Full Text of the Excerpt

We had in the program seven sports at that time. The number of sports over the years depended on the interest of the females that we had on campus. So, sometimes we had more sports than other times. Everything depended really on the interest. If we could generate enough interest in basketball; maybe the next year we didn't have enough interest, so, we didn't offer the basketball program. But anyway, the seven sports that we had going into the seventies were basketball, tennis, volleyball, fencing, field hockey, gymnastics and swimming. Back in the forties and fifties and sixties, actually, we had a synchronized swimming club. And they put on an annual show. It took just an unbelievable amount of time and it was always very successful. And Mary Frances Kellum was in charge of that. Anyway, then when we became a charter member of AIAW in 1971, all of the clubs automatically became varsity teams. And these sports that I've already mentioned existed off and on for years as club teams long before the University became affiliated with the AIAW. From '71 until '74 the program of Women's Intercollegiate Athletics was under the supervision of the Women's Physical Education Department. Mrs. Fink was head of the Women's Physical Education Department. I was the faculty sponsor to the Women's Athletic Association. And as I told you before, the department was not too interested in the women's sports or in the women's intramural program back in the '40s, '50s, or '60s, but at the end of the year they would ask for a summary of everything, get the percentage of student participation and that type thing for the chancellor's report. In October of 1974, after I was appointed Director of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women by Dr. Carl Blyth, the program was placed under the athletic department, but we were still members of the AIAW and the men were members of the NCAA.

MARY JO FESTLE:

Who was paying for it then when you got switched to the athletic department?

FRANCES HOGAN:

Well, even though we were under the supervision of the physical education department, all those years the money primarily for running anything that we did in athletics came from the athletic department. And like I said, when I became director there was about seven thousand in the women's athletic budget. The year before that it was like two thousand something for the total program. But you have to keep in mind the department still had rules and we still had to go by DGWS guidelines. We had to stay within a certain radius and so on and could play just so many games and so many contests, so you didn't have the schedules rules in the early '70s was because all of the coaches back then were on the staffs of their physical education departments. So, in addition to teaching full loads, you were coaching and some of us were coaching two or three different sports. So, we'll get into that a little more as we go along. But anyway, the program in '73-'74 added golf, and then in '76-'77 track and field, indoor and outdoor track, plus cross country. Then later, of course, in '79 and '80 the soccer was added, so that we had, at that point, thirteen sports and the men had thirteen.