Saving Stories: Sue Feamster and the origins of Title IX

By Alan Lytle

Published June 23, 2022 at 12:38 PM EDT

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Today marks the 50^th anniversary of the federal civil rights law known as Title IX which changed the game for women’s college athletics. Back in the spring of 2021, as part of our salute to Women's History Month, WUKY’s Award Winning History program, Saving Stories, featured an interview with Sue Feamster, the UK women’s basketball team’s first varsity coach. We're revisiting that segment with Dr. Doug Boyd from the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History in the UK Libraries.

Dr. Doug Boyd from the Nunn Center for Oral History in the UK Libraries shares audio clips from a new UK Women's Basketball project hosted by the school's all-time leading scorer Valerie Still.

The first person to be interviewed was Sue Feamster, the women's team's first varsity coach, who learned of the federal civil rights law known as Title IX while attending a national conference in 1969. At that time Feamster was a graduate assistant in recreation administration at the school and she knew the law being discussed was going to be a game-changer for women's collegiate sports.