This section highlights the history of women’s involvement in sports and physical education beginning in the late nineteenth century and leading up to the passage of Title IX, including the advent of women’s intercollegiate competition in the 1960s. While women were first admitted to the college in 1871, there were no physical fitness activities for women until 1892 when Mrs. Edwin Sparks, wife of the president, led coeds in “physical culture” activities in the Armory Building. Tennis courts were built behind the Women’s Building, their dormitory, but women were frustrated when the men took most of the playing time.
In 1897, President Atherton hired Blanche Miller as a faculty member to teach tennis, riding, dancing, and selected winter recreational activities, the beginning of organized physical education activities for women. The Physical Education Department was formed in 1907 and Lula Smith was hired as the Director of Gymnastics and conducted a “physical culture” course worth one credit.
The 1910s showed growth in women’s participation in recreational activities as shown in this image of women racing on a dusty road. The Women’s Athletic Association was founded in 1919 and organized women’s activities to a greater extent.
In 1924, Marie Haidt was hired to oversee the women’s physical education program and noted that the facilities were woefully inadequate for coeds. Women’s classes in the Armory were scheduled at times that didn’t interfere with many men’s activities and often were pushed into one corner of the floor as men’s boxing, basketball, and wrestling teams practiced, leaving women’s classes in an undesirable teaching situation.
There were no restroom facilities in or near the Armory, so coeds had to change into their gym uniforms in their dorms.
While women were working hard to establish physical education and recreational activities in the 1920s and 1930s, there was one woman who found her way onto the men’s tennis team in 1935. Dorothy Anderson was a great tennis player from western Pennsylvania who made the Carnegie Tech team as a freshman in 1931 but was denied eligibility by the school’s Dean of Women, who thought that women shouldn’t play against men. She was invited to join the team by Coach H.W. Stover if she defeated one opponent. She did so and compiled a 6-1 record in the 1935 season and the only woman to receive a varsity letter before 1964.
During Ms. Haidt’s first ten years at Penn State, she had almost no assistance in teaching and there was no increase in space and facilities for women’s activities. She pushed for a separate building for women during this time and was finally rewarded when the groundbreaking ceremony for the Mary Beaver White Recreation Hall took place on March 5, 1938.
As part of the Women’s Athletic Association, which was renamed the Women’s Recreation Association in 1938, coeds participated in Play Days. They had sporting competitions among themselves or inviting women from nearby colleges to participate in friendly games and matches, then socialize at a party afterwards. The goal was for coeds to learn how to play various sports in a n0n-competitive environment, not to compete to win as the men did.
The 1950s saw an increase in the number of women’s athletics instructors such as Martha “Marty” Adams in 1954 to lead the swimming team and Della Durant in 1955 as a graduate student who stayed to become a physical education instructor. They worked together for years to establish Extramural Sports for Women with support from athletic director Ernest “Ernie” McCoy and University President Eric Walker and Ralph “Sam” Wherry, the NCAA faculty representative.
The first women’s varsity match was in field hockey against Susquehanna in 1964, eight years before Title IX legislation was passed. Adams stated that Penn State had nine teams ready for intercollegiate action in the mid 1960s but could not find enough teams to play against in those early years.
Women’s intercollegiate athletics in the early years at Penn State were difficult as the coaches were instructors from the School of Physical Education in addition to their duties as coaches. In some cases, they had no experience in the sport that they coached, and funding was scarce. Many colleges and universities in the state and Mid-Atlantic region did not have teams, making it hard to play more than a few games and matches each season. Despite the hardships, most of the teams were successful, helping to build a foundation of winning for future teams.
The following links are sources that document the early days of women’s athletics at Penn State:
Women’s Recreation Association records
Photographic vertical files, Academics and Research/Physical Education and Athletics