University Daily Kansan, October 17, 1980 Page 11
KU women's athletics travel long road to success
By PATTI ARNOLD Associate Sports Editor
When a KU women's athletic team wins its first national championship, the trophy could read "NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPION."
That's a little bit different from what the women could be expecting this year. But it seems as if the National Collegiate Athletic Association wants to take the women athletes into the 1980s by sponsoring national championships for Division I schools with women's programs.
KU is an NCAA Division I school, but the women are governed by the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women.
The influence of the NCAA could put women's athletics into the national spotlight. There's no question about what it has done for the men.
Just about everyone knows that the men's athletic program at KU has a long history. But then, so does the women's.
WHEN JAMES Naimshin invented basketball in the 1890s, he intended it to be played in between football and baseball seasons. He never thought it would be viewed as a sissy game by the men.
But that's what happened, according to basketball coach Marian Washington
Men weren't interested in what was to be the bread and butter sport for women at that time.
got on the court and started knocking each other around a little bit.
Undaunted by the lack of interest from the men, Naimah turned to the women.
And in 1903, the first women's basketball team took the floor for the University of Kansas. The Jayhawks went 6-2 that season, its first and last.
THE TEAM broke up after the season and wasn't seen again until the emergence of the Women's Athletic Association in 1912.
And since that eighth day of February the women's sports program at KU has gone through something of everything.
The Athletic Association was like a club. The women paid dues, elected officers and had a faculty adviser, Hazel Pratt, who took the program and built it into one of the largest student organizations on campus.
The uniforms the women wore then were quite a bit different from today's. In fact, it's hard to imagine women now playing basketball or running track in knee-length shorts and white sailor-type blouses.
got the ball rolling toward intercollegiate competition.
IN THE 1920s, a young student named Ruth Hoover, the assistant director of women's sports, started a change in the direction of the program. She expanded the number of sports from 10 to 15 and included sororities and independent living groups. Up to 1,000 women participated in the games.
The program stayed much the same way until 1968, when Marlene Mawson
Then came the late '60s, and the
Kansas. In the early '70s, they almost died.
But then, the savior of women, and often the curse of men, Title IX, came in.
THIS PIECE of legislation introduced in 1972 caused numerous problems, not only at KU, but around the nation.
Title IX states that there can be no
The 1980s
sex discrimination in schools—not in education, not in athletics.
Title IX gave women in the club sports a glimmer of hope.
KU's central administration went to work developing a Women's Athletic Center and hired Martin Washington, the first and only women's athlete director, in 1974.
Washington said her primary goal at first was to upgrade coaches' salaries.
"We were averaging $2,500 a year," she said.
But of all the things that happened to women in the early years of the athletic department, 1975 brought the biggest change.
For the first time, women were allowed to receive scholarships to Kansas. The women's athletic department raised all of the money
The two department became one
July 1, 1979. Later that month,
Washington University won the
title.
basketball team. She could not do both, as she had done for five years.
"I suppose it's like some professors who decide to take time off to focus on one area," Washington said at the time. "I just decided to take some time off from administration and focus on coaching.
itself for the scholarships through coaching clinics, sport camps and anything else they could think of, Washington said.
"It's been five long years, but they've been good years."
About $1,500 was available for aid that first year, she said. She signed three basketball players, all of whom went on to be stars for KU.
But the entire athletic department had fallen on hard times financially the
The women were added to the Williams Fund scholarship program, and the money for scholarship induction will be provided by a $150.00 scholarship budget is about $150.00.
The latest big move in the Athletic Department, the storied merger of the men's and women's departments, forced Washington to make possibly the most difficult decision of her career at Kansas.
That drained just about any surplus KU had, and put added pressure to rebuild the football team on Don Lough, who was hired to replace Moore.
Then, last spring, a sport died. Gymnastics, with a small team and a budget to match, was eliminated by the athletic department.
THE TROUBLES came about because of the decline of football attendance, brought about by a 1-10 record in 1978. Head football coach Bud was fired, but his contract was paid off by the department to the tune of $76,320.
2000 to see more career classes
And last summer, a federal investigation was ordered by the Department of Education. A complaint filed against KU by a former field hockey player, Ann Levinson, was several years old, but the investigation finally came to light. Eight schools are being investigated this year.
The women's athletic program has come a long way from the time when, if KU teams traveled at all, it was within the state with sack lunches to the present week-long trips during winter and spring breaks.
1.
She was given a choice: either remain in administration, serving as the assistant athletic director, or remain in coaching, with the women's
Rv BRETT WOODS
Conboy, who is also a professor of speech communication and human relations, said the change in education would result from a slower and steadier economy that futurists are predicting for the year 2000.
"We are preparing to accept the fact that the growth of our economy is showing," Cobay said. "We will soon abandon the best of scarcity rather than abundance. In terms of college courses, there will be less adventuring."
Students on Mt. Oread 29 years from now will find classes designed for their future careers. But they won't find classes that will necessarily excite according to William A. Conboy, chairman of the KU future studies committee.
By BRETT WOODS Staff Reporter
Conboy said the philosophy and religion courses that were common in the 1960s would continue to decline in favor of courses related to careers.
The adventure, exploration and
challenging of values made the '60s a very explosive and exciting time. All kinds of new and different things were being taught. Looking at the future in that sense, things will not be as exciting." Conbov said.
degrees." These would allow the student to take eight or 10 courses in an area related to their careers. The "content degree" would apply only to the courses taken and would not be a regular college degree.
COMMUNITY COLLEGES and career training for high school students will flourish in the future, he said. Graduate students may be able to
But despite specialization of university education, liberal arts will continue to be an important part of a regular college education, he said.
"The core of the university needs to be a very strong liberal arts program.
Graduate students may be able to take courses offering "content
The future
My bet is that professional schools will realize that and a symbiotic relationship will develop," Conboy said.
UNIVERSITIES ALSO will return to a more personal approach with students, he said. The sizes of lecture classes won't change but will periodically be split into small discussion groups.
Computers also will receive more use in the future as a way to individualize education, he said. Teachers will develop problems for the students to solve and they will do their work individually on a computer.
"The use of simulation with computers will give students a kind of inference in their own area. That will be done by the computer, which will be individual between the student and the computer. So far these programs have proved successful. They do not replace the teacher but are a useful supplement." Conboy said.
Conboy attended the First Global conference on the Future last July in Tokyo.
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