UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #490
SAUNDERS-NORDEEN, KATHERINE S. and FLARUP, TAMARA

SAUNDERS-NORDEEN, Katherine S.  (1940- )1
Lecturer, Physical Education; Women’s Sports Advisor; Director of Women’s Athletics; Associate Athletic Director
At UW: 1964-1990

and FLARUP, Tamara (1952- )
Director of Women’s Sports Information
At UW: 1977-

Interviewed: 1995	
Interviewer: Barry Teicher
Length: 1.5 hours

Early women's physical education; Blanche Trilling; Women's Division of National Amateur Athletics Federation; Women's Athletic Association; Play days and sports days; Women's athletics at UW to 1960s; Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women; Title VI and Title IX; 1971 committee appointed by Edwin Young to study athletic facilities and opportunities for women at UW; Campus attitude to Title IX; Club sports; Women's intercollegiate athletics; Reasons Flarup came to UW as women's sports information director; Office conditions; Reasons Saunders-Nordeen became UW's first women's athletic director; Effect of Title IX; Conflicts between men's and women's sports on campus; Difficulties obtaining media coverage for women's sports; Outstanding athletes and coaches; Women's basketball; Suzy Favor; Women's athletic directors Cheryl Marra and Paula Bonner; Athletic Director Pat Richter; Future challenges for women's sports.

Tape 1/Side 1

00:00:00	Women have been engaged in physical activities since they arrived on campus.  Early women's physical education consisted of highly-structured, gymnastics-type movements.  With the introduction of basketball before the turn of the century, the emphasis shifted more towards female participation in competitive sports.  The physical education staff encouraged female participation in recreational sports, and they were reticent to allow female involvement in strenuous competition, despite the interest shown by women.

00:01:47	Before the turn of century, Andrew O'Day coached ladies' boating crew.  Inter-class (vs. inter-school) basketball competitions, which generated much enthusiasm, started shortly after 1900.  Despite this early start, the physical education leadership at UW began to de-emphasize women's competitive sports in the 1920s and 1930s, an attitude that lasted for 40 years.

00:03:24	Even while women enjoyed inter-class sports, the general cultural attitude remained conservative.  This protective attitude was perpetuated by both male and female educators.  Athletic clothing was restrictive.  Gymnastics taught correct posture.  Too much exercise was thought detrimental to future reproduction—women were not allowed to run the full length of the basketball court.

00:07:26	Blanche Trilling, a professor at UW, was a national leader in physical education.  Her goal was to involve every girl in some type of physical activity rather than devoting limited resources to helping a small number of highly-talented women compete.  The reason that recreational sports were deemed more important was that they allowed resources and facilities to be made available to a greater number.  

00:09:21	In the 1920s, the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) attempted to take over women's athletics.  Women in physical education resented this because the AAU was not run by educators.  The Women's Division of the National Amateur Athletics Federation, which incorporated educators into its structure, organized against the AAU.  This was before actual physical education/recreational organizations as we know them were established.  Recreational associations were a way to organize sports activities for women at the high school and college levels; Blanche Trilling started them on the UW campus.  Students organized inter-class (later inter-mural) activities under the guidance of an advisor—this structure fostered leadership in female students.

00:12:27	The Women's Division of the National Amateur Athletics Federation was a national organization.  However, it did not necessarily strike roots on every campus.  The Women's Athletic Association (WAA) existed at a student, grassroots level.  The Women's Division started in part because the Olympics were allowing women to compete, and a governmental body was needed to determine amateur competition.  Lack of coaching and conditioning was one of the main problems of early women's athletics.  In the 1920 Olympics, a poorly-conditioned woman collapsed across finish line running the mile; thus up until the 1960s, women were not allowed to run more than 800 meters.  Women's physical educators in particular wanted to keep women's sports under their control.  They did not want professional coaches from the WAA running the show.

00:15:03	Most women's teams were student-run, under the guidance of a faculty advisor, well into the 1960s.  By this time, people had come to the realization that a student-run organization could not supply the necessary leadership for inter-mural and extra-mural teams.  In the late 1960s, functions were split into inter-mural and extra-mural (leading to intercollegiate) activities, that required more leadership and money.

00:16:23	KN and TF were early supporters of women's sports.  Patty Berg, Babe Didrickson and other female Olympians were important role models at the national level.  The impetus for women's sports in the 1920s and 1930s was quickly squelched.  The leadership for "protection" of women in sports was centered in the Midwest—the East Coast was at least ten years ahead in developing sports opportunities for women.

00:18:48	KN had to participate in sports away from her university, because doing so was intensely frowned upon.  "Play days" were arranged at the high school and college level from the 1930s and 1940s.  Teams were mixed (i.e. students from different schools comprised a team) to avoid competitive school spirit.  The next level was "sports days" in the 1950s.  Teams were still mixed, though some degree of team identity was retained.  Play days continued into the 1950s, overlapping with sports days.  In the east, inter-school competition got going in the early 1960s.  The opinions of supporters and opponents of these systems are discussed.

00:23:20	KN and TF discuss women's athletics at UW up until the explosion of the 1960s.  Crew and basketball were the earliest women's sports.  There was no women's crew from the 1920s through 1960s.  During the hiatus years there was basketball, volleyball, field hockey, badminton, fencing, swimming, tennis and golf.  The WAA was active in promoting outdoor sports for women such as skiing, hiking and camping.

00:25:35	The WAA was the key organization sustaining women's sports outside of physical education classes.  Women were governing their own sports organizations and establishing themselves in leadership positions.  The tradition of women developing their own sports organizations carried on into the 1970s, since the NCAA and those organizing men's sports were not interested in women's.  The Association on Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) was the final women's intercollegiate organization before the NCAA took over. The division for girls' and women's sports put out publications and was responsible for establishing the rules of competition between schools.  The Council on Intercollegiate Athletics for Women bridged the gap until it became the national organization, AIAW.  When the AIAW first started, the NCAA was not interested in participating.  It lasted for ten years, until the NCAA became interested in taking it over.

00:30:03	The intercollegiate women's groups had the blessing of the universities.  The Wisconsin Women’s Intercollegiate Athletics Conference was started in 1971 in Wisconsin, and it was fully endorsed by each campus.  It organized competition at the state level.  The AIAW grew in ten years from the grassroots level to proving state and national levels of competition for university teams.  The Midwest was strong on leadership.

00:32:08	Some of the biggest gains for women's competition on campus were during wars, for instance during WWII and the Vietnam war.

00:33:21	KN and TF discuss women's athletics from the 1960s.  In 1964, the Title VI Civil Rights Act made discrimination on various bases illegal, especially on the basis of race.  The Title IX Educational Amendments Act of 1972 applied to gender in educational programs and was narrower in focus than Title VI.  It took some time for the full implication of this legislation to be integrated into athletics programs.  Most schools complied because they were worried about punishment for non-compliance rather than out of principle.  Women's athletics had made progress before Title IX, but the enforcement of this law accelerated the progress.  The NCAA attempted to exempt athletics from its provisions.  Over a period of four years, however, the original intent of the legislation came through.

00:38:10	In 1971 Edwin Young appointed a committee to evaluate athletic facilities and opportunities for women on campus.  Lathrop Hall was the only facility available to women at the time.  As a result of the committee's recommendations, other facilities—the Natatorium Gym Unit II, the Shell, shower and towel services—were made available to women.  After addressing the facilities problem, the committee looked at intercollegiate athletic opportunities for women.  KN and TF share anecdotes about women on campus determined to open up all facilities, for instance they appeared at the men-only pool at Red Gym and in the showers at the Shell.

00:41:52	The UW administration's attitude towards Title IX was that everything should be done to comply and to meet the needs of women's athletics.  When women were adopted into intercollegiate athletics in 1974, there were fears about costs and facilities.  It became apparent after the WAA days and first years of extra-mural sports in the late 1960s that it would not be possible to continue running women's athletics out of the Physical Education Department and WAA office.  Women's athletics were an expense in transportation, uniforms and release time for advisors.  The club sports program on campus had been started for organizations wishing to compete off-campus; there was some money through the inter-mural recreations board available to cover costs of off-campus competition. For three years, the women's competitive program was housed under club sports because it then had access to university facilities and funding opportunities.

00:47:02	End of side.

Tape 1/Side 2

00:47:02	Immediately before women's sports went intercollegiate, it was becoming increasingly difficult to obtain the necessary funding to support women's athletics through the club sports program.  In 1974, they were finally accepted as intercollegiate sports in the hope that more flexible funding would be made available.  The Board's policy of no discrimination on the basis of gender opened the door for the committee's recommendation.  The new budget allowed $118,000 for women's intercollegiate athletics, which seemed like a fortune compared to the paltry sums previously allowed.

00:48:08	TF explains how she came to UW, arriving in 1977.  She was a competitive golfer at Iowa State at the time of the intercollegiate sports boom, though she started under the club sports program.  TF did a double major in physical education and journalism, graduating in 1975.  She did not know at the time that careers in sports information even existed.  She worked for a year at the Iowa State sports information office when she was a senior and saw that such positions existed for men's sports.  TF did a year of graduate work and then accepted a position at the University of Kansas as their first women's sports information director.  She was offered the same position at UW the following year because she came along at the right time with the right credentials and experience.  The men's sports information office and director Jim Mott had tried to keep track of some of the women's records from the early years.

00:50:12	TF shares her impressions of the "women's athletics office" at UW after her arrival.  She used an electric typewriter, a stencil machine to produce releases, and address-o-graph plates to do mailing lists.  There was a telecopier, but no fax machines, computers, word processors or telecommunications technology.  TF had no office of her own, but instead a desk in the men's office.  KN's office was the mimeograph room.  At least they were in the stadium.

00:53:24	KN explains how she became UW's first women's athletic director.  She started as a women's recreational sports advisor and then became director of women's sports under the club sport program.  When the committee on women's athletics met, she was the main resource person, so it was recommended that she be hired as women's athletic director in 1974.  There are comparable positions on most campuses, and those who had developed the earlier programs usually became the first women's athletic directors.  They were rebuked for organizing some "Big Ten" invitational championships when women's sports were not yet officially intercollegiate; yet they had the blessing of the universities involved, because the teams participating and the meetings of the directors were funded.  It was a fortunate circumstance that earlier organizations developed the leadership for women's sports.  The groundwork for women's intercollegiate sports was laid in the 15 years before it became official.

00:56:55	If Title IX had not passed, would women's sports have taken off?  TF thinks the threat of Title IX made schools serious enough to fund women's sports and scholarships.  The Civil Rights Act might have been brought into play on scholarships eventually, but Title IX was instrumental in propelling women's sports to another level.  A 1989 Title IX complaint against UW has not yet been settled.  Though some schools still try to circumvent the law, most are attempting to comply.  The Big Ten has gone further than most conferences by giving a target date for equality.  However, the survival of intercollegiate athletics is now in question because of the scarcity of resources.  No one wants to detract from men's sports to meet standards for women.  In 1990 UW dropped five sports, including baseball, because it could not fund a comparable level for men and women.

00:59:36	The competition for resources has been a source of friction between the men's and women's programs.  Sports like soccer that started together also worked well together.  Swimming and gymnastics also worked well together.  In other sports, like crew, the conflicts have become a real problem.  Conflicting personalities and the sharing of inadequate facilities caused problems.  Men's non-income sports dug in their heels because they felt that women's programs would affect their budgets.  Scholarships make athletics very expensive.

01:01:38	TF talks about how newspapers reacted to her as women's sports information director.  The editor of the Wisconsin State Journal told her that he did not want women's sports on his sports page (he has retired).  Women's basketball games were not drawing high attendance, so many felt they should not be covered.  TF concentrated on local angles and features.  It was dramatic when women's sports finally were moved from the woman's page to the sports page.

01:03:58	KS and TF discuss personalities and programs that made UW women's sports a viable undertaking.  Sue Ela, the current rowing coach, was a member of the first national champion crew in 1975.  Gilda Hudson, a track runner in 1975 and probably the first African-American on scholarship at UW, is now a lawyer in Chicago and sits on the Athletic Board.  An anecdote about how women's tracksters had to share ten pairs of shoes is related.  D. Lynn Damron, who was a national diving champion, was recognized two years ago in the UW hall of fame.  Peggy Anderson was another early national champion in diving.  Jackie Zoch is a crew Olympian.  Crew is an interesting sport because most of its athletes did not compete at the high school level, yet twelve women's crew Olympians have come out of UW.  Cindy Bremser and Suzy Favor were outstanding in track.  Bremser, UW's first female all-American in track, went out in 1974 to lose weight—she had never competed before.  She became the national champion and still wins masters races today.  She narrowly missed winning a bronze medal in the 1984 Olympics.

01:08:08	Gilda Hudson was one of the earliest student athletes on scholarship.  There were few blacks on campus when she arrived.  She became a Big Ten champion.  Peter Tegen was her track coach.  He built a track dynasty at UW, especially in distance running.  Craig Webb began the soccer program.  Karen Lunda, formerly a field hockey player, was one of the first all-Americans in soccer.  Steven Lowe turned the volleyball program around.

01:11:11	In 1995, there was a sellout women's basketball game at the Fieldhouse.  Women's basketball has become an income sport.  The basketball team attracts spectators when it is winning and when it has a high-profile coach.  Basketball is considered the flagship women's sport because it has national identity.  Traditionally, the sports where women display their bodies have been the most successful women's spectator sports.

01:14:11	Suzy Favor, who graduated in 1990, was an Olympian in track.  She is a very personable and successful athlete.  The award for the outstanding female athlete in the Big Ten bears her name—an immense honor.  Paula Bonner was the women's athletic director in the 1980s.  She continued obtaining resources for the women's program even during those tough financial times.

01:16:50	Cheryl Marra has been the women's athletic director since 1990.  Most schools do not have a separate women's athletic department, resulting in a loss of identity for women's athletics and the removal of women from positions of leadership at the institutional and national levels.  The men's and women's athletic directors at UW have split some sports and even supervise some sports of the other sex.  It is a positive situation.

01:20:05	Pat Richter has been a supportive influence for women's sports.  He had to make tough choices by cutting five sports, including baseball, a sport in which he himself was a letter winner.  He made a good choice in hiring Barry Alvarez as football coach.  Football is important to the UW image and, consequently, fundraising.  Richter wants women to have the elite athletic experience as well as men.

01:22:20	KN and TF discuss the challenges confronting women's sports in the future.  It is important to avoid setbacks for women's athletics and generally for women in our society.  Further challenges include sports remaining in the educational setting, financial responsibility, and avoiding negative public reaction by keeping a handle on cheating and violations.

01:24:58	End of side.  End of tape.

END of Oral History Interview #490