For 25 years, female student-athletes have enjoyed success in Big Ten athletics but their accomplishments go beyond the conference's official recognition of 13 women's championships.  Fencing, ice hockey, lacrosse, pistol and rifle, synchronized swimming and water polo have contributed female participation and major success to several conference universities' athletics departments for several decades.  As Big Ten universities continue to set a high bar in women's athletics, it is important to recognize champions participating in events that occur outside the sponsorship of the Big Ten Conference.

Winners of six consecutive national team fencing titles from 1995 to 2000, the Penn State Nittany Lions rekindled their success by finishing second at the 2006 NCAA Championships.  Northwestern and Ohio State, the only other Big Ten universities featuring fencing, finished seventh and eighth respectively in 2006.  Penn State's history includes 29 All-America selections and three individual crowns.  Ohio State won four straight Big Ten titles from 1981-84, and the Buckeyes' Yelena Kalkina claimed the school's only female national championship in the event, winning the women's foil competition in 1997.  OSU topped Penn State to capture the 2004 NCAA Championship title by amassing 194 points, which marked the second-highest team total in the five years the NCAA had contested events in the six weapons.

Minnesota, Ohio State and Wisconsin lace up for ice hockey competition with the best in the country, and fittingly the nation's title was decided in a battle between two of those teams in 2006.  Minnesota entered the 2006 season owning three national titles and had fielded 10 All-Americans and 31 Academic All-Big Ten selections in seven seasons.  But it was Wisconsin, which was also in its seventh year of existence, that claimed its first NCAA title with a 3-0 victory over two-time defending champion Golden Gophers.  In only their second NCAA postseason appearance and first run at the Frozen Four, the Badgers also achieved what no other team had in the six-year history of the women's Frozen Four had, shutting out their semifinal and championship opponents.  No shutouts had ever been recorded and the Badgers did it twice.

One year after making history by becoming the first non-East Coast school to win a national title in lacrosse, the Northwestern Wildcats claimed the 2006 championship crown in only their fifth year as a varsity program.  While compiling a 41-1 record - including 31-game winning streak - over the past two seasons, the Wildcats became the squad in school history to earn back-to-back NCAA titles. Senior Kristen Kjellman also scored the Tewaaraton Trophy as the nation's top player, marking the first time the trophy's winner hailed from a non-east coast school.  One of those east coast squads is Penn State, which holds five national titles with its latest coming in 1989.  The Buckeyes program celebrated its 11th season in 2006.

Ohio State is the only Big Ten university with women's pistol and rifle teams.  The pistol squad finished second overall in the 2006 National Collegiate Championship by a mere nine points but Teresa Meyer claimed gold individually in the air pistol championship, joining nine other female individual title-holders.  The rifle squad has claimed the Russell Wiles Trophy - an honor presented to highest scoring team at the conference championship - 21 times in the past three decades.  Also the only school with synchronized swimming, Ohio State's program has been supreme in its success since the Collegiate National Championships began in 1977.  Winners of 24 of the past 30 national crowns, the squad originated in the late 1920s before its first judged competition between schools started in the 1940s.  In the past three decades of competitions, 52 Buckeyes have earned individual national titles.

Michigan and Indiana, the only Big Ten programs competing in water polo, have consistently staked their claim among the country's top teams.  The Wolverines, who have participated in water polo since 2001, have compiled a 44-2 Collegiate Water Polo Association conference record (.957) in six seasons - a span that includes two conference titles (2002, 2005) and continual year-end rankings among the nation's top 20.  A part of Indiana's athletic program since 1998, the Hoosiers have garnered 55 Academic All-Big Ten selections and earned a trip to the NCAA Championship in 2003.