Ivy League Sports

From the perspective of one student, senior Elizabeth Lareau, Brown’s first year of full coeducation in 1971-72 — following the incorporation of Pembroke into the larger university — seemed to mean little for the women’s athletics program:

For those of us who had been involved in athletics in high school, one of our first acts as freshman women at Brown was to see what this new school of ours had to offer in women’s sports. Three years ago, that wasn’t much. The fall program was meager, offering field hockey and fall tennis. . . . The coaches meekly asked us to attend practices and games as if this were not expected of a player. Uniforms were hardly in abundance. The field hockey squad had just enough for those on the field (substitutions could be tricky!) and they were lucky. The tennis team had to fend for itself.

In fact, Brown officials were striving to initiate a quality women’s program. They began by deciding which sports to offer, rather than waiting for students to express their preferences. And, unlike most schools that had separated their programs by gender, Brown combined administration of its overall program from the beginning of full coeducation and named Arlene Gorton, director of physical education at Pembroke since 1961, to be assistant director of athletics rather than director of women’s athletics. By 1973, women were competing in basketball, field hockey, gymnastics, ice hockey, swimming, and tennis, though teams played abbreviated schedules and often traveled only to nearby schools for competitions.

By 1975, 11 varsity sports were featured, although the women’s budget was only $106,000, out of a total $1.5 million for the entire athletic program. With each year, however, the budget, coaching staff, and number of activities grew. In 1976-77, five major women’s events were hosted: the EAIAW field hockey championship, an invitational basketball tournament, the Ivy League ice hockey tournament, and the AIAW national swimming and diving championships and national lacrosse tournament. Few athletic departments across the country organized as many major events on one campus during the 1970s, but Gorton believed hosting the events would help bring visibility to Brown and instill pride in Brown women’s sports.

In some cases, the Brown-hosted events made Ivy League history. The 1976 ice hockey tournament was the first in the Ivy League, and holding it at Brown was especially appropriate because the school had pioneered the women’s collegiate game in the United States in the 1960s. To the players’ disappointment, however, the team came in second to Cornell in the championship. In addition, Brown hosted the first Ivy League soccer tournament for women in 1978 (also the first women’s intercollegiate soccer tournament in the United States).

Brown achieved another institutional first when Rosa Gatti was named the university’s sports information director in 1976. Gatti’s appointment made her the first woman in the country to hold a full-time sports publicity position at the collegiate level.

Women athletes at Brown in this decade faced the typical challenges of inadequate facilities, uniforms, and transportation. Yet they also experienced notable successes, including some that were modest on the national scene but had tremendous local significance. In an October 1974 game at Radcliffe, for instance, the Brown field hockey team achieved its first intercollegiate victory after three years as a varsity program. Team members may have been especially motivated by Coach Marge Anderson’s threat to ride back to Providence on top of the bus if the team did not win. That year also became field hockey’s first winning season at the varsity level.

In contrast to field hockey, the basketball team experienced early success. In its first season in 1974-75, the team went 13-1; the second year, the record was 16-4; and the third year, 13-7. Although the team did not win an Ivy League tournament in this decade, it had established the basis for a program that would take Ivy championships twice in the 1980s and receive the League’s first automatic bid to the NCAA tournament in 1994.

Athletes in two other sports did become champions in the 1970s. On April 22, 1978, the women’s outdoor track and field team won its first Ivy League championship in only its second year of varsity competition. The title also was the first Ivy championship for the entire Brown women’s program and its only one of the decade. Diver Noel Keefer became, as a freshman in 1975, Brown’s first female All-American in any sport. In 1979, Pam Heggie in freestyle and Lori Pride in backstroke became Brown’s first Ivy League swimming champions, winning five events combined.