- Hometown: Stamford, Connecticut
- Sports: Field Hockey, Basketball, Track
- Major: French Literature
- Profession: Language Analyst for DoD
- Favorite memory at Wes: Other than my junior year abroad in France, for sure my favorite memories and best friends came from sports at Wes. My freshman year we had to scrape together a basketball team: Since only 9 women showed up for try-outs, the head of the phys ed dept, Donald Russell, said he wouldn't field a team unless we had 10. Somehow we found a 10th and forced the university to hire a coach for that season, a very good high school coach (Sandy is the name I remember) from nearby. We went on to have a winning season and pull in enough fans that they had to move our games from a practice court to the cage at Fayerweather to accommodate them.
- Achievements at Wes: I graduated! I was the female winner of the Roger Maynard Scholar-Athlete award in 77.
The initial passage of Title IX really had little impact on women's sports at Wesleyan other than to give us hope. Although it was passed in '72, colleges and universities had 6 years to implement it. The women's teams were still relegated to the former visitors' locker room off the pool. If we needed to use the weight room it was in the men's locker room and we had to have someone escort us. Ditto anything we needed a trainer for. Our practice uniforms were the men's hand-me downs. Our coach drove us to games and meets. We had a $5 meal allowance. Part of this was the growing pains of going coed; part of it was the lack of incentive to invest in women's athletics, I think. One off-shoot of the law's passage was that in 1973 the NCAA waived its regulation barring women from competing in men's events, thus allowing me to join the men's track team my freshman year.
It's hard to fathom how different things were in women's sports in the '70s. The NCAA initially wanted nothing to do with us. Under the AIAW, emphasis was on participation over winning. With few scholarships available to women, the playing field among schools was more even. We competed against UConn in field hockey; women's basketball also played UConn my freshman year; Maryland, Indiana and UMass in track meets. By today's standards it was crazy.
So I'm happy for the women in college today. I've seen the new sports facilities and I am impressed. I know no one really wants to hear about the olden days, but I hope these women don't take it all for granted. Most of all, I hope they enjoy the competition and having the resources they need to meet their full potential. My advice: keep playing games as long as you can. I'm still at it.
