Women's Basketball

MEAC Title IX 50th Anniversary: South Carolina State Women's Basketball

South Carolina State won the first two Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) championships in women's basketball, taking the crown in 1978 and 1979. But there was even bigger hardware in the Bulldogs' future in 1979, as South Carolina State went on to claim the conference's first-ever national championship in women's basketball.

That season, the Bulldogs won the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) national title.

After defeating Howard 76-56 for the MEAC title in 1979, South Carolina State advanced to Region II competition, where the Bulldogs defeated Pfeiffer (92-50) and Chattanooga (71-61), before falling 68-66 to High Point.

But once the national tournament started, the Bulldogs didn't lose again. Led by legendary coach Willie Simon, South Carolina State opened with an 86-47 win over Emporia State. The Bulldogs then defeated Seton Hall 91-53, before turning in an 85-70 semifinal win over Tuskegee.

The Bulldogs then defeated Dayton 73-68 in the championship game.

Three student-athletes from that championship squad have been inducted into the MEAC Hall of Fame: Margaret English-Jones (Class of 1995), Roberta Williams (Class of 1999) and Charlene Johnson (Class of 2018).

To date, South Carolina State's 1979 AIAW national title is the only such championship in MEAC women's basketball history. The Bulldogs were national runners-up in 1978, and come the 1982 season, they were competing under the NCAA umbrella -- earning a play-in victory over La Salle in the 1983 NCAA Tournament (the first NCAA postseason win for women's basketball in MEAC history).

The AIAW was founded in 1971, having evolved from the Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. The AIAW was a large part of the growth in women's intercollegiate athletics throughout the 1970s, particularly after Title IX's passage in 1972. The AIAW served much the same function for women's sports that the NCAA had for men's sports at the time; however, come 1983, the AIAW had dissolved, as many of its member instititutions had pivoted their women's programs under the NCAA's umbrella.