10/17/2025
Flashback Friday! Cross Country: A sport that dates back to the early 1800s, cross country excluded women until the mid-1900s, when the International Amateur Athletic Foundation allowed women to compete for the first time at the 1967 International Cross-Country Championship held in Barry, Wales.
In 1971, the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women was founded, and the first collegiate Women's Cross Country Championship was held in 1975. Cross country was one of twelve women's sports added to the NCAA Championship program for the 1981-1982 school year.
Here is a picture of the 1991 Winamac Community High School girls' cross-country team as listed in the Winamac Totem:
Front row: K. Klitzman, E. Kocher, K. Marin, A. McKinley
Back row: Coach Annette Zupin, A. Whiteman, L. Brucker, J. Conner, and N. Locke.
[Source: Winamac Totem 1992]