Breaking Barriers: Women's Strides in Collegiate Running
The oral history podcast, Starting Line 1928, has made it their mission to document the stories of pioneer runners. For centuries, women have been overlooked and underappreciated in the realm of sports, even by organizations that were designed to help them.
Washington State Track Team 1978
The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), founded back in 1971 and established to help govern women’s college competitions across the nation as well as organize national championships. The AIAW was thought to be one of the biggest advancements in women’s athletics at the collegiate level. This association was similar to what the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) had been doing for men’s programs since 1906.
The AIAW was thought to be responsible for the creation of women’s teams in order to discourage women from trying out for the men’s teams, but in reality, it was a foundation created by women, for women. Over 280 colleges and universities joined the AIAW with over 41 championships in 19 sports by 1982 (Rhoden, 2022). This led to colleges and universities being required to provide equal opportunity for both genders in the world of college athletics.
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For Sue Parks, running was only possible if she joined a boys’ team; and even then, she was forced to arrange a court hearing in order to compete with them. Hear more of her story.
Another trailblazer of her time, Julia Chase-Brand, faced great opposition whilst on her running journey, even being referred to as the “Female Huckleberry Finn.” Hear more of her story
In 1979, Karen Troianello (Blair) joined a group of women in a lawsuit against WSU, suing over inadequate support for women’s athletics under Washington’s Equal Rights Amendment. Hear more of her story
Despite the work done by the AIAW, it was discontinued due to the constant competition with the NCAA, which had a much stronger budget to rely on. Vivian Stringer, the Hall of Fame coach at Rutger and previous coach at Cheyney State, was quoted in the article by Rhoden about her decision to withdraw her team from the AIAW and into the NCAA. She said, ‘”I would have preferred to play for the AIAW…[but] the problem was that there, you would have to pay our own way”’ (Rhoden, 2022).
When the AIAW disbanded, the sports community saw a startling decrease in the number of women's coaches and administrators in college sports when they transitioned over to being a part of the NCAA. Even with the efforts of Title IX, there remains inequity within the running world of men to women coaches.
Today, there are currently 63 female head coaches in Division I cross-country compared to the 292 male head coaches; in track and field, there were similar results, with 64 female head coaches and 283 male head coaches (Lewis, 2022).
Despite women’s running being leagues ahead of where it began, there is still much to be done by the NCAA for women to truly receive the men’s equal attention and resources.
Note about the author: Hannah Arneson is an undergraduate student at Washington State University, earning a degree in Strategic Communication with an emphasis in public relations. She is based out of Pullman, WA.
References
Lewis, S. (2022). Where are all the female track and field coaches? Physical & Health Education America. https://www.pheamerica.org/2022/where-are-all-the-female-track-field-coaches/
Rhoden, W.C., (2022). Forty years later, the NCAA’s takeover from the AIAQ still isn’t perfect. ANDSCAPE. https://andscape.com/features/forty-years-later-the-ncaas-takeover-from-the-aiaw-still-isnt-perfect/
