Q: What led or motivated you to play sports?

A: I have always played sports since I was a little kid in the neighborhood playing tackle football with the boys and softball. I was very active as a kid, running around, climbing trees, etc. Luckily, I was blessed with great athletic talent. At day camp, my nickname was "Speedy" (and my sister's was "Slugger."} My parents were always very encouraging when I was growing up. From first through fifth grade, I went to catholic school where sports were defined as kick ball and double Dutch jump rope in the playground, and basketball in the winter months. When I switched to public school in sixth grade, I played soccer and basketball. In junior high, I was introduced to volleyball and track, and in high school, field hockey and lacrosse. By the time I was a senior, I was captain of my high school field hockey, basketball, lacrosse and volleyball teams. I also skied and played tennis but tended to gravitate more toward team sports, rather than individual ones. Maybe I liked the teamwork and camaraderie, and the thought of "all for one and one for all."

Q: What did it mean to you when Title IX was passed?

A: The passage of Title IX had very little affect on me in high school since I was a junior when it passed. At Yale (1973 to 1977), the law was instrumental in getting our demands met, as we became more and more aware of the discrepancies between the men's varsity sports and the women's. In fact in 1975, the Yale women's crew team stripped in front of Joni Barnett, the Women's Athletic Director at the time, to get women's locker rooms out at Derby where they practiced, instead of enduring a 30 minute bus ride back to campus in the freezing cold . Yale started to hire full time women's coaches in my senior year because of Title IX. I remember being able to use the wrestling team's private sauna in 1977 after an arduous basketball tournament. I am sure that was because of Title IX.

Q: What adversity did you encounter, if any at your school to play your sport(s)?

A: We had no full time women coaches in college until I was a senior. Our field hockey and lacrosse coach was a homemaker from Wilton, Conn. We went through four basketball coaches in four years. Our field hockey team had to play on a charcoal briquette strewn field that served served as a parking lot (and tailgate venue) for home football games on weekends. Our basketball team practiced in the amphitheater from 8 pm to 10 pm after both the men's varsity and jv teams were done. In my senior year we finally got to alternate practice times with the jv. Our lacrosse and field hockey locker rooms were relegated to a small section in the basement of the field house while the men had two full floors. To get taped, I had to sneak upstairs into the head trainer's office since in the main training room, the men walked around naked, and we did not have our own team trainer. We were lucky if we received any press coverage in the Yale Daily News. Typically, by Tuesday or Wednesday, there might be a small article about our Saturday field hockey game. Recognition was non-existent. We slowly started to create awards for the teams. Records weren't kept until my junior year.

The Nellie P. Elliot Award, given today to the top Yale senior female athlete, was created in my senior year (1977). I will argue that was done because the men and alumni couldn't see the Mallory Award, given to the top athlete (always a man since its inception in the early 1900s), going to a woman. (I was the first recipient of the Nellie P. Elliot Award.) While I am glad today that we recognize a female athlete every year, I think it would have been quite a statement to award the Mallory to a woman at that time. Also, I was told the awards were equal. However, a year after I won the award I was at my roommate's wedding in Pittsburgh and happened to notice her husband's Mallory Award on their mantle. It was a beautifully crafted and engraved sterling silver cup with ornate silver handles, while all I had received was a small crummy pewter cup. To this day, it still irks me.

Q: What pressures, if any, were you feeling during that time?

A: I was a three sport athlete. By the time I was a senior, it was getting harder and harder to play all three with more and more overlap of seasons (field hockey and basketball, mainly). Today, I am sure I wouldn't be able to play all three, and maybe not even two.

Q: When did you realize the importance of what you were a part of, being in the beginning Title IX era?

A: Yale unlike Princeton had a wait and see attitude to putting resources behind women sports. Whereas Princeton established varsity sports and fulltime coaches when they went coed, Yale wanted to see the interest level. What happened then was that we had to push and fight for everything, so I was very aware of being a pioneer from the beginning. Certainly when the women's crew team stripped in 1975 with Title IX emblazoned across their backs, we knew we had the law to support our demands.

Q: What was the most memorable experience for you?

A: Given that Princeton had approached women's sports more equitably, they were the gold standard to beat. They were able to recruit better athletes and were better coached in the early years. In my mind, the crowning moment for me was when in my senior year, all three of the varsity teams I was on beat Princeton --field hockey (2-0 and I scored both goals), basketball (46-45) and lacrosse. We had never beaten them before in field hockey or basketball, and in fact the year before had lost to them in basketball by a score of something like 58 to 33. Also, when I was a freshman, although we lost to Princeton, I scored on a penalty stroke and broke the Princeton field hockey goal keeper's unscored upon season. My grandmother was there to see it as well as my mother - three generations.

Q: In your opinion, what was the most gratifying moment in women's sports in general?

A: Billy Jean King beating Bobby Riggs!!!

Q: Even with sports like women's pro basketball becoming so popular in America, women's sports still do not garner the same attention as men's sports. Aside from the lack of media coverage, what responsibility should athletes and women in general have to the growth of women's sports in America?

A: We should continue to support girl's and women's athletics at all levels, financially and otherwise. Encourage our daughters to play and educate our colleagues and friends about women sports. At Yale, I am a founding member of an alumnae group charged with establishing a Women's Intercollegiate Sports Endowment and Resource ("WISER") to support women's intercollegiate sports at Yale. To date we have raised $250,000 without yet announcing it.

Q: What is your hope for the future of women's sports?

A: That we will finally have parity with men. That more women will be able to make a living playing sports. That Title IX will continue to provide the legal basis to support the growth and development of girl's and women's sports.