carolina soccer wins its first SEC tournament title, defeating LSU in penalty kicks.

Nov. 13, 2009: Almost 11 years to the day from its first NCAA tournament game, the soccer team broke through with its first postseason victory, defeating Davidson by a 4-0 score at home. The Gamecock made it to the round of 16 before bowing out. Unbeknownst at the time, the program was in the early stages of an incredible run of success that prevails today. Dating back to 2007, South Carolina’s soccer program has made the postseason in 16 of the 17 seasons and advanced to at least the second round in 12 of the 16 appearances.

May 8, 2010: Women’s golf won the program’s first-ever NCAA regional tournament, kicking off a wildly successful decade of the 2010s. Sophomore Katie Burnett shot a closing round of 71 (-1) to earn medalist honors for the first time in her collegiate career with a 3-day total of 210 (-6) at Ironwood Golf & Country Club in Greenville, N.C. The Gamecocks put three individuals in the top-20 of the field and edged SEC rival Tennessee for the title. The win sparked a streak of five regional championship victories in an eight-year span.

March 17, 2012: Gamecock basketball snaps an eight-year postseason drought and makes the NCAA tournament for the first time under head coach Dawn Staley. The team made the Sweet 16 and started a streak of 12 consecutive postseason berths that continues today. During the current streak, the team as 12-0 in first-round matchups and won national titles in 2017, 2022 and 2024.

2013: Beach volleyball is added as a varsity sport. Moritz Moritz is named the head coach. The program held its first practice on Wheeler Beach on Oct. 31, 2013.

March 30, 2013: South Carolina equestrian wins the inaugural Southeastern Conference Championship, also collecting almost every major award: Boo Major won SEC Coach of the Year, Johnna Letchworth earned SEC Horsemanship Rider of the Year and Kimberly McCormack took home SEC Fences Rider of the Year and also became the first SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year award winner in equestrian

March 15, 2013: Carolina Softball Stadium at Beckham Field hosted its first games in the spring of 2013. The Gamecocks opened their brand-new facility on March 15 against defending national champion Alabama. All three games during that weekend had a maximum capacity. South Carolina got its first win in Carolina Softball Stadium history with a 5-0 shutout of Appalachian State on April 3, 2013.

September 8, 2013: Basketball head coach Dawn Staley is enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

March 21, 2014: Wheeler Beach, the home of South Carolina Beach Volleyball, is dedicated at the team’s first-ever home game on March 21, 2014. The Gamecocks defeated Oregon, 4-1, in front of a packed crowd. Over 11 seasons in the home sand, South Carolina holds an 89-30 record on Wheeler Beach.

March 29, 2015: Gamecock basketball makes the Final Four for the first time in program history after defeating Florida State, 80-74. It came on the heels of a breakout season that saw South Carolina win its first SEC tournament title and go 34-3 overall.

April 18, 2015: South Carolina equestrian wins its third national title, taking down No. 1 seed Georgia. Head coach Boo Major was named NCEA Coach of the Year and the Gamecocks set a program record with four first-team All-Americans in Sam Chiodo (horsemanship), Layla Choate (reining), Amber Henter (fences) and Katherine Schmidt (fences).

June 20, 2016: Soccer alumna Sabrina D’Angelo is named to the Canadian national team ahead of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. She would earn the bronze medal at the games, and will represent them again at the 2024 event in Paris, France.

April 2, 2017: Basketball captures its first NCAA title, defeating Mississippi State 67-55 in the championship, hosted in Dallas, Texas. The Gamecocks went 33-4 overall, capturing their fourth-consecutive SEC regular-season championship along the way. Junior A’ja Wilson earned Final Four Most Outstanding Player honors, she also collected SEC Player of the Year and was a finalist for all three national player of the year awards.

May 5, 2017: Beach volleyball made the NCAA tournament for the first time as a program, facing the eventual national champion Southern Cal in the first round on May 5, 2017. It was the culminating point of a stellar year for the young program; the Gamecocks won 23 games – five against ranked opponents – and earned its first spot in the national coaches top-20 poll.

Nov. 24, 2017: South Carolina soccer punched its first ticket to the NCAA College Cup after topping Florida 2-0 in the NCAA Quarterfinals. The victory marked a breakthrough win for a Carolina team that made its third NCAA Elite Eight appearance in the last four years but had yet to advance to the national semifinal. With the win over the Gators, the Gamecocks set a new single-season program record for victories (6) over top-25 opponents and finished 2017 unbeaten at Stone Stadium with a mark of 11-0-1.

February 27, 2018: A’ja Wilson becomes the first three-time SEC Player of the Year in the league’s history. Both the Associated Press and the conference’s coaches also selected her as a four-time First-Team All-SEC selection, the first in South Carolina history and the first SEC player since Georgia’s Tasha Humphrey (2005-08) to capture a spot on the first team all four years of a career.

April 12, 2018: A’ja Wilson begins her professional basketball career, becoming the program’s first WNBA overall No. 1 pick. Selected by the Las Vegas Aces, Wilson is now a face of the expanding league, winning WNBA MVP honors twice already (2020, 2022).

May 19, 2019: Senior Ingrid Martins earned the title of ITA/Wilson National Women’s Senior Player of the Year, the first in program history. The team saw a lot of records fall during the 2018-19 season, including the first SEC Championship in program history and the highest team ranking at No. 3. The Gamecocks went undefeated on the road in SEC play for the second-straight year, highlighted by a victory at Florida, 4-2, for the first time since 1982. Martins played at No. 1 in singles and doubles, becoming the highest-ranked singles and doubles player in program history, coming in at No. 4 and No. 1, respectively. She finished with an overall record of 29-7 and 17-2 in dual matches.

December 17, 2019: Senior Mikayla Shields made program history for volleyball, earning a spot on the American Volleyball Coaches Association’s All-America third team. The Orlando, Fla. native is the only Gamecock in the program’s 50 seasons to date to make one of the three All-America teams. In the program’s all-time history, Shields ranks in the top 10 in kills, attacks, hitting percentage and points.

April 21, 2019: The tennis team won its first SEC title, defeating No. 1 Georgia by a 4-3 score. In a 3-3 tie, Ingrid Martins won a three-set match over the nation’s number one player to clinch the team victory.

Nov. 12, 2020: Volleyball defeated No. 4 Florida in five sets, marking the highest ranked opponent ever defeated. The win snapped a 23-game losing streak to the Gators that stretched back to 2006.

April 24, 2021: Beach volleyball’s Katie Smith won her 94th career match after sweeping College of Charleston, making her the program’s all-time individual wins leader – a record that remains today. It was part of a historic week for her, the win came in the midst of a program-record 12-game win streak and she and partner Skylar Allen earned AVCA National Pair of the Week three days later for their efforts. The two would earn AVCA second team All-America honors in May of 2021 – the first members of the program to earn the national honor.

August 30, 2021: Fresh off an opening weekend where it recorded the nation’s only two wins over top-25 opponents by an unranked team, South Carolina volleyball joined the national polls, the first time the team made the top-25 since 2002. Senior Mikayla Robinson collected two major career milestones over the course of that weekend breaking the program record for career blocks in the rally-scoring era and reaching 1,000 career kills. She is one of just four Gamecocks in program history to have both 1,000 kills and 400 blocks in a career, the last coming in 1997 by Heather Larkin.

Oct. 10, 2021: Tennis’ Sarah Hamner is the first Gamecock in program history to advance past the quarterfinals and win the ITA All-American National Championship in singles.

April 3, 2022: South Carolina basketball was ranked No. 1 in both polls every week of the season, sealing the streak by winning the 2022 NCAA Championship on April 3 with a 64‐49 win over UConn. That spring, the Gamecocks led the nation with a school‐record 14 wins over ranked opponents, including six over top‐10 foes. The morning of the game, head coach Dawn Staley became the first men’s or women’s basketball coach to win the Naismith Coach of the Year award in three consecutive seasons.

April 13, 2022: Diver Brooke Schultz was named SEC Diver of the Year, the first Gamecock in the program’s history to win an athlete of the year honor from the conference. At the SEC Championships on February 17, Schultz swept the spring board events and was named SEC Diver of the Meet for her accomplishments. She set both a new school record and a new pool record enroute to her 3-meter title.

June 27, 2022: South Carolina junior Aliyah Boston became the University’s first winner of the Honda Cup, which honors the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year. It caps a season during which Boston was the unanimous National Player of the Year and the NCAA Women’s Final Four Most Outstanding Player after leading the Gamecocks to the 2022 National Championship.

Oct. 17, 2022: Tennis standout Sarah Hamner added to her long list of accolades on the final day of the ITA Carolina Regionals, winning the singles A2 Draw to earn the title of ITA Carolina Region Champion. Hamner is just the second player in program history to achieve the title of Regional Champion with the only other title coming from Michelle Duda in 1988.

Nov. 6, 2022: Soccer took down top-seeded Alabama to take the program’s third SEC Tournament Championship. The Gamecocks handed the Tide their first SEC loss of the season and ultimately advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament.

April 10, 2023: South Carolina basketball became just the third program to have at least five selections in a single WNBA Draft. Aliyah Boston became the program’s second No. 1 overall pick, going to the Indiana Fever. Laeticia Amihere (8th, Atlanta Dream) and Zia Cooke (10th, LA Sparks) gave the Gamecocks three top-10 picks for the second time in program history. Brea Beal (24th, Minnesota Lynx) and Victaria Saxton (25th, Indiana Fever) completed the Gamecocks’ draft board.

April 7, 2024: The basketball team defeated Iowa, 87-75, in Cleveland, Ohio to win its third national championship, all within the last seven NCAA Tournaments. The victory completed the 10th undefeated National Championship season in the history of the NCAA, becoming just the fifth program to achieve the feat. The Gamecocks’ season set program records for wins (38), points scored, scoring average, scoring margin, fewest points allowed, field goals made, field goal attempts, 3-pointers made and assists.

*- Statistical records are incomplete prior to 1983