After sponsoring only basketball for its first 30 years of existence, the Iowa Girl's High School Athletic Union decided to expand sports offerings for high school girls beginning with the 1955-56 school year. Softball was added as a fall sport, while golf and tennis championships were added for the spring. Unlike softball and basketball, which was played mostly by small, rural schools, tennis was quickly taken up at the state's largest schools, with few small schools taking part. Through 1982, no team champion was named. Like the boy's tournament at the time, only singles and doubles champions were determined. Then, in 1983, a new team tournament was added in which one school would square off with one other school by playing six singles games and three doubles games, then proceed through the bracket playing another team in the same way. Since that time, the IGHSAU has crowned a team champion, a singles champion, and doubles champions. Competition was split into two classes beginning in 1994, and has continued with that number ever since.