- Hometown: Denver, Colorado
- Major: Government
- Profession: Professor/Lecturer—currently Lecturer in the Earth Systems Program, School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University. Previously professor at American University where I completed my PhD in the School of International Service, and then created the International Environment and Development Semester which included 12 weeks of policy studies in DC, and Internship and then 3 week field studies in Kenya and Costa Rica. I now teach a course “Sustainability in Athletes.” I advise the United Nations on the links between sport, climate, peace and resilience. I recently attended the Green Sports Alliance Summit in June.
- Sports - Field Hockey, Diving and Lacrosse 12 straight seasons. Fall of 1974 varsity field hockey existed and I joined that team. Winter, there was no women’s swimming and diving team so a small group of us, first competed on the men’s team, then sophomore year launched the women’s team. I dove for the men during my freshman year and also sophomore year. The men’s team said they still needed me, so I dove for both. I earned a varsity letter on the men’s team. It appears there are no pictures of me with the men’s team. Don’t know if that was on purpose, trying to erase me, or just an oversight. Quick memory—at the sports banquet, the men’s swimming coaches decided to give all the men a varsity letter—even those who did not earn enough points, “because they were worried the men might feel badly if I, a woman, earned a letter and they did not. I am pretty sure I am the only Wes woman who earned a varsity letter on a men’s team. I have many memories of crazy things that happened while competing with the men:
- At the all male Coast Guard Academy, there was no women’s locker room—understandable, so I was guided to a janitors closet to change. After the meet, I was told if I wanted a shower, they would clear all the men out, and I could shower, but I had to keep my swim suit on. Funny, but just an idea of what we encountered.
- At UMass, I was getting ready for the meet, just walking along the pool deck and a UMass swimmer pushed me into the water. Weird—what was he afraid of, what was he trying to communicate?
- The Wes swimmers, divers and coaches were extremely welcoming and supportive.
- Lacrosse: My senior year in High School, I played on the boy’s lacrosse team. It caused quite a raucous. I was playing to raise awareness of the huge inequity in sports offerings for girls. Title IX was two years old and my large public high in Denver was way, way behind. They had basketball, but I was 5 feet tall and clearly not suited for basketball. I was encouraged to join the pom pom squad—a pep club to cheer on male athletes. Hell no! There were threats of lawsuits. Opposing coaches went ballistic went I entered the game. The refs, my coach, my teammates and even the opposing players were all cool—supportive. On board with my mission, or perhaps not completely on board, but tolerated me in silence. Men’s lacrosse is a contact sport and I am petite, but I told my defenders “Listen, guard me close, but leave me alone. If I am about to score—then take me out—I will be ok and you have every right to defend your goal.
So when I got to Wes, I started talking to the Athletic Director late fall to explain that in addition to a swimming and diving team, we needed a women’s lacrosse team and we needed one for next spring—spring of 1975—my freshman year. I had no interest in playing on the men’s team and being a curiosity. I wanted to play with women/against women, where I could excel—really compete. I walked him through everything we would need. A schedule of games, a bus and driver, refs, uniforms, a field and most importantly, a coach.
- Coaching. I imagine you will hear a lot about this. We were not taken seriously in our requests for real coaching, an athlete who had actually participated in our sport, knew the game, knew how to coach. For four years my field hockey coach was a woman who knew fencing—nothing about field hockey or how to coach a team sport. There is virtually no overlap in the sport of fencing and field hockey. This was painful. A men’s team would never be coached by someone who did not actually the sport. It was tolerable, barely, the first year. The fact that she “coached” us for 4 years—painful. So when we got a women's swim and diving team, who was hired to coach, the same woman who knew nothing about swimming. As a diver, I had the benefit of training with the men’s diving coach.
Fast forward to spring of 1975, we have a lacrosse team, and who is hired to coach? The same women who knew nothing about lacrosse. Nothing! And women’s lacrosse is a different sport than men's. So finally senior year, spring, my 12th straight season of sports, Wes hired a real lacrosse coach. Well, they hired a man, who had to learn the women’s game, but at least he knew the fundamentals of our game. And he was a real coach, spurring us on to win, with real practices, skill development…strategy, endurance training…So, we had 11 seasons with a “coach” who knew nothing about our sports. How on Earth was this allowed to happen, season after season, year after year?
- Favorite memory at Wes: 12 seasons! Hard to pick just one, so how about senior year, lacrosse, final season of my 12. We have a real coach. We had an away game at Amherst. We won!!!! First-ever victory for me in the Little Three. We ultimately lost at Williams, but that Amherst win was glorious. You would have thought we won the world cup or Olympic gold, we were so psyched, so stoked!
- Achievements at Wes: After attending two sports banquets, with not a single award for woman athletes, I used my own money and arranged for engraved trophies for several wonderful women athletes, standouts in their sports, who were graduating. The following year was my senior year. At the banquet, five of us were honored for our contributions to women’s sports. It felt wonderful to actually be acknowledged. And we all played multiple sports so between the 5 of us, almost every women’s sport was honored. My family donated a sterling silver tray with the names of the 5 of us engraved. That tray and a silver replica as a pin or necklace, has been awarded ever since as the Suki Hoagland Award for Outstanding Contribution to Women’s Sports. I cannot express how honored I am to have that award in my name.
- Thoughts on the initial passage of Title IX (personally and campus at the time): In 1972, when Title IX was passed, I was a champion pairs figure skater. I had trained hard for many, many years and in 1972 my partner and I were mid-western champions and National Silver Medalists. In figure skating, women have been celebrated for almost a century. We filled arena’s, the best were featured on TV, there was a huge following. And we were serious, serious competitors. My coach was inducted into the Figure Skating Hall of Fame. So I enjoyed expert coaching—she was a Midwestern champion herself, and we trained 5 hours a day during the school year and ten hours a day in the summer. This was athletics at its finest and women played a major, central role. So it was quite the shock to come to Wesleyan and find women’s sports so far behind. But we worked hard and created teams and built a foundation. We usually had no fans and my roommate Moira McNamara James would play in the game, or swim in our meets, and then write the article for the Argus in the bus on the way home. If she did not write the articles, we would have no press coverage. If we were injured, we had to be led through the men's locker room with our eyes closed to get to the training room for treatment. Our locker room had one sink and our lockers were too small to hold a field hockey or lacrosse stick. Our swim team had to wear the men’s old sweats—they were huge.
I loved my time as a Wesleyan Athlete and cherish my friendships with a collection of amazing pioneers, but we were not treated fairly. There were inequities by any measure. And 50 years after Title IX, it is clear great progress has been made. But are women athletes treated equally—with coaches and assistant coaches who are paid a competitive wage? I know the Freeman athletic center has provided women with much, much better facilities and field hockey and lacrosse have committed, talented, knowledgeable coaches, but women’s teams still have to fight for resources, fundraise to support what should be core budget items.
- Career after Wes: Before I earned my PhD and began my career as an academic, I taught middle school social studies for 4 years and coached varsity field hockey, soccer and lacrosse. I organized the first women’s lacrosse game at the celebrated, annual Lacrosse tournament in Vail Colorado. I continued to play field hockey on a Rocky Mountain Club team, we went to Nationals several times. My last year I created a Colorado All Star Field Hockey team from high school players throughout the state and took them to the National Tournament.
- Advice to current student-athletes: Keep pushing for the resources your teams need to be fully competitive. Strive for excellence. Push yourself and your teammates. Pay attention to nutrition and consider a plant based diet, which you can adopt and still maintain peak performance—and help protect the planet. Take all the skills you develop as an athlete and apply them to your life and career—commitment, dedication, grit, guts, resilience and team work.
I was co-captain several times for swimming and lacrosse. I would encourage Wes athletes to parley what they learned about leadership into every facet of their lives. Listen carefully, welcome diverse opinions and encourage everyone to speak up, learn from your mistakes, model the behavior you want to see, be a role model, be brave and do what is right not what is popular, mentor generously, use your voice, your agency to innovate, bring change and ensure that everyone succeeds.
Go Wes!
