DENVER – MSU Denver has for decades been a leader in providing equal opportunities for women in intercollegiate athletics.
 
Today is the 38th installment of a 52-part tribute by Roadrunners Athletics to pioneers and leaders in intercollegiate athletics at MSU Denver. The series coincides with the passage of Title IX.

Each Thursday, a key female figure in Roadrunners athletics history will be recognized.
 
Today, softball star Tara Mickelson is featured.
 
One of the standouts on the 2010 team that reached the Division II national championship semifinals, Mickelson was an All-America first-team selection in 2009 and All-America second team in 2010 and twice earned all-region first team honors.
 
Mickelson is still the program's all-time leader in career slugging percentage (.843), while ranking second in home runs (47), fifth in on-base percentage (.464), sixth in RBIs (152) and sixth in batting average (.384).
 
She holds the program's single-season home run record, with 25 in 2010, and also has the third-best total, with 22 in 2009. She compiled the top two single-season RBI totals in program history, with 78 in 2010 and 74 in 2009, and the third- and fourth-best single-season slugging percentages, with .867 in 2010 and .819 in 2009.

In her two seasons as a Roadrunner, she played for teams that were 93-17 overall, including 66-9 in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play.
 
Title IX, the groundbreaking law prohibiting sex-based discrimination at schools that receive funding from the federal government, went into effect just over 50 years ago – on June 23, 1972.