the Springfield College community. Bracketed by JFk and Mlk, it was a year fundamentally tied to the


often-painful struggle to make America be America, to live up to the promise of “liberty and justice for all.” Few of the female athletes on campus back then would consider


themselves pioneers, and no one would arrogantly equate their efforts with the courage of civil rights workers who fought so bravely in the pursuit of justice. And yet, without question, on this campus— especially on this campus—participation in intercollegiate athletics was akin to being regarded as equal citizens. Springfield College is about bigger and deeper things than sports, but sports are a funda- mental part of our history. What other college can rightly claim being the birthplace of an internationally famous sport? Where else can you find the deep heritage with the YMCA, the rich legacy of athletes and coaches, a core institutional symbol where the body holds equal weight to the mind and the spirit? It is part of our core identity, our collegiate DNA.


** You look back 50 years, and of course some things will seem archaic to modern students. So it has always been. So it will be 50 years from now, when those totally rocking Smartphone apps will seem like some dusty abacus. Cultural norms in 1963-64 were readily observed on


campus. In addition to the dress code, women were required to sign out from and sign in to dorms and observe a 9- 10:30 p.m. curfew (depending on class year), lights out by 11, restrictions far more strict than those faced by men. guys could visit for a couple of hours on the weekend, but in accordance with the rules of “doors open, feet on the floor.” Student newspaper accounts point to Tupperware parties on campus. The 1964 yearbook features a picture of the “Student Wives” club. Strong female role models had a hard time gaining


traction. Springfield’s high-level administrators were all men, as were the vast majority of the College’s faculty. Springfield was by no means alone in this regard. Even Smith College, the renowned women’s school up the road in Northampton that had opened its doors 10 years before Springfield in 1875, had never had a female president. Conventional wisdom about sports was not what many of us


would regard as wisdom today. Donna kole Hamill ’64, a physical education major, laughingly recalls, “We were still in the standing broad jump phase. We hadn’t been able yet to run


TRIANGLE 1 Vol . 84, No. 3


down and jump because it could hurt the female organs.” Basketball, the grand Springfield College legacy, was played more gingerly by women, with six players per team: two required to stay in the front- court, two required to stay in the backcourt, and two apparently risking life and limb as “rovers.” To that point, the only competition


women got in college sports came in the form of “Play Days.” These occurred a few times each semester with sign-ups in the dorms. There were no coaches, no uniforms, no opportunity to practice as a group and gain the sense of collective purpose that comes with a team. Play Days typically involved mixing up the athletes from different schools, so Springfield women might play on the same squad as athletes from Smith and Mount Holyoke against other mixed groups. “Then we had the traditional milk and cookies afterwards,” recalls Diane Potter ’57, g’63, who would go on to become a legendary softball coach at her alma mater. “It was to be a social affair, as well as an athletic event.” The emphasis, in the eyes of


College leadership, was on the social. In truth, there were some terrific female athletes at


Springfield College in the days before varsity sports transformed the landscape. Right from the get-go in the early 1950s, there were plenty of women who were ready to compete at a high level. In an era when high schools in some areas were more progressive than colleges, a number of students came to The


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“We were still in the standing broad jump phase. We hadn’t been able yet to run down and jump because it could hurt the female organs.” Donna Kole Hamill ’64


Physical education uniform for women, mid-1960s


Picture of the “Student Wives” from the 1964 Massasoit yearbook


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