The 1981 Women Soccer Team, National Champions

Basketball games in the early 1930s were the first extramural women's athletic events, but the university stressed participation over competition for many years. A true intercollegiate women's athletic program took shape after 1970, when Carolina became a charter member of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. When the passage of Title IX in 1972 banned sexual discrimination in education, the university consolidated the administration of women's and men's teams, and women received their first athletic scholarships. The 1981 soccer team won Carolina's first national championship in women's sports.