Athletics for
Women
by Alice I. Chen
Thirty
years ago,
women athletes did not have half the opportunities that are available
to them today. In fact, there was not even a women’s athletic
department. Women athletes were a part of the department of intercollegiate
athletics, which had headquarters in the John Wooden Center. They were
treated like clubs, and unlike the men’s athletic department,
which received funding, uniforms, and transportation to competition
sporting events, women athletes had none of the above. In fact, competitive
women sports did not really exist until 1967, when the intercollegiate
basketball and volleyball were formed at UCLA in 1967. Michele Kort
'71, M.B.A. ’75, played basketball and volleyball from 1968-1970,
and she recalls in an article in UCLA magazine, “My squad was
dubbed the "Bruin Belles," and we wore snug, blue polyester
uniforms. Road games? That was a four-hour drive to Fresno in clunky
university station wagons, followed by an immediate return trip. Forget
any overnights at a hotel. Scholarships? Our biggest perk was a free
dinner after every game -- at the local coffee shop.”
Ucla Women Sports Today
Today, women athletes have opportunities
to excel in women’s basketball, cross country, golf, gymnastics,
rowing, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, track, volleyball, and water
polo, water polo and soccer being the two newest additions. In the last
eight years they had a budget increase of over $1 million dollars. All
these changes in the past 32 years are attributed to Title IX of the
Educational Amendments on 1972, a landmark legislation that bans sex
discrimination in schools.
What is Title IX?
Title
IX, signed on June 23, 1972, states that “no person in the United
States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in,
be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any
education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
With its enactment, many major institutions across the nation were forced
to comply. One of these institutions was the University of California,
Los Angeles. “At UCLA, the chancellor's office quickly saw it
was time to comply with both the letter and spirit of the law, which
meant the formation of the women's athletic department,” said
Kort.
Looking for a Leader
With
the enactment of Title IX, UCLA became of the first universities to
establish a Women’s Athletic Department. Former track athlete
and previous intramural and intercollegiate sports director Shirbey
Johnson was named temporary athletic director as the school began looking
for a permanent replacement. In 1974, the athletic department started
advertising in various magazines and newspapers, hoping to find a new
director for the women’s department. Five candidates applied and
after an application and interview process, former Olympic gold medallist
diver Micki King got the job. King took the job, but resigned a week
later. That’s when Judith Holland, one of the other five candidates,
was called back for the position. “Micki King was coaching at
the United States Air Force Academy at the time. [She was coaching someone
and she expected them to transfer him out but hey didn’t so] she
wasn’t going to give up coaching the best diver in America [for
this job.] Privately, I felt that she came and found out what a mess
things were in and just didn’t want to put up with it,”
said Holland, who remained athletic director until she retired in 1996.
Judith Holland: Our First Women's Athletic Director
Holland
(pictured right) was thirty-seven years old and the president
of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIWA) at
the time she was hired. Upon her arrival at UCLA, she immediately began
to change things. At this point, women sports were still under the AIWA,
unlike the men’s department, which was a part of the National
Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The NCAA had more funds, greater
recognition, and better recruitment compared to the AIWA. Holland wanted
to change this too. “I wanted to have a program that would equal
the success of UCLA men’s athletics. That’s what my vision
was so we had to build it day by day,” said Holland. Being the
first athletic director at UCLA, Holland had to start from the ground
up, slowing molding and changing the department until it has become
what it is today. She even wrote a handbook for the coaches and members
of the department, providing a foundation for how this new department
was going to be run.
The
Basic Beginnings of the Women's Department
The
program began as a separate department from the men’s athletics.
“We were in a trailer over by the Women’s Gym, where Fowler
Museum is now. We were in a small trailer and we were a separate department
and I was in charge and I loved it,” said Holland, who occupied
that green trailer for the next eight years until the department merged
with the NCAA. (Pictured right: Former President Gerald Ford speaks
with Associate Athletic Director Judith Holland on a visit to UCLA.
In the background is the green trailer that first housed the women's
athletic department.) Today,
the women’s athletic department exists in the J.D. Morgan Intercollegiate
Athletics Center
With
an opening budget of $263,000, which was undersized considering that
this budget included salaries, uniforms, transportation, and equipment,
Holland made due with what she had. She hired part time coaches instead
of full time ones. UCLA women’s swimming head coach Cyndi Gallagher,
who swam for the Bruins from 1979-1982, remembers that when she was
a swimmer, “I think [my] coach got paid $6,000. He used to live
in his van because how can you afford anything with $6,000? So he used
to live in his van in the parking lot where Fowler is right now.”
Holland
also used a big fraction of her small budget to give scholarships to
women athletes. Holland believed that in order to have a good successful
department, they needed to have the best and the brightest athletes.
In order to recruit these athletes, Holland believed that UCLA needed
to give scholarships to attract them.
That’s
when Holland decided to begin fighting for more women scholarships and
women equality outside the playing field. During the mid-70s, women
athletes were not eligible for tutoring like men were. They were not
eligible for scholarships either. To solve this, Holland found some
tutoring available in the Academic Advancement Program (AAP). “But
I still don’t think that was right either.”
Due
to Holland’s persistent fight, the first full women’s athletic
sch
olarship
was given in 1974. “We had Ann
Meyers, ’78, at UCLA—who was probably the best athlete
in America at the time, and her brother, David Meyers. They were both
in school at the same time, but because she happen to be born of the
female sex, there was going to be a limit of what she could get because
of her athletic of ability. But her brother, because he was born a man,
could get whatever. I didn’t think that was right,” said
Holland. (Pictured right: Ann Meyers.)
During
her second year here at UCLA, she did a full study of men and women
departments and gave a full report to the chancellor. The studies showed
that despite Title IX, women were still not equal to men. This resulted
in a budget increase and a change in rules that made it easier for women
to get involved. “One of the things I’ve always treasured
about UCLA was I had full access to the chancellor, and if I thought
things were wrong or things could be improved, I could go straight to
him,” said Holland.
J.D. Morgan and his Thoughts
on Women Athletics
J.D.
Morgan (pictured below: J.D. Morgan with trophies.) was the
men’s athletic director at the time. “J.D. disliked [women’s
college programs]. I think he has little use for women’s programs…He
didn’t see any reason why women should start… He wanted
it to be perfect, not have a bunch of women he had to talk to and work
with and one time or another. I don’t think he was very interested
in women athletics. He wasn’t very happy with them,” said
William C. Ackerman, one of the founders of the school. However, Morgan
never expressed his feelings to Holland.
“J.D.
Morgan wasn’t really involved. Men’s athletics wanted to
be separate from women’s…Wooden just retired. They had their
10 National championships and they were in a real good spot. I think
J.D. just didn’t want to bother with it. He always told me it
was because he wanted us to grow on our own. Actually, that wasn’t
a bad idea. We were separate for five years,” recalls Holland.
The Merge of Men and Women into a Single Atheltic
Deparment
In
1981, Holland went to a NCAA convention in Miami, Florida to try and
get the NCAA to create a division for women. It was a controversial
decision, but Holland decided that the only way to create equality among
men and women athletics was to unite them under the same organization.
After the convention, Holland and her team left the AIWA and joined
the NCAA. AIAW soon went out of business, stating that NCAA had more
funds and more national recognition. “They said they couldn’t
compete,” said Holland.
After
women and men’s sports merged more and more into one department,
Holland had less and less jurisdiction over women athletes. Since the
two departments were now one, there was only going to be one director,
and that one person was not going to be Holland. In 1985, Peter T. Dalis
became athletic director. Morgan had retired in the late 70s after his
bypass surgery, and after his successor, Robert Fischer, left, Dalis
got the job. Under Fischer, Holland put the two programs together. Everyone
thought it was a mistake, but Holland believed that the only way to
create equality was for the two programs to have the same rules. When
Dalis arrived and began working with Holland, the two noticed that they
had very different goals. Because of their divisions clash, Holland
became in charge of academics and even more of her jurisdiction over
women athletes.
Setbacks
To
further complicate things, in a 1984 Supreme Court decision in Grove
City v. Bell, the court ruled that Title IX did not cover entire
educational institutions; it only covered those programs directly funded
by federal aid, which athletic departments do not receive. This didn’t
harm the women’s athletic department too much, but “there
was a backlash…you just went into work with white knuckles every
day,” said Holland.
The Civil Rights Restoration Act
In
1988, Congress passed the Civil Rights Restoration Act, despite a veto
by president Ronald Reagan, which nullified the Grove City decision
and once again, outlawed discrimination on the basis of sex in an educational
institution, stating that it was discrimination would not be tolerated
if any part of the institution received federal funding.
Women
Athletes Live On
Women
athletics continued to grow as time passed. Today, the department is
under the direction of Daniel G. Guerroro, ’74. According to Sports
Information Director Marc Dellins, as of 2000, the UCLA women's sports
programs have yearly expenses estimated at about $5.7 million.
It
has come a long way since the 1974 green trailer days.
