AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — When the University of Texas hired Jody Conradt to coach its women’s basketball team for $17,000 in 1976, one of the state’s largest newspapers announced the move with the headline: “Woman Hired at Man’s Salary.”

Conradt knew it was just the start of a long, tough fight to lift women’s college athletics at Texas and around the country from afterthought to equal footing with the men.