Ivy League Sports

In the 1980s, Harvard continued to expand opportunities for its women student-athletes, while also earning notable team championships and marking numerous individual athletic achievements. Individual accomplishments by Harvard students, in fact, not only spanned the decade but the world. In 1982, Sharon Beckman became the first woman from New England to successfully swim the English Channel. In 1985, softball player Mary Baldauf led the entire nation in hitting. And in 1989, Meredith Rainey finalized one of the more heart-warming stories in college sports history by winning the 800-meter race at the NCAA indoor track and field championships. That victory, the first in track and field for an Ivy woman, came just two years after Rainey walked into Harvard head coach Frank Haggerty’s office and walked onto the team, having avoided formal competition since sixth grade. Harvard students who participated in the Olympics were Judy Rabinowitz, who competed in skiing at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympic Winter Games, and rowers Anna Seaton, Judith Thompson, and Alison Townley, who competed in the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

At home, Harvard teams in some sports were beginning to achieve prominence within the League. The cross country team, for example, overwhelmed League competition in the early part of the decade. Following the team’s first Ivy championship in 1981, its stellar year of 1982 included winning the Heptagonal meet and finishing fourth in the country at the NCAA championships, the highest national finish of an Ivy League team in history at the time. In 1984, Kate Wiley became the first and still the only three-time winner, male or female, of the Heptagonal cross country championships. A four-time first team All-Ivy selection and two-time All-American, Wiley helped lead her team to four straight Heptagonal championships, and the Crimson also captured the crown in 1985 for what remains a record five consecutive Heps team titles.

The lacrosse team was a dynasty for nearly the entire decade and well into the next — winning both the Ivy League and EAIAW championships in 1981 and Ivy titles from 1982 to 1985 and 1987 to 1993. Only two of those 12 titles were shared, and one of those, in 1987, was due to the measles outbreak in Hanover that forced the cancellation of the season-ending game between the two teams. Harvard, however, returned to its accustomed perch as the sole League champion again in 1988 and 1989; that success prepared the team for its run to the NCAA championship the following year.

Harvard’s success in squash on the League and national levels began in 1984, when the team became Ivy League champions for the first time and took second place in the Howe Cup competition (having won in 1981 and 1982). The next year, Mary Hulburt became the 1985 WISRA national singles champion, and Diana Edge interrupted Princeton’s Demer Holleran’s reign with the WISRA title in 1988. Edge graduated that spring with an impressive résumé: four-time All-American, four-time All-Ivy selection, and the national championship. In addition, Edge led her team to three Ivy League championships, three Howe Cup championships, and three WISRA championships — all coming in 1985, 1987, and 1988.

Other notable team accomplishments also marked the decade. In 1984, the tennis team became sole Ivy League champions for the first time, and with an undefeated League record, the team also made its first appearance in the NCAA tournament. Harvard went on to win the Ivy tennis title in each of the next four years. The 1986 swimming and diving team had a 7-0 record in the Ivy League and took the League championship that year for the first time. Also in 1986, the basketball team, coached by Kathy Delaney-Smith, won its first Ivy League championship — followed up by another share of the title in 1988 — giving a preview of the success Harvard would enjoy in that sport in the 1990s. Finally, toward the end of the decade, the Radcliffe varsity “eight” boat — representing the only Harvard program to keep the women’s college name in competition — won the EAWRC Sprints in 1987 and 1989, thus becoming the Ivy League champion in those years. The varsity eight also won the Ivy League title in 1986. Critical to the success of those crews was the inspired performances of the McCagg twin sisters, future Olympic rowers Betsy and Mary.

Other notable individual achievements of the decade included the record-setting performance of field hockey player Kate Martin, who is still the Harvard career leader in goals (33) and points (78) and is one of four who hold the single-game scoring record. Martin, who was a first team All-Ivy selection in 1979, 1980, and 1982, an All-American in 1982, is currently the president of the Harvard Varsity Club, the first woman to hold the top position in the athletic alumni association.

Tracee Whitley was the first Ivy player to capture both the Ivy Rookie of the Year (1984) and Player of the Year (1987) awards in women’s soccer. A three-time selection to the All-Ivy first team, Whitley still holds Harvard records for career saves (424), season shutouts (9), and career shutouts (26).

In 1986, cross-country runner Jenny Stricker earned the first Harvard/Radcliffe Foundation for Women’s Athletics award, honoring the “senior woman who best exemplified the qualities of excellent scholarship, character, leadership, and athletic ability.” A two-time All-American and four-time first team All-Ivy selection, Stricker won two individual Heptagonal cross country championships and earned the Outstanding Performer Award at the 1983 Indoor Heptagonals, setting a meet record in the 3000-meter race and also winning the 1500-meters.