HERE WE ARE AT 50 Continued from page 9
sashes were added to tie up the tunic. Zenaty recalls that in her second year of basketball, “We thought we were so great, because we got chenille numbers to put on, by snap.” In time, the tunics were tossed, and, according to Jone Bush, “We called ourselves, ‘Pink Power’ (with) pink shirts with maroon on them and maroon shorts.” Of far greater significance, Springfield continued to add sports
for women even before the landmark Title IX legislation passed in 1972, a moment that launched the first varsity teams for a great many other schools. “By the time I came back (to coach in 1970), we really had things
going at Springfield,” Zenaty says. “We had numerous sports. We were certainly ahead of many of the large universities in the area.” Female athletes from Springfield College have gone on to be great
leaders in the sports world. We have seen alumnae become Olympic athletes (the late Paula Deubel Phillips ’57, kathy Corrigan ’66, Denise Desautels ’77, and Erin Pac ’03). Springfield varsity athletes have gone on to sparkling coaching careers in the high school and college ranks. The remarkable roommate crew of Pam Hixon and Nancy Darsch from the Class of ’73 have been coaching luminaries at the highest level. Hixon, who would turn uMass into a national power in field hockey, became the head coach for Team uSA in the 1996 Olympics. Darsch, a standout basketball player, would become head coach at Ohio State and then a head coach in the WNBA (coaching and winning the first game in league history for the New York liberty in 1999). Some top Springfield athletes have returned to campus to become
Even here on campus, the once all-male bastion of Springfield
College athletics has been run since 2000 by Cathie Schweitzer. Though she was educated elsewhere (university of Akron, ’73), Schweitzer knew full well that becoming the athletic director at this college carried special significance. “You look at our history and tradi- tion,” she says. “It was probably the proudest moment of my life.” Schweitzer looks at the landscape of women’s college athletics
across the nation and here on campus, and sees an enormous amount of progress. She was proud to note major landmarks last year as the NCAA celebrated 30 years of sponsoring national championships for women, while 40th anniversary observances of Title IX also peppered the landscape. “So there are some real milestones,” she says. “But here we are at 50 years of celebrating women’s athletics.” But, Schweitzer is a realist, and she says
“By the time I came back (to coach in 1970), we really had things going at Springfield ... We had numerous sports. We were certainly ahead of many of the large universities in the area.” Dottie Potter Zenaty
there is still plenty of work to be done toward achieving the proverbial level playing field. Nationally, she believes that a large issue is the declining number of women coaching women’s teams—down to 43 percent. “It’s male- dominated,” Schweitzer says, referring to the number of women’s collegiate teams that are coached by men. On the campus, Schweitzer says there is
iconic coaches. kathy Mangano ’86, g’88, four-year starter and two- year captain in softball under Diane Potter, coached the Pride for 20 years and became the program’s leader in career wins. She now serves as the chair of the College’s department of physical education and health education. Melissa Rogers Sharpe ’02, g’04, one of the greatest field hockey players in school history during Zenaty’s reign, succeeded her mentor and is in her 10th year as head coach of that program. From a school that prizes leadership, a number of Springfield’s
women athletes have gone on to run athletic departments. Former softball standout Diane Schumacher ’75—enshrined in the National Softball Hall of Fame—is an athletic director (AD) at Howard Community College in Maryland. Swimming star Susan Petersen lubow ’75 has been the AD at the u.S. Merchant Marine Academy since 1990, when she became the first woman to head an athletic department for any of the u.S. Federal Academies.
much to be proud of when it comes to gender equity. There are a number of very strong and successful women’s coaches, and 55 percent of the varsity sports for women are headed by females. Schweitzer also points to areas like budgets, facilities, travel, and— yes—uniforms as places of substantial equality. The walls outside her office and along the outside of Blake Arena are decorated with photos of Springfield College athletes, depicting men and women with decid- edly equal attention. Still, she admits that the journey toward equality is ongoing, and
that a strong institution must take an honest look in the mirror at what still needs to be done. As in the case of the civil rights movement, there are backlashes and backslides that require ongoing scrutiny. “We need, unfortunately, to stay on top of gender equity and Title IX all the time,” she says. “In celebrating this special anniversary,” Schweitzer notes, “we
should recognize that our work is not done. We must continue to educate, to present facts to erase the misunderstandings and myths surrounding Title IX’s impact on men’s sports, to help women under- stand their rights, and to meet our legal and moral responsibilities to comply with this landmark piece of legislation.”
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