WEST CHESTER, Pa. – Social gatherings, family reunions, catching up with old friends and relaxing on vacation is what summer is all about. This Saturday afternoon in the Sykes Student Union in the middle of campus, West Chester University will throw its largest ballroom party of the year as more than 230 alumni, friends and distinguished guests descend upon the institution for the anniversary celebration of 50 years of women’s intercollegiate varsity athletics.
The celebration is the culmination of the university’s year-long recognition as one of the oldest institutions to support women’s intercollegiate varsity athletics in the country. Boasting the largest women’s athletics program in Division II today, West Chester University’s 14 women’s athletic teams paid homage to those pioneers who blazed the trail on which today’s athletes tread by wearing commemorative patches on each of their uniforms and recognizing alumni at various events throughout the academic school year.
West Chester University first officially welcomed in women’s athletics in 1959, some 13 years before Title IX made it mandatory for institutions of higher education to do so. Many of those female athletes from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and today will be on hand for one of the largest alumni reunions on campus in quite some time.
Marian Washington (WCU ’70) will give the keynote speech at the luncheon, which is set for 12 to 3:30 p.m. in Sykes’ ballrooms on the main floor. The emcee for the afternoon will be recent Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Cathy Rush (WCU ’68).
Also expected to be on hand for the festivities is Pottstown, Pa., native and current head coach of the women’s basketball team at the University of Notre Dame, Muffet McGraw. She led the Fighting Irish to the national championship in 2001 and is a member of the Big 5 Hall of Fame as well as St. Joseph’s University’s athletics hall of fame.
Though the celebration represents an opportunity for former teammates and colleagues to reunite, it also serves as a vehicle for women’s athletics to demonstrate just how far women’s intercollegiate athletics has come in the past 50 years. McGraw’s appearance is a testament to the scope that West Chester University has touched from its small corner of the world – 45 miles southwest of Philadelphia.
Four former or current Division I women’s basketball head coaches will be in attendance, two current female Division I athletics directors and two more associate or assistant athletics directors, all of which are West Chester University alumnae, are also anticipated. Josie Harper (WCU ’65), the AD at Dartmouth College, is the first female AD at an Ivy League institution. Pat Meiser (WCU ’69) is the other current Division I athletics director (Univ. of Hartford), who will be in attendance Saturday.
Dr. Eve Atkinson (WCU ’72), now a professor at West Chester University, was the first female AD to oversee a Division I program that included football when she was at Lafayette College earlier in her career. She was a member of West Chester’s 1972 women’s swim team that won the national championship amidst a string of five titles by Arizona State in a six-year period. She also captured an individual title at that championships.
Golden Rams athletics has long served as a pioneer in women’s athletics. Former legendary women’s basketball coach, Carol Eckman, organized the first national championship tournament in 1969 under the auspices of the Commission for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (CIAW), which was won by West Chester University inside Hollinger Field – still the home to both men’s and women’s basketball teams at WCU.
West Chester University’s nationally acclaimed field hockey program won the first four national championships from 1975-78 after the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) brought women’s athletics under one umbrella in the mid 1970s. West Chester denizen and head coach of the first two field hockey teams to win national championships, Vonnie Gros, is expected to be there with many of her former players who formed the Golden Rams’ dynasty throughout the 1970s.
Two-time All-American gymnast and a former Miss Pennsylvania in the 1987 Miss America Pageant, Darlene Deeley (WCU ’84) will also be on hand. The Philadelphia, Pa., native, who now lives in nearby Horsham, was one of the most decorated Golden Rams throughout the 1980s, leading West Chester’s gymnastics team to a pair of undefeated seasons.
As recently as two seasons ago, the Golden Rams’ women’s rugby squad, one of only five varsity programs in the country, defeated Eastern Illinois in the first NCAA-sanctioned match between two varsity teams.
West Chester University’s women’s athletics programs have won a combined 23 individual or team titles during its first half century. Eight of those 23 championships are team titles with field hockey’s four-year run at the end of the 1970s accounting for half. Basketball and swimming each won a national crown while the Golden Rams’ women’s lacrosse team has taken home the gold trophy twice in the last eight years.
While former Golden Rams enjoy a stroll down memory lane, the rest of the community can reflect on one of the oldest, and yet most successful, women’s intercollegiate varsity athletics programs in the country.