When/if women's athletics attains an equivalent status with men's athletics at Harvard University, 1989-90 will be remembered as the turning point.

Sure, there were few real changes.

Funding is still comparatively woefully low for women's programs, mostly because of a lack of "Friends" groups that keep the men's teams well-funded for special trips and events. When he resigned from the position of Director of Athletics one year ago, Jack Reardon called this problem the biggest one facing the athletic department.

"[Equal funding] is a complicated issue because Harvard has Friends groups that support a large amount of activities," Harvard women's lacrosse coach Carole Kleinfelder says days. "The big inequity is the time a women's coach puts into fundraising as opposed to a men's coach. It takes me an enormous amount of work, effort and time, unlike [Harvard men's lacrosse Coach] Scott [Anderson], because he has the network set up."

A major factor in the problem is the fact that older alumni are the moving forces in Friends groups, and there are few older alumnae of women's sports. However, the problem still remains that thee baseball team gets its spring break trip to California paid for while members of the softball team must fork over more than $400 each to pay their way down to Texas during the same time period.

"It's subtle, but it's larger than you may think. Title IX is supposed to take care of that, but Friends groups aren't included in Title IX," adds Kleinfelder, referring to the legislation which ensures that federally funded athletic programs must give equal treatment, including funding, to both the men's and women's programs in the same sport.

Attendance figures at women's competitions cannot compare--you are still more likely to catch up with a cold than a friend during a women's hockey game at Bright Center. Media attention still focuses on the men's teams much more than the women's squads.

But equality is an attitude, and that attitude underwent a subtle transition this year.

It was the women's lacrosse team that had dinner with President Derek Bok at the Faculty Club last Thursday. It was women's athletics that attracted the new fans.

"I can't tell you how many people this year were new to watching the games," says Car Joslin, who starred on the field hockey, hockey and lacrosse teams. "People were drawn to it, and once they saw it, they came back. I had many people who admitted that they were going to the games just to humor me, but they were enticed to come back for more. That will only build in terms of audience."

In this cost-cutting era of collegiate sports, especially in financially-troubled Massachusetts, it is Harvard that is committed to maintaining its 19-team women's program. Not so at Oklahoma, which attempted to drop its women's basketball program this year before it was forced to rescind the decision because of public outcry. Not so at Rutgers and the University of Massachusetts, which dropped their women's lacrosse programs this year, sparking protest at the women's lacrosse Final Four three weeks ago in Princeton, N.J.

New A.D. Bill Cleary rode in to 60 JFK St. promising to emphasize participation--i.e., intramurals and women's athletics.

And on the playing fields, where success changes attitudes in a hurry, this year will certainly be remembered as the year of Harvard women's athletics.

Today marks the graduation of two of Harvard's greatest women's athletes, Meredith Rainey and Joslin.

Last June, Rainey became the first woman in Ivy League history to capture an NCAA championship when she claimed the 800-meter race. Rainey repeated the effort this winter, finishing first in the 800-meter run at the indoor national championships with a record-breaking time that eclipsed Mary Decker's record set in 1978.