Title IX makes tidal waves in college sports
Nicki Gustafson
In the 1930s a woman named Eva Shorb attended the College of Wooster. She was a golfer who practiced with the men’s golf team and would have been their best player. The following year it was decided that varsity sports were unfit for young women and Shorb was no longer able to practice with the men’s team. She transferred the next year to Mount Union where she had a successful college career competing alongside the men. Her son, Tom Weiskopf, later became one of the most successful golfers of the 1970s.
Shorb’s struggle to be recognized as an athlete at The College of Wooster is one that would be carried on by other women for years to come, even after Title IX was passed in 1973.
This past weekend, The College of Wooster hosted a reunion to celebrate the 50th anniversary of women’s varsity athletics. The event included the opening of a trophy case that will be permanently in the Scot Center honoring three women who were pioneers for women’s sports at the College of Wooster: Kathleen Lowrie, Dr. Marie Sexton and Nan Nichols. Many of the women who attended the event knew and played for Nan Nichols, who was the first varsity basketball and swimming coach and also served for 30 years as the Women’s Athletic Director. Many of these women played directly after Title IX and had to fight for equal funding and access to facilities. Despite these struggles, it was clear that athletics at Wooster were some of their fondest memories.
During the event, tours of the Scot Center were given and many women shared stories of the earliest days of women’s varsity athletics. One of the women on the tour was Ginny Hunt, who was the first coach of volleyball and field hockey at Wooster. When the women’s volleyball team was formed the volleyball lines were permanently painted on to the basketball floor and the men’s basketball coach was furious. He fought the painting of lines and the women’s use of the court, until he learned his best baseline shooter used the volleyball lines as a mark. This is just one of the more minor examples of the fight players and coaches had just to be included.
Women’s sports have come a long way since the passage of Title IX but they are still underappreciated. These sports matter so much in the lives of these female athletes and even to the female athletes competing for Wooster today. One athlete talked about starting the first women’s field hockey team at Duke while doing her post-doctoral work there, because the field hockey team at Wooster meant so much to her life.
As a member of the golf team at the College of Wooster, I too can attest that sports make a difference. The golf team and our coach have been a support system for me. The women’s golf team is the most recently added varsity sport at the college. Our first season was in 2010, which was my freshman year.
I know that when I look back on my time at Wooster that I will remember my time on the golf team and all of the people I met through that team. Supporting women’s athletics and sports in general is an important goal for the college and for the student body. Part of that support requires understanding where we come from. I for one am grateful for the women who came before me and opened the door to women’s athletics.