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Celebrating Title IX: CSUB Softball Coach Kathy Welter

In 1972 Kathy Welter was a student-athlete at Kearney State College, where the softball team shared uniforms with both the women's basketball and volleyball teams, passing jerseys and shorts back and forth as one team's season came to an end, and another's began. That same year, in Washington, D.C., President Richard Nixon signed into law Title IX, prohibiting gender discrimination within any educational program or activity receiving federal aid, and setting the stage for a generation of female trailblazers in athletic competition.
 
Welter was one of those trailblazers in the game of softball, winning more than 1,250 games during a Hall of Fame coaching career that spanned stops at Oklahoma Baptist, Texas Tech University and CSU Bakersfield. She led the Roadrunners to 1,129 victories, 11 conference championships, five NCAA Regional championships and three-consecutive National Titles in 1988, 1989 and 1990.
 
Welter's is a story that began with a simple love of sport and ended with an unprecedented run of coaching success that spanned more than three decades. It is also a story undeniably linked to the passage of Title IX and the subsequent impact the law has had on women's sports and athletes in the generations that followed.
 
"Title IX changed everything for me, and for all women athletes and coaches," Welter explained. "Most importantly, the addition of athletic scholarships changed the landscape of youth sports. Young girls playing sports in middle schools and high schools were suddenly competing for the goal of earning a scholarship. Parents saw this as a worthy goal and universities were invested, which led to improvements in coaching, training, scheduling and facilities."  
 
By the time Welter was a senior at KSC, the softball players had their own uniforms, were receiving athletic aid and were practicing and competing in the same facility as the men. Changes they never would have realized had Title IX not been enacted four years earlier.
 
"The number of women's teams in colleges across the US ballooned, creating more opportunities," said Welter. "Besides my experiences as a college athlete I was able to begin a career as a college softball coach, doing what I loved and making a living."
 
Welter played six seasons of post-graduate softball in the Women's Professional Softball Association and the Amateur Softball Association, before beginning her coaching career at Oklahoma Baptist.
 
In three seasons, she led the Bison to an 84-39 record and three trips to the NAIA National Tournament. She spent three years at Texas Tech, before arriving in Bakersfield in 1985 ahead of the program's second season of existence.
 
"Just seeing schools add softball programs was important," Welter said. "The Athletic Department funded enough scholarships for us to compete against conference opponents and that was all we needed. We also had our own field, which was huge at the time. It started small, but it grew over time."
 
With easy access to a facility and increasing investments in equipment, scholarships, recruiting budgets and the budget to play a competitive schedule, all the elements in place to attract talent to CSUB. The slow roll out of Title IX compliance at other schools also helped Welter keep top local talent at home in Bakersfield.
 
"Title IX compliance didn't, and couldn't, happen overnight," she explained. "Many of our players had been overlooked in the recruiting process, but they worked hard and trained to become more skilled and cohesive as a group each year. They loved to compete and were appreciative of the opportunity to play at the college level."
 
The Roadrunners developed quickly, winning their first Division II National Championship in 1988, Welter's fourth season at the helm, defending their title in both 1989 and 1990. Welter would finish her coaching career with five CCAA Coach of the Year honors, five West Region Coach of the Year accolades and two NFCA National Coach of the Year awards, but humbly deflects most of the credit to the athletes she coached.
 
"We had a great group of young student-athletes, and a core of very skilled and determined players who bought into the concept of playing for the team instead of themselves," Welter explained. "We were lucky to avoid injuries, get some breaks and make some breaks. I remember those players as loving to play softball!"
 
Since Welter's retirement in 2011, softball has continued to flourish in the Title IX era quickly growing into one of the most popular NCAA sports regardless of gender. Hundreds of games are televised annually, with ESPN alone carrying more than 1,000 games a year across its digital platform.

The Women's College World Series, played annually in Oklahoma City, averaged 11,551 attendees per session in 2021, with an additional 1.2 million viewers tuning in on average each game. Perhaps no sport has benefitted more from the passing of Title IX, 50 years ago this summer.
 
With the 2022 WCWS just a week away, there is perhaps no more opportune time than this one to reflect on how far the sport has come. Softball owes a tremendous debt to those who championed the passing of Title IX legislation and continued to fight long after for gender equity in sports.
 
"The budget for any athletic department is only so big, implementing Title IX and adding women's sports didn't add a second pie so resources had to be shared.," Welter said. "When I started playing and coaching, that created resentment which annoyed me, but I also understood. Trying to meet gender equity standards and Title IX requirements isn't easy."
 
Nothing worth doing ever is.
 
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