The Nebraska School Activities Association (NSAA) has featured three females – Dana Wiseman, Kathi Wieskamp and Wendy Henrichs (pictured left to right) – on its Board of Directors in the modern era, in addition to Hazel Wolf, who served on the Nebraska High School Athletic Association Board of Control in the 1920s.

Henrichs was the first of the three elected during the modern era, having served on the NSAA Board of Directors from 2011 to 2017. History was made in 2020 when Wieskamp, who began serving on the Board in 2018, was joined by Wiseman. The occasion marked the first time two females ever served simultaneously. 

The female patriarchs to precede them first left an impact during the 1920s when Miss Mabel Lee of the University of Nebraska fought for girls to have the opportunity to participate in basketball. Her efforts followed a seven-year struggle in which girls lost access to annual high school basketball tournaments, required them to play by "Girls' Rules" featuring six players, and eventually prohibited them from playing for their Nebraska High School Athletic Association member school.

In 1927, Lee presented Nebraska's Board with a constitution for the Girls Athletic Association (GAA). With the Board's backing, the Nebraska State League of High School Girls' Athletic Association was soon organized with oversight from its president, Miss Lucile Bauer. According to the NSAA's November 2009 Newsletter, "Girls earned points by passing special tests in activities such as basketball, baseball, dodge ball, tennis, folk dancing and clogging. Points were also given to girls for individual efforts outside of school in hiking, bicycling, roller skating, ice skating, and golf."

The GAA consolidated with the Nebraska High School Athletic Association in 1934. In 1957, a new constitution was adopted for the GAA that stated "any high school holding membership in the NSAA was able to participate in the GAA." #TitleIXat50

Read all Title IX Milestones here.

%MCEPASTEBIN%