After the 1981–82 academic year, the AIAW discontinued sponsorship of national championships and later was legally dissolved.
At this time, the NCAA assumed sole sanctioning authority of its member schools' women's sports programs.
The Division of Girls and Women's Sports (DGWS), a division of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education and Recreation (AAHPER), was the first nationally recognized collegiate organization for women's athletics and the forerunner of the AIAW.
During the 1972–73 season, the first full academic year of its operation, the AIAW offered its first eight national championships in the same eight sports (badminton, basketball, golf, gymnastics, softball, swimming & diving, track & field, and volleyball).
The NCAA has never sponsored championship competition in badminton, synchronized swimming, or slow-pitch softball.
Compilations of collegiate records by the NCAA, continuing into 2006, have ignored or segregated the contributions of AIAW athletes.
Pre-NCAA statistics, based on AIAW Archives, Special Collections, University of Maryland Libraries.
Gladys Palmer from Ohio State University initiated the women's intercollegiate golf championship in 1941.
Beginning in 1980, the NWRA sponsored the Women's Collegiate National Championship in varsity eights.
NWRA Open Eights top college finishers, 1971–1979 (champion in parentheses):[10] National Collegiate Varsity Eight Champions, 1980–1982: Additional notes: From 1983 through the present the NCAA has sponsored a combined men's and women's team championship.
One reason for the tournament was to earn an official sanction for the sport, by complying with and fulfilling guidelines set forth by the AIAW.
[12] The Women's College World Series was played in Omaha, Nebraska, through 1979 and in Norman, Oklahoma, during 1980–1982.
It appears that most of the college women's slow-pitch teams at that time were from Florida and North Carolina.
United States Synchronized Swimming has continued to sponsor national collegiate championships from 1983 through the present.
Team championships were also bestowed from 1967[19][20] to 1979[21] by the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA).