Title IX, passed into federal law in 1972, opened the doors for female athletes in high school and college to get the opportunities their male counterparts had enjoyed for years. Women such as Katharina Decas had laid the groundwork by fighting for women’s athletics in the pre-Title IX era.

Now the longtime Wareham resident has been honored for her contributions by induction into the New Agenda Northeast Hall of Fame.

"Before Title IX, you had to fight for everything you got. She was one of the people who did the fighting for us," said Leda Levine, member of the New Agenda Hall of Fame committee, an organization that honors those who advance the roles of girls and women in sports. The New England-wide Hall of Fame inducted Decas and 10 others at a ceremony in Newton earlier this month.

The 75-year-old Decas was a physical education teacher and coach at Sharon High School for 39 years, but before that she was a member of the Wareham High School Class of 1957. It was there she was voted most athletic in her class alongside football star Ed Monteiro.

Decas said she played sports in high school, but girls athletics was very unorganized, she was a three-year member of the cheerleading squad though. Decas said it was one of her old gym teachers, a Mrs. Andersen, who inspired her to pursue a career in athletics.

"I remember I made the decision in 8th grade to become a coach," Decas said.

So Decas went on to receive a B.S. in Health, Physical Education and Recreation from Springfield College. While there, she got a taste for the environment she would be inhabiting in her early years as a coach.

"I'd be in a class with 50 guys and be the only girl," she said.

After graduation Decas received a job as a physical education teacher at Sharon High School in 1963 with the opportunity to coach girls basketball and softball.

Decas was also asked by the athletic director to start a Field Hockey program at the school.

"I think I made $50 extra per sport,” she said.

Decas said the basketball program consisted of girls playing in the gym without any rhyme or reason and with the brand new field hockey program, Decas certainly had her hands full.

“It was a struggle back then. The girls team never got prime practice times or facilities,” said Peg Arguimbau, who played three sports under Decas at Sharon High School. She said Decas would have to do things such as secure fields for use or paint markings on the field herself when the teams wanted to use it.

“She would do a lot of things that are done today by groundskeepers or athletic directors,” she said.

Decas coached three sports at the varsity and sub-varsity level working 12 to 14 hours a day and managed to turn the fledgling basketball program into a great success, winning two Hockomock league titles and going to the postseason six out of the first eight years she coached the team.

One of her games against rival Foxboro for the league title drew over 500 people – the largest crowd for a girls’ basketball game at that time

Despite this success, Decas had to deal with the boys team constantly breaking up her practices, stealing gym time and the need to raise money to keep the team afloat.

“Women's sports was really the lowest on the totem pole,” Decas said.

“Without fundraisers you got nothing,” added Levine.

Decas would organize banquets with famous Boston Celtics announcers Johnny Most and Tommy Heinson to raise funds for the team in the late 1960s.

Working around the clock eventually caught up to Decas, who took a two-year hiatus from coaching right before Title IX would take effect and forever change the funding level of women’s sports.

Decas said the unfortunate timing of her break let the football coach swoop in and take over the women's basketball program. She came back and coached Field Hockey making more money coaching that one sport than she was previously making coaching three.

Decas went on to teach and coach at Sharon for 39 years, retiring in 2002. Arguimbau, her former athlete, took over as Field Hockey coach at Sharon. Arguimbau was also inducted into the New Agenda Hall of Fame this month and considers Decas, who is godmother to her son and was in her wedding party, a lifelong friend.

“She was one of the main guiding lines in my life,” Arguimbau said.

She said Decas’ enthusiasm and work ethic had a positive effect on many girls that played for her.

Decas said she was proud of the confidence and self-esteem boost she saw athletics bring to countless girls over the years.

She said over the years she has had many good and many bad teams, but even the bad teams were happy and loud on the bus rides home from losses.

“They were proud of how they had developed over the course of a season,” Decas said. “They did things they never thought they could do.”

Without the groundwork laid out by Decas and women like her in the 50s and 60s, many women athletes today probably couldn’t.