Ivy League Sports

The Gengler family connection with Princeton goes back three generations, beginning with John Logan, a lineman on the 1912 football team, and continuing with his sons Herbert ’31 and Arthur ’33. But it was with Herbert’s children that the Gengler family became part of Ivy League women’s sports history — for Margie ’73 and Louise ’75 became tennis stars (Louise also played field hockey and later became head coach of women’s tennis) and Nancy ‘80 became a squash sensation after taking up the sport for the first time as a freshman.

Margie, the first female student in the dynasty, was a trailblazer in many ways, for she was also among the first women admitted to Princeton when she transferred as a sophomore in 1970. She made these comments in a Princeton Alumni Weekly article on May 1, 1973, after she had become the first woman to receive a Princeton letter sweater as captain of an Ivy championship team:

“I was hesitant about Princeton at first. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a pioneer of coeducation. I went to Tulane for my freshman year, and then I got enthusiastic about Princeton. Tennis eased the transition for me because the men’s team welcomed us. . . .

“I want to win, but now I try not to take myself and tennis too seriously. I wouldn’t trade the Princeton experience for a women’s tennis tour. Many of my friends have dropped out of their colleges to go on the tour. It’s a suitcase life. . . . Girls who come to Princeton would rather combine academic, tennis, and social life. They can do that better here than elsewhere. I might have become a better tennis player at another college, but here I think I’m a better person because of what I’ve learned outside of tennis. There’s a happy group of people here with sort of a little glow. I’ve met them through athletics, in my club, and in a Bible study group which I belong to. Princeton is a nice balance. . . .

“Besides tennis, I’m really a sports nut. I love to ski. And this past winter a friend (Stan Smith [whom she later married]) and I took a fling at men’s interclub ice hockey. We disguised ourselves as club players and skated onto the ice as substitutes in the middle of a game. I was doing fine — Stan can’t skate so he could hardly stand up — for about 30 seconds until I accidentally said something to an opposing player who told the referee. They disqualified us immediately.

As for the white sweater, “It’s hanging in my closet. . . . When I got the sweater, I told an alumnus who is a good friend and a tennis nut. He wanted to know if the athletic department had given me the correct-sized ‘P’ — there’s a six inch varsity ‘P’ and a five inch ‘P’ which is awarded for nonvarsity or minor sports or something like that — I didn’t know. The more he thought about the sweater, the more concerned he became until finally he insisted I go home and measure the ‘P.’ I did, and it was the real thing.”