An Introduction Great Women Athletes Who Opened Doors
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100Tblzrs_Text.qxp 3/11/09 3:50 PM Page 1 1 AN INTRODUCTION GREAT WOMEN ATHLETES WHO OPENED DOORS FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS Richard Lapchick As with all history these days, many people know the stories of a few important figures, often without much of the rich detail of their lives. Too frequently the people we know best are white men. Historically, racism and sexism have meant that the stories of people of color and women are far less well known. Sometimes when racism and sexism combine, they totally obscure the lives of women of color. This is true in society and in sport. This is why I have undertaken, along with Jessica Bartter, Ho- racio Ruiz, Sara Jane Baker, Catherine Lahey, Stacey Martin-Tenney, and Ryan Sleeper, to write this book about 100 women in sport who have been trailblazers for others. It is the third book in a series de- voted to shedding light on the lives of people whose life stories are important but are not well known. A revolution for women in sport started in the 1970s when, within 15 months of each other, Title IX of the Education Amend- ment Act was signed by President Richard M. Nixon on June 23, 1972, and tennis-great Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs on September 23, 1973. The world of sports was never the same again. In 1970, one in 27 high school girls played a varsity sport com- pared to two out of five in 2008. In 1971 the 294,015 girls compet- ing in high school sports accounted for 7 percent of all high school varsity athletes. In 2007–08, the 3,057,266 girls competing accounted for 41.5 percent of all high school varsity athletes, reflecting a more than 900 percent increase since the Act’s enactment. At the college level, in 1971 there were 29,977 women compet- 100Tblzrs_Text.qxp 3/11/09 3:50 PM Page 2 2 Introduction ing compared to 170,384 men. In 2006–07, there were 172,534 women and 233,830 men competing. Women had 42.46 percent of the college team slots in 2006–07. Before Title IX, female collegiate athletics received 2 percent of overall athletic budgets compared to approximately 40 percent today. A school with a football program is more likely to have a big- ger disproportion than those without a costly football program. In 1970, there was an average of 2.5 women’s teams per college. Today, the average is 9.28 women’s teams per institution. In 1972, 90 per- cent of women’s teams were coached by women, while in 2007–08, 42.8 percent of women’s teams were coached by men. In 2007, we published 100 Pioneers: African-Americans Who Broke Color Barriers in Sport. We recognized that almost everyone knew the story of Jackie Robinson and how his joining the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 began to change the face of American sports. We celebrate Jackie Robinson in every ballpark, his number has been re- tired, and there are regular ceremonies in his honor. When Ameri- cans are asked who the greatest racial pioneer in sport is, they most often mention Jackie Robinson’s name. Yet, few know names of the people who broke the barriers in the American League just a few months later, or in the National Football League (NFL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), or the National Hockey League (NHL), or who were the first African- American athletes to break down the barriers of segregation at the Southeastern, Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 8/Big 12, and Ivy League conference schools. Some know about Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson in tennis, but few know the names of those who led the way in other sports. Many who know Muhammad Ali do not know Jack Johnson. 100 Pioneers was designed as the second book in a series to tell readers just that. The series began at the National Consortium for Academics and Sports (NCAS). Because of the work that we do in the NCAS and the DeVos Sport Business Management Program, we have be- come all too aware of the problems that exist in sport. Each day we seem to read about a rule being violated, an athlete getting in trouble with drugs, an athlete arrested for sexual assault, steroid use in base- ball, the NFL, or track and field, the threat that gambling poses to college sports, or agents recruiting young athletes with illegal mon- 100Tblzrs_Text.qxp 3/11/09 3:50 PM Page 3 Introduction 3 etary inducements. The list goes on and on. That is why it was so joyous for me when Dr. Taylor Ellis, the dean of undergraduate edu- cation in the College of Business Administration at the University of Central Florida, came to my office February 2005. I had just finished a book called New Game Plan for College Sport and was frankly tired of writing. I vowed that I would not take up another book project for several years. Taylor changed all of that on the morning after the 2005 NCAS banquet. He came in, sat down, and said, “When I was a boy, I wasn’t focused and wasn’t liv- ing up to my potential.” He said, “Then someone gave me this book.” Taylor placed a well-worn copy of Barlow Meyers’s Real Life Sto- ries: Champions All the Way, published 45 years earlier, on my desk. He said, “Somebody gave me this book about seven athletes and the obstacles they overcame to do great things in life. This book trans- formed my life and gave me a sense of direction and hope.” Taylor said, “Every year you honor five or six such athletes at the Consor- tium’s award banquet. You have to write a book about them.” So came the idea for 100 Heroes: People in Sport Who Make This a Bet- ter World. I had to undertake the project in spite of my vow to the con- trary. This book could be, I thought, a real celebration of sport. It could portray the power of sport to transform not only individuals, but their impact on the broader society. I ran through my head the names of all the award winners I could recall and knew that their sto- ries would inspire people collectively who could not be in the pres- ence of these people in the halls when we honored them. With the 20th anniversary of the Consortium exactly a year away, I knew that we would have to work hard to get this project done. I enlisted the support of Jessica Bartter, who is the assistant di- rector for communications and marketing of the NCAS. We began to draw all of the names and addresses together and contact the previ- ous award winners who were still alive. Their support for the project was overwhelmingly positive. We began to collect the biographical materials and stories that were the basis for the awards. We also asked Drew Tyler, Stacy Martin, Jennifer Brenden, and Brian Wright, all graduate students in the DeVos Sport Business Management Pro- gram, to help write the individual stories. 100 Heroes was published in February 2006. I knew there was more to do. 100Tblzrs_Text.qxp 3/11/09 3:50 PM Page 4 4 Introduction For 100 Pioneers we included the stories of the first African- American players, coaches, general managers, and team presidents in the various professional sports. We hoped to have the first African- American male and female student-athletes to compete in each of the Southeastern Conference (SEC), Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big 10, Big 8/Big 12, and Ivy League schools as well as the first African-American coaches and athletic directors in those con- ferences. We have John Thompson and Carolyn Peck, the first African-American coaches to win the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) men’s and women’s basketball championships, respectively, and Ty Willingham, the first to coach in a Bowl Cham- pionship Series (BCS) Bowl Game. Included is Willie Jefferies, the first African-American Division I football coach, and Gale Sayers, the first African-American Division I athletic director. We also included those icons who did not neatly fit categories, such as Coach Eddie Robinson at Grambling State and renaissance man Paul Robeson. There were three “events” that shaped their times, including the clenched fist, black glove salute of John Carlos and Tommy Smith at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics; the 1975 NBA Finals, when two African-American head coaches first faced each other for any championship; and the 2007 Super Bowl, when two African-American head coaches faced each other for the NFL title for the first time. 100 Pioneers was a mixture of historical research and inter- views with those who broke down color barriers on college cam- puses and in cities around the country. I believed sharing the inspir- ing life stories of those who paved the way for other people of color in the world of sports can continue to make this world a better place. Such important figures deserve a platform from which to tell their stories and share what their experiences have meant to them. I was part of a team of writers and researchers made up of my graduate assistants at the DeVos Sport Business Management Graduate Pro- gram in the College of Business Administration at the University of Central Florida. As with 100 Heroes, the team was led by Jessica Bartter. The writers included Stacy Martin, Horacio Ruiz, Jennifer Brenden, and Marcus Sedberry. The editor was Catherine Lahey, and research support was offered by Zoie Springer.