The University of New Haven Department of Athletics will celebrate the history of women's athletics at the University as well as the 40th anniversary of Title IX on Friday, Oct. 18 at the annual Charger Huddle. For more information on the Huddle as well as the Title IX celebration in conjunction with Saturday's Homecoming football game, visit NewHavenChargers.com/TitleIX
 
The University of New Haven officially added women's athletics in 1975, with women's basketball, softball, women's tennis and women's volleyball set to begin competition in the 1975-76 academic year. This was not uncommon at the time, as institutions nationwide worked to comply with the recently passed Title IX,  a portion of the Education Amendments of 1972 which guarantees that no person shall "on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in … any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."
 
However, what made the University stand out in its commitment were the words and actions of the Director of Athletics, Dr. Joe Machnik. Machnik, in conjunction with then-University president Phillip Kaplan, hired Deborah Chin as the Coordinator of Women's Athletics and head coach of all four newly-founded women's programs.
 
With the University finding success on the national level in baseball and men's soccer and focusing attention and resources to a football team established just two years earlier, Chin was unsure of where the women's programs would stand in the pantheon of Charger athletics. She questioned Machnik as to the extent to which she was expected to bring women's athletics at New Haven. Machnik's response set everything in motion:
 
"As far as you can."
 
With no doubt that the University was behind her, Chin set out building her four new athletic programs. In subsequent years, she hired new head coaches – Lynn Love for women's tennis, Pat Ella for women's basketball and Pat Mascia for softball – while remaining as the head women's volleyball coach. With a dedicated leader instilled for each program, the four teams began to develop into consistent contenders at the conference, regional and national levels.
 
Much of the early success came on the volleyball court, where the Chargers qualified for the NCAA postseason for the first time in 1983 and reached the NCAA Elite Eight in the following year. To date, the Chargers have reached the NCAA Tournament in 27 of the last 30 seasons, including 12 that have culminated with a trip to the national quarterfinals.
 
Though women's athletics had already become a fixture at the University by the mid-1980s, the success reached its peak in the 1986-87 women's basketball season. Led by two part-time coaches – Head Coach Jan Rossman and Assistant Coach Russ Hill – and All-America student-athletes Joy Jeter and Charlene Taylor, the Chargers posted a 29-2 record on a run all the way to the NCAA Division II National Championship. A fan bus of New Haven students, faculty and staff traveled to Springfield, Mass. to witness the 77-75 victory over Cal-Poly Pomona as the Chargers won the first and only team national championship in history of New Haven Athletics.
 
The 1987 National Championship was the apex of a run of four consecutive NCAA postseason appearances from 1986-89. The Chargers would later return to the national stage in 2003, 2006 and 2007.
 
As the demographics of the University changed in the early 1990s, the Department of Athletics needed to add more opportunities for women to compete in collegiate sports. In the fall of 1993, Dr. Joe Machnik returned to the department to lead to newly-founded New Haven women's soccer program.

Already an accomplished coach who guided the Charger men's team to back-to-back Final Four appearances in 1976 and 1977, Machnik mentored the women's program for its first four years of Division II competition.  The Chargers would burst on the scene under Machnik with their first-ever national ranking in 1995 and continued their rise to prominence under Dave Clarke, Dan Bacon and Brendan Faherty. The team made its inaugural trip to the NCAA postseason in 2005, rising as high as No. 10 in the national rankings and earning an NCAA playoff win over C.W. Post. UNH was once again in the NCAA Tournament in 2006 and, currently in the midst of its fifth-consecutive winning season, is poised for a return to the national landscape with Head Coach Laura Duncan on the sidelines.
 
The Department expanded further with the addition of the women's cross country and track and field. In less than 20 years of action, the program has already developed into a consistent power in the region and on the national stage, led by the most successful individual student-athlete in New Haven history, Shannon Gagne. Gagne won an unmatched five individual NCAA Division II National Championships during the 2010-11 academic year and, with fellow All-America sprinter Ada Udaya, earned a fourth-place finish at the indoor national championship meet. The Chargers have been represented at the NCAA Championships in each of the last five seasons, with at least one All-America honoree in four of those five campaigns.
 
The most recent addition to the Charger Athletics landscape was women's lacrosse. de'Sha Foster took the reins as the first head coach in 2001, and the team has become a regional power under Head Coach Jen Fallon. Fallon was named the Inside Lacrosse Division II Coach of the Year in 2008, leading the Chargers to their first winning season at 14-3 and their first appearance in the IWLCA national rankings. The following spring, New Haven captured the Northeast-10 Championship and reached the NCAA postseason for the first time in program history. To date, the Chargers have been nationally ranked in every season since 2008 with a winning record in five of the last six years.
 
In the more recent landscape of Charger athletics, women's volleyball and women's lacrosse continue to enter the regional and national conversation on a yearly basis. Track and field is a constant presence at the NCAA Championships, and softball has qualified for NCAA Regionals in five of its last six seasons. Meanwhile, the women's basketball team reached the NE-10 Tournament last season as one of the nation's most-improved teams, women's soccer began the 2013 season on an unprecedented unbeaten streak and the women's tennis program is coming off of its best season since 2008.
 
It has been 40 years since Title IX was enacted into law and 38 years after the University instituted its first women's athletics programs. Today, the current leaders of the Charger women continue to follow the advice of Dr. Joe Machnik as their teams strive to represent the spirit of Title IX and carry the mantle of the University of New Haven as far as they can.