A Brief History of Women’s Athletics
When it comes to developing women’s athletics, Southwestern University has been reactive, not proactive.
For centuries, physical activity for women was framed as recreational rather than competitive. It focused more on health and maintaining image rather than athleticism or competition. The idea of women participating in organized sports, especially at the varsity level, was seen as inappropriate or even harmful.
But by the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, that idea began to change. Across the country, women began to form athletic clubs, challenging the restrictive norms put upon them and promoting the idea that women belonged in competitive sport.
On Southwestern University’s campus, this shift was evident. As early as 1903, there are records of club teams in tennis, basketball, and golf, all led by women. These student-driven efforts signaled a desire to engage seriously with athletics, but institutional support did not follow.
While men’s sports received funding, structure, and recognition, women’s teams remained unofficial and unrecognized for decades. It was not until Title IX passed in 1972, mandating gender equity in educational programs, including athletics, that Southwestern began to officially add women’s varsity teams.
From that point forward, a pattern emerged. Whenever Southwestern added a women’s team, it was because they had to because of external pressures, not because they chose to provide access to their students.
As a result, women’s athletics at Southwestern has lagged behind--not because of a lack of interest or ability from its female students, but from a lack of institutional will rooted in a heterosexist commitment to a kind of separate and unequal idea about educating men and women.
This pattern is not confined to Southwestern, as there are gender equity issues throughout higher education and especially college sports, but this entry is about how it has played out specifically here at Southwestern.
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As I have shown in other Placing Memory entries, women have actively sought and created opportunities to compete in organized sports since the early days of the University, but University leaders have not always been supportive.
In 1961, the Board of Trustees voted to make women’s physical activity “...sponsored as part of the Southwestern program of Physical Training for Women, and not to be or become a part of an inter-collegiate athletic program for women in manner, shape or form.”
This restricted women’s athletics to entirely intramurals. These intramurals were sponsored as part of the Women's Recreation Association--a gendered counterspace created by Southwestern female students that created continuity between the efforts of women in the Ladies Annex in the early 1900s to the women striving to be seen as equals to men up until the 1970s--but were mostly separated from the men.
A little over a decade later, in 1972, Title IX of the Education Amendments was passed by Congress and signed into law. This mandated universities to provide equal opportunities for women and men to access all opportunities provided by colleges and universities. While today Title IX is interpreted more broadly to include things like gendered violence as an access issue, the most prominent realm where Title IX was first applied in the 1970s was in equal opportunity for men and women to compete in varsity athletics.
Once the law was passed, Southwestern had no choice but to begin funding women’s varsity teams in order to be in compliance. In the fall of 1973, women’s tennis and volleyball were officially allocated a budget and allowed to play at the intercollegiate level.
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In the fall of 1975, a letter appeared in The Megaphone titled “A Case for Women’s Sports.” The author, Lee Ann Everette, was, along with Eva Mendiola, a prominent figure in getting the volleyball team set up as the first women's varsity athletics team at Southwestern. You will see her on the right end of the the middle row of the inaugural volleyball team photo from the 1975 yearbook included below.
In her 1975 opinion article in the Megaphone, Everette argued that women’s athletics was growing, that there was clear student interest--directly pushing back against men's claims that women’s sports were unnecessary or lacked value.
The article shows what the institutional timeline include below alone does not. We can clearly see that women were not passively waiting to be included. They were organizing, pushing, and publicly advocating for their right to compete. But it also shows that even after Title IX was passed, women’s athletics had to be justified in a way that men’s athletics never did.
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In 1976, women’s basketball was brought back to campus and officially recognized as a varsity team, rounding out the initial waves of programs brought on by legal compliance.
After this, progress slowed once more until 1990, when Southwestern decided to pursue NCAA Division III membership. This move came with a new set of external requirements for athletic teams, which once again forced the university to expand women’s offerings.
That year, Southwestern created an Athletic Transition Steering Committee made up of faculty, staff and students, and the result was a large growth of women’s varsity programs. In 1992, women’s track & field, soccer, and golf were added. Cross country followed the next year in 1993. In 1998, women’s swimming was added. Finally, in 2008, the university added varsity softball.
The final dot on this timeline of women’s sports came in 2010, when Southwestern began planning to bring back its football program, which had been dormant since 1950. However, in order to stay in compliance with NCAA rules and Title IX, a new men’s team that large couldn’t be added without equivalent athletic opportunities for women. So, in 2013, the same year the SU football team was re-established, the university introduced the women’s lacrosse team, marking the newest addition to the women’s athletic program.
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This timeline makes one thing quite clear. None of these women’s varsity programs were introduced as part of a long-term strategic investment in women’s athletics or in response to clear student demand. They were rather added to satisfy Title IX or NCAA rules.
Women’s athletics at Southwestern has rarely been the result of proactive support from the University. Instead, it has unfolded in response to external pressure, whether that be federal mandates or the administrative agendas of the NCAA.
Even when there was clear evidence of student interest and large participation in intramural sports and club teams by women–such as with women playing for co-ed lacrosse and soccer student organizations in the 1980s, and competing in women’s swimming & diving club in 1995-1996–the University delayed formal recognition and equitable budgetary support of female athletic teams until it became unavoidable.
Despite the lack of consistent institutional support, women at Southwestern have continued to show up, compete, and advocate for their right to belong in the athletic sphere. While the University’s delayed and reactive response are frustrating, this history is equally a testament to the determination and resilience of its female students.
The turnout and support that some of our women’s teams receive now is the product of a long, uphill fight for visibility and respect. Women have always had to fight for their place in sports, and in many ways, they still do. The work of fighting for equity is still ongoing, and remembering this history of women's athletics at Southwestern is essential to recognize the patterns that still shape our present.
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