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friday <
10.16.98 <
eight.a <
Celebrating the spirit
story by sam mellinger kansan staff writer
SCHEDULE
Today
Events scheduled for the 30th Anniversary of Women's Athletics Reunion Weekend: Tuesday
3 p.m.: Women's soccer vs. Nebraska, Super Target Field
7 p.m.:
Crimson/Blue Swim
Meet, Robinson
Nurturant
7:30 p.m.
Women's Volleyball
vs. Iowa State,
Allegheny Field house
10 p.m.: Men's and
Mens' Basketball
Late Night,
Allen Field House
Saturday
10 a.m.: Alumni Brunch, Adams Alumni Center
1:30 p.m. Tour of KU Athletic Facilities, Wagonn Student-Athlete Center
3 p.m.: Family Picnic/Slowlift Softball Game, Jayhawk Softball Field
Sunday
7:30 p.m.
Women's volleyball
vs. Missouri, Allen
Field House
1 p.m.: Women's soccer vs. Iowa State, Super Target Field
7:30 a.m.: Golf
Outing, Alvamar
Golf Course
A member of the 1977 78 women's golf team hits toward the green.
arlene Mawson didn't know
She didn't know what would happen when she was given the responsibilities of starting a women's athletic program at the University of Kansas in 1968.
She didn't know the obstacles ahead of her, but she knew that she had to give it a shot.
"I was young then," she says now. "When you're young, you think that anything is possible."
Mawson left the University in 1990 after 22 years, but the mark she made on women's athletics will be on display this weekend as the University celebrates 30 years of women's intercollegiate sports.
The anniversary will be recognized throughout the athletic season, with the festivities hitting a high note tomorrow when former athletes and coaches will be honored.
The female involvement in sports that will be celebrated this year was something Mawson saw as natural.
She grew up playing sports — "softball during the outdoor season, basketball during the indoor" — and thought she could continue her love for athletics when she attended college.
Mawson grew up in the 1960s, a time when society thought a woman's place was in the home and not on the basketball court or softball diamond.
Mawson didn't care about popular opinion, so she went to play basketball for the Kansas City Piperettes, an AAA basketball team where current Kansas women's basketball coach Marian Washington played.
Mawson also played in a Kansas City Parks and Recreation volleyball league and was president of a bowling association.
"I was doing some kind of sport all the time," said Mawson, now physical education department chairwoman at Illinois State University. "I grew up playing competitively and didn't realize that women didn't have a lot of opportunities in sports until I got to college. I knew what it was like to play competitively, and I wanted to bring that to the collegiate level. It will always be my passion to help promote women's sports."
Members of the 1973-74 women's field hockey team scramble to gain possession of the ball. The field hockey program was cancelled.
That passion was the reason Mawson was in charge of the $2,000 earmarked to start a women's athletics program. The money was part of the 1968-69 budget for the department of health and physical education.
The program could do more with two grand 30 years ago than it could today, but it wasn't like it had anything to waste, Mawson said.
"Basically, there was no money," said Washington, who has been the Kansas women's basketball coach since 1973.
The lack of funding meant no scholarships and little recruiting, and that wasn't even the worst part.
"There were a lot of people who didn't think we had a chance." Washington said
The women's teams shared athletes as well as game attire, practicing in old Robinson Gymnasium.
"If you think it's bad now, you should have seen it then," said one former coach
The teams had to share court space not only with one another but also with intra mural teams.
"We had to beg, borrow and steal to get anything done over at Robinson," said Jack Isgur, the first volleyball coach in
1975.
Nancy Boozer started women's' golf in 1971 and took the funding problem into her own hands.
"I made our blazers that we wore," she said and added that the money came from her own pocket. "We had to conserve. We had to take vans if we went anywhere, stay at Motel 6, and we had $6 a day for meals."
The women's coaches salaries were also tiny, if existent at all. Many of the coaches taught in the department of
physical education and assumed their coaching duties on a volunteer basis.
It was hard to find people who were willing to work under these conditions for free, but the attitude of the time was one reason Mawson could find people to take on multiple responsibilities.
"I was from the era when you just did it all and didn't expect extra pay," said Mawson, who coached basketball, volleyball, softball, tennis and field hockey at the University.
Washington served as women's athletics director from 1974 until the program's merger with the men's department in 1981, and she said finding coaches was one of the biggest challenges.
Mawson said initiative helped but did not solve the problem.
The task was made easier by an Olympic development committee. It was conducted by the National Institution for Girls and Women in Sport and offered women who had no coaching background an opportunity to learn the job in the 1960s.
Limited resources were not the only problem. Female athletes had to struggle with the stereotypes of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
"They thought women should have teas and socials and wear dresses and have manners and all of that." Isgur said. "I'm not against manners, but people didn't think there was a place for them in sports."
In the 1970s even Lynette Woodard—a four-time All-American at Kansas and considered one of the best female basketball players of all time
—couldn't get in a pickup game at her local playground.
"We wouldn't get to play unless they needed us," she said. "If they had enough people, they didn't need us. But if they were a player short, it was like 'oh, I guess we'll let her play.' This is real. This is how I grew up."
Mawson wasn't deterred by any of this. She believed she could get things done.
"Absolutely, I did," she said. "There weren't any days off the first couple years, but we kept at it."
But she believed for a different reason. Shortly after Mawson had started her work, Washington
Marian Washington also believed.
women's national team in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
"We played in front of 47,000 people," she said. "I saw how people responded to us when we were traveling abroad, and I knew that it could be like that here. I just believed in it."
She thinks the team finished fifth, but that is not what sticks in her mind.
Washington believed so much that she put her playing shoes away. That included footwear for basketball, handball and discus.
Building a women's athletics program moved to the top of her priority list, and she wasted little time. She became women's basketball coach in 1973. The same year she founded the women's track and field team.
A year later, she became the director of
the university's newly founded women's athletics department. The reason for creating a separate department for women was simple.
"The men's athletics department didn't see the women as part of it," Mawson said.
That has change. This year, the women's athletic budget is $3,968,723. The money includes 113 scholarships, which is four short of the NCAA maximum. The University is in the process of adding those scholarships to the rowing team.
"I think they've been proceeding faster than anyone would have guessed," Mawson said.
This weekend, several women's teams and former coaches will be inducted into the KU Hall of Fame. Among them are seven softball teams that competed in the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics
Above: Lynette Woodard goes up for a shot in front of a sparse crowd in the 1970s. She said women weren't always considered when it came to sports. All images courtesy University Archives
Field hockey now gaining popularity
By DICK DEAN
Kansas Spoof Writer
At one time field hockey was only populated in the New York state ahead, but in the past few years it has gained prominence overcourt, especially in big events and on college campuses. At one point of the Women's international association, in the coach of the KC women's team and has it entered in several matches with other coaches. Each team has 11 members who play two 30-minute halves with no substitutions allowed in the game. The object of the game is to show a ball, with a backstop, the length of a football field and across the opponent's goal line. One point is scored if a team scores a number of goals scored in a single game in love, sometimes only one or two. There is no special competition with even
for Women College World Series (1972-77 and 1979), former coaches Sharon Drysdale and Bob Stanclift, current swimming and diving coach Gary Kempf and 1949 National Collegiate Individual Golf Champion Marilynll Smith.
"It's wonderful that we're going to recognize these people." Washington said. "I'm really thrilled we stayed the course, and I'm glad to be around to be seeing this thing happen."
time of the gossie who has extra
preservation on the lions top floor.
Tuesday to play in the Kansas State Teachin College. That also entered an eight-day Kanahei City Field Hockey club team November 16 and 18. BU will pay $4,000 per game to host games from Iowa, Missouri and Kansas.
The Kansas State College at Flushing will host a meet with teams from Missouri and Kansas on Friday, Feb. 24. The following day the squad returns to Lawrence to meet the Kansas City Field Hockey Club in a second round game against the second unit of Babylon basketball tournament at 9:30 p.m.
An article from the Oct.
30, 198&, University
Daily Kansan on the
women's field hockey
team. The article was
one of few detailing
the rise of women's sports.
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