RAPID CITY - When it comes to the rise of women in high school and college sports, Heidi Welsh and Barb Felderman have been there, done that, bought the T-shirt and sent the post card.

Thanks to the Title IX amendment of the Higher Education Act signed into law by President Richard Nixon 35 years ago today, both women have made careers in sports, teaching, coaching and living the advancement of their gender, both in sports and life.

"I've always had the attitude that if men could be hard-headed and competitive, why would it not be okay to bring that out in girls?" said Welsh, who stepped down last spring after eight years as head girls volleyball coach at Rapid City Central High School. "They'll learn lessons that they'll take through life."

Felderman, for 26 years head women's basketball coach at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, said athletics has not only benefited women on the field of play but also in achieving excellence in traditionally male-dominated professions of engineering and science.

"Sports has shown women how to persevere, to fight through the walls," she said. "How can you put a price on that?"

Being able to play was priceless for Felderman. In her hometown of Doland, track and later, softball, were the only sports available for women.

At Northern State University in Aberdeen, Felderman was a part of the school's first women's volleyball, basketball and track teams, and she also played softball at the club level.

"That's where I really got to love the sport, but (there was) not one dollar in scholarships," she said.

"We rode in station wagons while the guys took the bus," she recalled. "Maybe once in a while we'd get some meal money."

Only after graduating with her teaching degree did Northern State finally add scholarships for softball.

Felderman first taught and coached in Kadoka and Pierre.

Teaching and coaching first at Kadoka and later at Pierre, Felderman said there were no state tournaments for girls high school sports at the time and that scheduling games was difficult, especially for smaller schools.

"You just played whoever you could find," she said.

She got her first taste of college-level coaching as an assistant for women's softball and basketball while earning her Master's at the University of Wyoming.

Before coming to SDSM&T, she was head softball coach at Division I Ball State University in Muncie, Ind.

Felderman's Lady Hardrocker volleyball teams won seven conference titles before she relinquished that post to concentrate on basketball.

Her basketball teams have won nine conference titles and advanced to the NAIA Division II women's final four twice, in 1998 and 1999.

In spite of the advances, Felderman still sees inequities in scholarships and facilities for female athletes in the college ranks, but she said Title IX has had a profound effect on countless lives and careers.

"It's had a tremendous impact," she said. "It's made them better athletes and better people."

Welsh's sports career started in her home town of Wolford, N.D. her sophomore year in high school.

"I was just extremely excited to play," Welsh said. "I was always envious of the boys."

The fledgling basketball team took to the court in hand-me-down uniforms.

"We wore the boys' old uniform tops - sleeveless - with T-shirts on underneath," Welsh recalled. "And old canvas shoes that I wouldn't wear to go for a walk today.

"I didn't care what we were wearing or what we looked like, I was just glad to be on the court," she said.

Welsh learned volleyball from Canadian men who also attended a branch junior college campus of North Dakota State University at Bottineau, N.D.,

"We had a great hockey team, and they were great volleyball players," she said.

She earned her teaching degree at Valley City State, also playing basketball and volleyball.

One of her mentors in basketball at Valley City State was a young assistant mens' coach named Hugh Welsh, her future husband, and currently Mines' athletic director.

After college, she coached the first girls high school volleyball team in Williston, N.D.

Welsh vividly remembers driving the team van to a tournament in Center, N.D. in the dead of winter.

"It was 20 below, and I had to get up a couple times during the night to make sure the van would still start," she recalled.

"We started playing at 8 a.m. that morning, and we were in the championship game at 10 that night."

Driving home in a snowstorm, Welsh said, fatigue caused her to mistake a road sign for someone standing along side the road.

Exhausted and with no assistant coach, Welsh enlisted an 18-year-old student manager to drive the final 40 miles to Williston, arriving safely at 3 a.m. "I told her she had to stay under 40 mph," Welsh said.

For the most part, coaches aren't forced to drive their own team buses these days because of the safety concerns that Welsh raised after her experience at Williston.

Women's sports have found their place with the games that men play and Welsh, now facing her first non-coaching season in 23 years, still plans to be in the stands watching.

"I said I'm going to be the worst fan you could imagine," she said with a laugh.

Felderman said most young female athletes don't realize that it took a president's signature and more than three decades of legislation and court action to put them on the field of play.

"I know the kids now don't have a clue about Title IX," she said. "They've always had to chance to play."

(Editors Note: This is the first in a two-part series commemorating the 35th Anniversary of the enactment of the Title IX amendment of the Higher Education Act, landmark federal legislation that paved the way for women's participation in sports.)