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Title IX was passed 50 years ago Thursday. The federal law provides women equal access to sports in school settings while also providing protections including an education free from discrimination.

Also on Thursday, the Biden administration to Title IX that would revoke Trump administration mandates that advocates for sexual assault survivors say discriminates against victims. The new regulations would also extend Title IX's reach to sexual orientation and gender identity, providing landmark protections to transgender students. Current Title IX laws do not address transgender students' rights.

Kicking off the morning's event at the Cole and Jeannie Davis Sports Center was Kathleen "Rocky" LaRose, a former UA athlete and longtime administrator.

LaRose was introduced by Erika Barnes, the UA's executive senior associate athletic director and senior woman administrator. Barnes — who, like LaRose, is a former UA softball player — said LaRose was instrumental in paving the way for both male and female athletes at the UA.

LaRose told the crowd that it's hard to believe 50 years have passed since Title IX became law.

"Only 37 words that literally was a game-changer, and I say that pun intended. It literally threw the sports world upside down," she said. "The translation of those words, it's pretty simple: Girls get to play."

LaRose said that in the wake of Title IX's passage, playing fields were "flooded" with young girls and women.

"It doubled, tripled, quadrupled participation, which was proving that all those years before, it wasn't a lack of interest, but rather it was a lack of opportunities," she said. "Also proving that if you build it, they will come, which is exactly what happened."

LaRose went back 104 years, thanking the founders of the Women's Athletic Association. The association was formed in 1918, when, in the middle of World War I, the UA campus was without male athletes.

"A bunch of coeds got together and said we've got to do something to keep up the old, grand spirit of the University of ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥," LaRose said.

The WAA was formed. Ina Gittings arrived in 1920, organized the intramural and recreation-based Women's Athletic Association and grew it.

LaRose also paid tribute to Mary Roby, a 1948 UA grad who was later hired to head up the Women's Recreation Association, which by then had merged with the WAA.

"It was her that had the quest and helped to start the movement to have varsity athletics for women. She succeeded," LaRose said of Roby, a longtime UA administrator. "Let's look back over the last 50 years of the thousands of women that have walked through Gittings door and through McKale Center and think of all the successes those women have had because of Title IX on the field of play."

LaRose listed the UA's accomplishments in the past 50 years, including becoming the first university in the country to have four NCAA Women of the Year, its 46 Olympic medalists, 115 individual national champions, 834 All-Americans, 41 conference titles and 15 national championships.

"Think of all the educational degrees that have been awarded in the last 50 years to those women, the friendships made and those memories that will last a lifetime," she said. "I look out here at all the little ones that are joining us today, and I think of all the possibilities for their future. And I think again, it's all because of those 37 words."

Wildcats softball player Izzy Pacho took the stage next, readying Thursday's young attendees for the upcoming Field Day activities. An elementary education major, Pacho was in charge of Field Day, which saw dozens of local kids split up into stations throughout the center.

For two hours, kids learned yoga, participated in volleyball, soccer and throwing drills and chatted with UA student-athletes, including basketball players Lauren Ware, Esmery Martinez, Maya Nnaji, Madison Conner, Lauren Fields and Paris Clark.

Softball players Allie Skaggs and Sophia Carroll were also on hand, as were a handful of other student-athletes. Players enthusiastically engaged with the young participants, taking time out for high-fives and to sign autographs or pose for selfies whenever asked. The center quickly filled with whoops of delight and laughter as kids worked out, learned from elite athletes and made new friends.

Wilbur T. Wildcat rolled in right before lunch. By that time, nearly 100 adults — many of them alumni — had gathered for a noon panel discussion featuring UA legends and trailblazers.

Women’s basketball coach Adia Barnes, UA softball great Jenny Dalton-Hill, ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Sports Hall of Fame inductee Kathy Krucker, Wildcats softball coach Caitlin Lowe and NCAA Woman of the Year recipient Lacey Nymeyer John gathered on stage to talk about their experiences under Title IX and what they hope the future holds.

Krucker talked about what life at the UA as a woman athlete was like before Title IX, saying that while there was relatively no budget or university support, she still wouldn't trade her time at the UA for a post-Title IX experience. Krucker, who graduated in 1971, was a middle-distance swimmer and backstroker, captain of the UA women’s volleyball team and a left fielder in softball.

"It was a golden time," she said. "We had great teammates, and we were pretty good. On our volleyball team, four of us are in the UA Sports Hall of Fame."

John, an Olympic swimmer, said that while women's sports has undoubtedly benefitted from the hard work of Krucker and those that came before and after, many women athletes wouldn't be where they are today without the support of their male teammates and coaches. She said that as part of a combined program, many of her best training partners were the men who pushed, challenged and supported she and their female teammates to perform their best.

"There's no way I would have made the strides I've made in my career if it wasn't for the men on my team," John said. "When we look at Title IX and the impact of Title IX, it helps all of us — men and women — competing together and getting better. Not only as athletes, but as human beings."

Adia Barnes talked about how growing up in San Diego, her friends were playing with Barbie dolls while she was shooting baskets and riding skateboards. With no opportunities for a girl who wanted to play basketball, Barnes played in the YMCA's boys league. Barnes said it worked out for the best.

"For my generation, playing with boys extremely helped us. It made us tougher, stronger," Barnes said. "You learn all of your biggest life lessons through sports."

Panelists also talked about Gittings and Roby, women who were willing to ask tough questions and have difficult conversations.

"I will never forget a conversation with a gymnast from the 1960s. She told me about when she made the team, she got a packet, and the packet had her training schedule, competition schedule, team rules, and in the back was a pattern that she had to go buy the fabric and make her own uniform," John said.  "I about dropped the phone, because we just rolled up to the equipment office and got a nice, big bag of free gear. So when I think of where we need to go, we also need to remember how far we've come and the gratitude we need to have for these opportunities."

Panelists also talked about the difficulty of balancing a career in sports with parenthood.

Adia Barnes said that she thinks the inequity facing working mothers isn't necessarily intentional, but it still needs to change. She pointed to travel rules that don't account for coaches or assistant coaches who may have young children or caregivers for those kids.

Dalton-Hill brought up her career after the UA and her experience as an assistant softball coach at the University of Kentucky in the late 1990s, which at the time paid $11,000 a year. Dalton-Hill, who had two young children who required childcare, said her barrier was equity in pay.

"Because I couldn't make enough to support my profession, I had to give it up," she said.

Without a sustainable income, Dalton-Hill left the game she loved behind. She now works as a softball analyst for ESPN — a profession she didn't even know was an option when she was growing up.

"I never knew that I could be on TV talking calling softball games or talking about sports, because when I was growing up, it was baseball in my house or the Olympics," Dalton-Hill said in a speech after the panel. "It came down to I couldn't see anyone doing what I was doing at the time, and so I didn't think there was a future in it."

Dalton-Hill told the crowd that she was working a University of Missouri softball game last season when she saw an upcoming promotion. The name: "If she can see it, she can be it." With a handful of women's sports regularly featured on television and women working in sports journalism to provide coverage and commentary on both men's and women's sports, Dalton-Hill said there isn't much in athletics these days that girls and women aren't seeing.

"How simple and yet how great that one little phrase is," she said.