Board Member Editorial by Jeff Cunningham

As the final seconds ran off the game clock in the Lady Bears’ eighth Big XII Tournament championship in the last decade, we all watched a tearful Kristy Wallace urging and cheering her team to victory. With the senior guard having suffered a season-ending knee injury in the final week of the season, many of us assumed Kristy’s tears were the result of bitter disappointment in watching the game from the bench. But we were wrong. Kristy was simply concerned that teammate Kalani Brown had just rolled her ankle. Selfless love for her teammates drove Kristy’s emotions in that moment. Kristy Wallace is our star. She is an example for all who love women’s athletics.

In the days that followed, I could not help but to reflect on what our Lady Bears basketball program means to Baylor University, as well as what it represents in the larger world of women’s intercollegiate athletics. The Lady Bears program is headed by a fiercely competitive coach who epitomizes the meteoric rise in visibility and importance of women’s athletics in America, and specifically, at Baylor University. Kim Mulkey was a state champion, an NCAA champion, and an Olympic Gold Medalist before coaching multiple NCAA champions and being inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. She fills her bench with stars like Wallace who chased her hoop dreams from Queensland, Australia, to Waco, Texas. These talented women represent much of what is right with women’s intercollegiate athletics today. Specifically, they are all visible evidence that Baylor and its athletic department have embraced the spirit of diversity, inclusion, and equity envisioned by the drafters of Title IX legislation back in 1972.

I feel compelled to laud Baylor’s decades-long commitment to providing pathways to success for female athletes through adherence to the spirit of Title IX. This is a personal matter for me. My wife Angelique Cunningham (then Banket) came to Baylor on an athletic scholarship from The Netherlands and teamed with “B” Association Board member, Jennifer Jordan, in winning the 1998 NCAA Championship in the 4x400m relay.  This was the first of many Baylor national championships that would be won in the next twenty years across a wide range of women’s sports. Without the dedicated scholarships, committed resources, world-class facilities and coaches nonpareil, none of Baylor’s success on a national level could have occurred. National championships in basketball, equestrian and acrobatics and tumbling have made headlines. Our ladies have multiple College World Series appearances in softball, have played for the national championship in golf and have won conference championships in track and field, tennis, cross country and soccer. These incredible athletes and citizens make Baylor women’s athletics a shining star in the NCAA — and an immense source of pride for the entire Baylor family.

The most heartening realization is that this culture of success has been by design. Baylor’s focused efforts in the pursuit of gender equity in athletics through the earnest and diligent implementation of Title IX deserves celebration. The fact that Baylor University has created a women’s sports culture that is the envy of many and a source of pride for countless others produces a very real narrative about our beloved Baylor. The future professionals and leaders stepping off the courts and the playing fields into the larger world will control that beautiful narrative. It is a story of triumph. It is a story of vision. It is a story buttressed by the contributions of many who have had the empathy of a Kristy Wallace and the strength of a Kim Mulkey. It is a story grounded in the fortitude of many to be mavericks and innovators. The good news is that fresh chapters of that story continue to be written with every practice, every game, and every season as our Baylor women continue to fling their green and gold afar. And I, for one, am happy to be in the front row. Sic ’em forever.

Jeffrey Cunningham
B.A. 1997; J.D. 2000
SWC Cross Country Champion 1994
“B” Association Board Member

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