[1][2] She helped pave the way for women's varsity athletics when she joined the men's tennis team at the University of Alabama in 1963, aged 19.

Jason Morton, tennis coach at Alabama at the time, found Alison training on grass courts in Tuscaloosa in preparation for the U.S. National Championship (now known as the U.S. Open).

This was the first official move toward allowing women to participate in varsity athletics in the Southeastern Conference of the NCAA.

At the event in Cincinnati, she was a singles finalist in 1962 and 1965, and won doubles titles in 1962 (with Mary Habicht), 1963 (with Linda Lou Crosby) and 1965 (with Stephanie DeFina).

[6] Roberta Alison Baumgardner spent her life in her native Alabama, where she died on March 20, 2009, aged 65, from injuries she sustained in a fire at her home a week earlier.