By George P. Edmonston Jr.

Passed in 1972 to provide equality in college sports programs for men and women, Title IX has been hailed by many as one of the most significant pieces of legislation of the 20th century. Women’s basketball is a testament to this belief. In the final rounds of the 2003 women's Division I national tournament, games were played before record crowds and impressive TV ratings. The players were outstandingly athletic, the games drew nationwide attention across a broad spectrum of fans and supporters, and sports television stations devoted nearly as much time to the women's tournament as the men's. But did Title IX "introduce" varsity-level competition for women to the college campus? The answer is no and certainly not at OSU. A better word might be "reintroduce."

To the college sports historian, a school yearbook is like fine wine. With age comes value. At OSU, nothing illustrates this point better than looking back at old issues of the Orange or Beaver yearbooks to study the evolution of women’s athletics at Oregon State.

Compared to the men, write-ups covering past seasons, in most cases, are sparse. But there are photos aplenty, and they reveal plenty about women’s athletics and athletes from long ago. No fewer than seven sports were first introduced to the OSU campus by women, including basketball, soccer, tennis, gymnastics, field hockey, volleyball, softball and swimming. For those who liked target shooting, there was a championship rifle team.

So these were "recreational" sports, right? Sound mind and body exercises, the Greek ideal, nothing more.

Varsity Basket Ball team photo from the 1920 Beaver.

The yearbooks show otherwise, referring to them in many cases as "varsity" sports. There were uniforms, competitions against other colleges, results of past schedules, championships, and varsity letter sweaters awarded for exceptional performance.

Unlike the men, however, an important characteristic of this early period was that women’s varsity teams stayed in a constant state of flux. Basketball is an example. First introduced to the OSU campus as a varsity sport in 1899, a full two years before the guys took to the hardwood, women’s basketball by 1913 had been reduced to interclass play and limited to the months of spring. In 1916, the sport was again given varsity status and by 1919, basketball was so popular over 300 women tried out for the team.

To be sure, the college campus was a different place before Title IX. Male athletes had facilities, scholarships, varsity teams, generous media coverage, the adulation of fans, money, the works. Opportunities for women were kept to a bare minimum.

Beginning sometime during the 1930s and extending up to the early 1970s, a period of some 40 or more years, participation for OSU women in anything athletic was kept at the level of "student recreation." Gifted athletes were grouped with the not so gifted. Events were scheduled around what were called "Play Days," held once or twice a year and pitting recreational teams from one school against the same from a neighboring institution. Other names used around the country included "Field Days," "Sports Days," or the nondescriptive "Class Days." There were no scholarships, no professional coaches, no travel money, nothing like today. Facilities were generally borrowed from the men's programs. Playing fields were the same. OSU did have a competitive volleyball team in the 1960s that competed on the national level, but the squad had to pay its own way with money earned through such fund-raising activities as selling programs at men's basketball games.

The shift from varsity sports to physical activity of a noncompetitive nature began both nationally and at Oregon State in the 1920s. By the early 1930s, the shift was complete.

Photo of the women's basketball teams from the 1935 Beaver.

Once again, yearbook photos provide the evidence. Earlier women’s teams, before and just after World War I, are pictured in uniforms, often of the "sailor suit" variety. Athletes from the 1930s wear dresses. In appearance, they look indistinguishable from other women in the student body at large. Something had happened, a fundamental shift in the perception of the public toward the female athlete.

The reasons why sporting opportunities for collegiate women began to go dry after World War I are complex and controversial. According to such historians as the University of Florida’s Paula Welch or the University of Tennessee’s Joan Paul, much of the impetus for change at the time came from within the ranks of women themselves, who as early as 1922 began to display a growing skepticism that the exploitation and elitism already prevalent in men’s sports were also beginning to find their way into women’s programs.

This attitude was especially prevalent among the women who sat on the Committee on Women’s Athletics (CWA) of the American Physical Education Association (APEA). Formed in 1917, the purpose of the CWA was to make, revise, interpret rules and set standards for women athletes at the high school and college levels. According to Professor Welch, in an article published in 1993 in Greta L. Choen’s (editor) outstanding book, Women in Sport: Issues and Controversies (Sage Publications), "(the CWA) was neither a controlling nor legislative body. Nevertheless, women in the physical education profession carefully orchestrated the development of women’s sports and worked diligently to advance their philosophy, which emphasized sport for all."

This attitude was further perpetuated by the formation in February 1923 of the National Amateur Athletic Federation (NAAF), a group that came together after a meeting between U.S. Secretary of War John W. Weeks, Secretary of the Navy Edwin Derby and Lou Henry (Mrs. Herbert) Hoover to discuss, according to Welch, "the feasibility of establishing an organization that would set standards for girls’ and women’s sports programs. As member of the NAAF board, now with its own separate women’s division, or the WNAAF, Mrs. Hoover played a key role in establishing certain original resolutions for the group, including condemnation of highly organized and competitive sport for the select few or, put another way, a shaping of collegiate sport away from all forms of elite and varsity competition.

The exact wording of the NAAF policy statement, which came to serve both as the spirit and governing policy for women’s athletics nationwide, stated a belief in the "promotion of competition that stresses enjoyment of sport and the development of good sportsmanship and character rather than those types that emphasize the making and breaking of records, and the winning of championships for the enjoyment of spectators and for the athletic reputation or commercial advantages of institutions and organizations."

According to Welch, by 1926, basketball (in particular) had become the bane of several generations of physical educators and had become a "national problem." She continues: "Many collegiate physical educators worked diligently to eradicate the negative aspects of...basketball. In 1927, Blanche Trilling, of the University of Wisconsin, delivered a speech at the annual meeting at the National Association of the Deans of Women and specified the unacceptable practices rampant in interscholastic basketball. She condemned lengthy trips to contests, travel on school nights, male coaches, sending injured players into games, omission of physical examinations, general disregard of participants’ well-being, play during menstrual periods, championship tournaments that produced nervous strain, overemphasis on winning and rivalry, derogatory comments from spectators, long seasons, involvement of only a small portion of the student body, and the neglect of other sports and school activities by basketball players."

Welch adds that Trilling also came down hard on the practice of the use of "boys’ rules by girls’ teams."

“Physical educators (became) convinced that modified rules were the remedy for physical contact and serious injury,” Welch says. “They maintained that the welfare of the participant was of paramount importance to women in sports leadership positions.”

The result was that by 1940, a national decline in women’s interscholastic basketball was in evidence. And because basketball at most colleges was or had been the marquis sport for women, these same negative attitudes spilled over into all other sporting activities.

Part of the triggering mechanism for these new attitudes about competition came from a small group of women athletes whose phenomenal successes in their respective sports brought to discussions within athletic circles both great admiration and great contempt for what these women were doing to the spirit of "womanhood."

Superstars such as Clara Baer of New Orleans, Senda Berenson of Smith College in Massachusetts and Eleanora Sears of Boston dared to break Victorian sporting protocol by venturing into areas previously unknown to women. But they opened few doors for others, receiving little praise from their contemporaries for their amazing athletic talents and achievements.

Sears, in particular, is worth singling out. The great-great granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson, she won over 240 trophies during her nearly 70 years of competition. But she attracted controversy with every appearance.

Professor Joan Paul explains: "She adopted ‘shocking’ outfits for figure skating, swimming, sailing and tennis. She was the first woman to ride a horse astride, which the newspapers referred to as ‘cross-saddle’ because of the ‘coarseness’ the other term elicited. She attempted to play on an all-men’s polo team , but later formed her own when rejected. Her appearance on a polo pony in men’s riding breeches caused Boston women’s clubs to raise their eyebrows...but it was when a California mother’s club passed a resolution against her conduct in 1912 that she really became a national celebrity."

However, no woman athlete of the period shocked the sensibilities of America like Mildred "Babe" Didrikson, arguably the greatest woman athlete of the 20th century. She could drive a golf ball over 300 yards and throw a football accurately for 50 yards and a baseball in excess of 300 feet. She earned two Olympic gold medals and a silver at the 1932 games in Los Angeles and once won a prestigious track meet single-handedly against clubs with many athletes. She was an All-American in basketball and took on her nickname when she hit seven home runs in a seven inning baseball game in her native state of Texas. She performed at a world-class level in no fewer than a dozen sports. Later, putting all her energies and talents into golf, she was the first American to win the Women’s British Amateur Golf Championship. She routinely competed in men’s golf tournaments. In 1951, she was voted the Most Outstanding Woman Athlete of the Half Century.

Photo of "Babe" Didrikson from Women in Sport: Issues and Controversies.

But there was a negative side to "Babe’s" fabulous career. "She did much for women in sport," explains Dr. Paul, "but, paradoxically, her crude antics (and coarse language) also helped reinforce and perpetuate the unfair myth that women athletes were not quite women. Because of the conservative attitudes of the times, women athletes lived with that tag from the 1930s through the 1950s."

Please be sure to catch next week's installment of Carry Me Back for Part 2 of this piece examining OSU women's athletics and the impact of Title IX.

-- By George Edmonston Jr.