UCLA Sports Info The UCLA women’s tennis team won the
national championship in 1981.
By Hannah Gordon
Daily Bruin Contributor
As the women’s tennis team travels to Georgia this
weekend, they join a long line of outstanding Bruins. UCLA is
making its record 19th appearance in the NCAA Championships this
weekend. Along with Stanford, UCLA is the only team to appear in
every championship since the NCAA took over women’s sports in
1982.
“We always make it to quarterfinals, that’s what is
expected of UCLA,” said Head Coach Stella Sampras.
Maintaining such a program is not difficult, however, according
to the coaches. The key is recruiting the right players.
“The program perpetuates itself. When you are the best,
you recruit the best,” said Volunteer Assistant Coach Bill
Zaima, who was head coach from 1972 to 1976 and from 1986 to
1996.
The question then is how such a program was built in the first
place.
According to Zaima, women’s sports did not enter the
“modern, competitive era” until 1976, the first year of
women’s sports scholarships. The scholarships were a result
of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which forbids
gender discrimination in federally assisted education programs.
“We had a very good recruiting year in 1976 because the
men’s program was so good. We used them as a model,”
Zaima said.
The men’s tennis program is proud to have been a
contributing force in launching the women’s program.
“If what we do has rubbed off on them, then great,”
said Men’s Tennis Head Coach Billy Martin. “There is
genuine mutual respect between the programs. I try to think of it
as one big family.”
However, the men’s program has continued to work closely
with the women’s. For example, Martin helped recruit No. 1
singles sophomore Sara Walker, who practices sometimes with members
of the men’s team to push her level.
But things were not always so equal. All of the coaches agree
that they have seen significantly more money and influence go into
women’s sports in the last 15 years.
The changes started with scholarships in 1976 and continued when
the NCAA took over women’s sports in 1982. Until then, the
Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women ran the
women’s tennis national championships but folded after the
NCAA decided to include women’s sports.
“When I was a player we didn’t have a lot of the
things we have now, like a team room,” said Sampras, who
graduated in 1991.
Until Sampras became head coach in 1997, the women’s
tennis team practiced at Sunset Recreation Center. The Los Angeles
Tennis Center, built in 1984 for the Olympics, had always been
intended for the men’s tennis team, but now the facilities
are shared equally. The women’s tennis team could have moved
to the LATC earlier but they wanted to keep their late afternoon
practice, which was at the same time as the men.
Because football and men’s basketball take up a large part
of the budget in Division I schools, smaller sports end up with
disproportionate funding for women over men in order to remain in
accordance with Title IX. As a result, the women’s tennis
team has eight full scholarships while the men’s team has
four and a half.
“It is tough to recruit now with four and a half
scholarships. I feel like a used car salesman sometimes,”
Coach Martin said.
It seems ironic that the women’s tennis program recruiting
was built on the men’s reputation originally and now has more
money to offer recruits.
Coach Sampras put it simply.
“It is a good time to be a female athlete.”