 I came to Southern Oregon College in 1974 in a temporary position replacing Joann's witness who went on sabbatical for a year. And so right away I started coaching volleyball and tennis, taking her place. And then the following year the position opened and so I applied for it and I got the position so I was at that time an assistant professor and my new role as assistant professor in health and physical education and also with athletics. I was coaching field hockey and women's basketball. And of course in 1972 was the Title IX Act, the Equal Opportunity Amendment to the Human Rights Act and so we were in the process of equalizing our program which is very difficult to do and at first it was very hard to interpret what Title IX actually was but it means what it says equal opportunities for men and women and so we started progressing toward it and I must say that the campus is still progressing toward it so it's very hard when there's a football program of over a hundred men playing football to equalize and to equalize a program for women with that number. And so I think when I got here in 1974 there were like 18 sports and for both men and women and just through financial crisis that the state had over the years they were cutting sports by the late 70s and another time the late early 1980s they cut more sports so I had already coached volleyball and tennis and basketball and field hockey and my new role was assistant coach of track and field and cross country and so I and also I kept assisting the basketball the women's basketball program but when I got here the women's basketball team was practicing in the in a small gym which was called the girls gym and we immediately started scheduling our games and started scheduling comparable schedule as the men had and I can remember at one at the men's basketball games the announcer would say there will be a dance after the game in the girls gym. We changed that I can remember delivering notes to him saying that's that's not appropriate anymore but I my mentors here at SOU were Bev Bennett, Marion Forsythe, Ruth Beber, Joanne Widness plus the men in the program the men were our models for athletic program and Dr. Bert Merriman was chair of the health and physical education department, Jerry Inslee, Joe Brown and those were it seemed oh Bob Reem who is the legendary wrestling coach and there were just a really good basis for health and physical education as well as athletics and of course the men's program those that was our model that we followed for better or for worse and soon the women were in the Raider Athletic Association as far as getting scholarships not as much as the men but and I'm not sure what that is to this day if it's equal but at least they're progressing towards let's see I when I went to the University of Oregon in the health and physical education program which was an excellent program I was a real generalist I did everything I in our preparation program we went through all types of sports we went through anatomy physiology and had our got our degree in science and biology and so I was a real generalist and when I entered the program Dr. Merriman just you know I said I'll do it with anything that he asked so I taught a lot of different of different subjects and I I did a lot with teacher education and we still all around the county and especially in southern Oregon we have so many teachers and health and physical education and coaches that went through the southern Oregon program I'm really proud of them in fact Josh Roffling the volleyball coach is when it was one of my students Charlie the football coach was one of my students yeah Charlie Hall and Mike Richie the wrestling coach was one of my students so I've been around a long time in southern Oregon and I in fact when I first started teaching when I was 21 fresh out of college I taught at Medford High School and so I left Medford and went for a time to San Diego to Helix High School and then also to Texas outside of Dallas to Plano and so I had a lot I had 10 years of public school experience and that really helped me with the teacher ed program and and teaching and and directing students and their professional careers let's see I want to go back to Bev Bennett and Joe Widnes and Ruth Beber and Marion Forsyth because they were really the backbone to women's sports at southern Oregon they they had programs in place although at times they had to transport the women's teams in their own car and but they were part of the Northwest College Women's Sports Association and actually were on the board of getting that started with AIAW which was the American Intercollegiate what Association of Intercollegiate Sports for Women prior to NCAA and NAIA taking over the women's programs so they were really instrumental in starting the sports programs at SOC and then SOU eventually well when I started the student population was probably around 3000 so I'm amazed now that it's it has doubled but and the students were mainly from southern Oregon counties and eastern Oregon counties and very loyal to the program very interested and as I said we put out a lot of teachers and coaches in health and physical education and athletics my greatest challenges personally okay it was making sure all the time that the women sports were progressing toward title nine and as I said toward compliance of title nine and as I said when we when I got here they were had basketball practice in the small gym we had if we had any type of need for sprained ankles or any kind of athletic training needs the athletic training office was in the middle of the men's locker room so we either had to wait until they vacated or else set up a separate appointment for for women to be treated the we as far as uniforms we tried to use the same uniform for volleyball basketball um let's see we had and and other sports as we could so and now of course every sport has two or three different uniforms that they have for just themselves so that was the biggest challenge was title nine the other challenge were the continual cuts in our budget and having to eliminate some of our sports programs and that was really very difficult to do for the coaches and for our student athletes um we had skiing we had swimming water polo baseball softball tennis teams men and women's tennis teams and track and field and cross country and we had to eliminate uh swimming water polo uh in the early 80s we had to eliminate uh men's tennis first and then women's tennis and the ski program so all of those really affected our student athletes as well as our faculty and as you look at it now with the programs that we have it's really a backbone to our student population as far as number of people of student athletes who come and participate um personally i was always trying trying to get on tenure track get associate professorship getting professor um and to that level and in doing so going to summer school and uh pursuing a phd program and dr ernie at at lake at that time really helped me get through my phd and and made special time for me to take exams get a sabbatical so i could do my residency and i'm forever appreciate appreciative to him and the carpenter foundation too who helped with some of my funding so that that was always and i never really felt secure until i got my professorship and my my phd as far as my my job um i think that our health and physical education program with the the leaders from our department who held many president and vice president positions in state organizations and northwest organizations i think our our program was really well respected and i was very sorry when the health and physical education was divided into nursing school of nursing is one of the things that we went into and then i think it's i don't even know what it's with now but uh you know athletics and health and physical education is such a different uh scene with um so many aspects health promotion and fitness and the outdoor program and teacher education uh so different from any other school on campus let alone the facility and so that that was disappointing when they um put our school combined our schools and at that time too i was school director of health and physical education so that was a really a blow to me and um i could have gone back into department chair but at that time i just decided i wanted to go back into teaching which was my foundation to begin with so i finished as a teacher professor how did i see women's sports evolve during the during my time um a great a great deal and i i brought i brought the notes as to what actually title nine is so let me tell you what title nine is no person in the united states shall on the basis of sex be include excluded from participation in be denied the benefits of or be subjected to discrimination and under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance and so uh it and there were a lot of lawsuits that came up and they took forever because no one could really interpret that and uh at one time the football program was excluded that was one interpretation and uh so that was very hard to interpret and um to this day in fact i i was looking um at the statistic uh about 10 years ago maybe more i think about 50 percent of of institutions had reached compliance i think that's and but don't quote me on that and here's what you needed to do to reach compliance let me get these these are my old overheads athletic financial assistance accommodation of interest in abilities equipment and supplies scheduling of games and practice time travel in per diem tutors coaches locker room practice and competitive facilities medical and training facilities housing and dining facilities publicity support services and recruitment monies for recruitment so those are all things that were costly to equalize and that's one reason why we had to cut keep cutting sports is because a lot of the pro the monies for athletic programs needed to be 50 50 uh it was very really hard as i said in the early 80s uh it was very hard to interpret exactly what it meant because they kept going back are we including football football was the big issue and um if not can we can we drop men's tennis without and keep women's tennis and those kinds of questions came up all the time we just didn't know how to interpret it do we have to give another thing was the financial aid uh can we as i can remember joe witness and i in one meeting saying can we use the financial aid that the raider athletic association gathers if we get our portion can we use it for other things besides scholarships and of course we can't we couldn't we had to give it as aid because interpreting title nine it is a 50 50 thing that women have to have the same same different or the same commodities so to speak as the men it's a 50 50 thing and but but that wasn't really clear at the beginning if we could use if we get the same money if we had to use them for the same things and um i know we wanted to use our financial aid money either uh in improving our programs or if we could split it to everyone on the team you know so we didn't have to pick and choose who was going to get the financial aid and i i can remember going to meetings on on this and the men coaches just did not want us to get into their financial aid pot so to speak but they had to they had to and actually as some of our male coaches had daughters and finally they you know they really helped they didn't know this and i don't think i ever said it to anybody but i could see that they wanted their daughters to have the same you know same things as they did as their team did and and pushed for that so and probably their daughters did too so title nine um athletics drama band any other extracurricular student activities are considered to be educational programs under this law it also prohibits all forms of sex discrimination and federally funded educational institutions including sexual harassment discrimination and admissions in counseling and discrimination against married or pregnant students so all of those areas had had to show compliance there was um somebody designated as a title nine compliance officer but very few and very we threatened to we actually did but also a lot of coaches who followed through and ensuing schools for such as coaches then in a division one school not getting as much money as they're like women's basketball and men's basketball now getting the same amount of money for cell race i know university of oregon had a lawsuit on that and the woman lost her job and that happened time and time again on women pursuing different aspects of title nine and losing their jobs so it was a really touchy situation i think the softball coach at university of oregon and basketball coach at university of oregon and others all over all over the country have lost their jobs because of uh pursuing equality we were all pursuing it you know the equal the equal rights in fact when i first got here this just came to mind there was the purple girdle society and it was we met once a year or so whenever a woman got a special award or got her phd and that was this that i i went to a couple of those and then it was just for some reason just finished and there was also a boy uh early on a faculty wives and that was dropped probably rosemary had something to do with with that and um yeah because and i think it was all because more and more women were being hired in positions and saying hey we don't get that opportunity what why should they well women were perceived as supporters for men's and boys and and men's athletics and um i think that you know some really pursued it for example um women could not run in the marathon the olympics the marathon and the olympics because they someone a physician or someone said that because they were uh going to be mothers and mother figures and their minstrel cycle and all of this could not handle that endurance type of activity and so i think john benoy was the first um in the olympics to run the marathon and of course today the women are running ultra marathons and and uh that was such a fable that uh i i can't imagine i mean somebody's saying you can't do it and you can i mean women can and um so i think that was a perceived thing was that women were weak weaker and that uh we were supporters for men sports and boys sports and then just you know girls started competing women started competing and showing and breaking those trends and fables how to use title nine now and that is um it's a powerful tool for combating campus violence especially sexual violence and so uh i think so u has one of the leading it leads the way uh across the country and getting the police department to work with them on title nine um issues with sexual assault so it's not just um you know athletics by any means it's a total education program okay one of the things how did you see women's sports evolve during your time and um i'll i'll go back to my time and that was when i was growing up in springfield oregon close to u jean um in high school we had mainly intramurals and playdays and sports days for girls and um of course i was always interested in sports and so i did everything i could but it wasn't um you know a sanctioned league type event like the boys did because we were in pep squads or cheerleaders for the boys teams so um it's grown i mean girls to and women today um have no idea what it was like not being recognized and having uh the competitive opportunities that boys had in fact right now our women's volleyball team is playing in nationals and uh you know that was out of the question and uh so we've come so far in giving girls and women's opportunities to compete what do i recall of benet everly benet was quite quite a woman she was actually a dancer uh she introduced field hockey to s o u and she was one of the leaders in the northwest women's sports association with mary and foresight and they traveled together and had basketball and field hockey teams joe widness brought on the volleyball team and uh coached well into the 80s and had a lot of success and she also coached tennis joe widness um ruth beber was a swim coach and um she was in teacher education as well and really taught with uh we all called her the sergeant but she um she was a very interesting woman and all of them were mentors to me and um i appreciate what they did um so yeah bev was i i don't know if you remember the dance room that we had on the in the old building before they tore the building down and built the new rec center and in gymnasium and sports arena but uh there was a beautiful dance studio and dance and she taught contemporary dance mainly and just was a really good athlete herself and um and president of the oregon association for health physical education and recreation and um just all of those women were very professional and and um very good mentors for me in fact i have a picture of ben of bev benett that you might want to put in the archives and uh i she she graduated from the university of oregon in 1948 and then did advanced uh uh graduate degree at uc berkeley she was the outstanding graduate at in health and pe at the university of oregon and she had several northwest and national positions she was on the governor's commission on the status of women um she was an honored citizen of ashland by the chamber of commerce and she was on jackson county women's commission uh for and also had the school of health and physical education faculty merit award so she was um quite a woman and very interesting and um yeah a good athlete and a good mentor for me yeah rosemary did a lot did a lot for women on campus you know and also oh the changes in faculty um that's really been that really amazes me right now because the big offices on campus were um housing registrar's office financial aid officer uh student union director admissions officers and those were all really big positions that were long lasting and had uh oh and then dean of students dean of women and dean of men um and those were all um really high profile i'd say positions and now i some of those have been totally eliminated and some of them are it looks like to me um stepping positions that you know i i think they were eliminated partly because of their their salaries and that was one way to cut down but i don't see those positions of prominence anymore and i don't see on campus too i don't see the loyalty and i think another reason is because there's so many adjunct professors that are more transient and uh yeah the loyalty issue really concerns me because i see some of the staff really dissing s o u and i don't like that because i've really been loyal myself and um on one others to be like me but uh well um she was temporary wasn't she a temporary position but i think very important and very um we all really respected her and what she what she did in her style and since we've had several female presidents but and then several females in um you know provost position positions and um i feel like um going back to president reno and cox those uh two men really were in a difficult situation because of finance and um i know that's when they tried to combine schools and um i didn't appreciate that at all and uh in president reno uh came from a small college it feel it felt like an elitist position and um it was a time when as school director i can remember saying we really need to cooperate with rcc and do some things with rcc and he had no interest in that at all and now look at the collaboration that we've done with them um has been very successful and um so yeah i don't exactly i i just remember that uh sarah hopkins pal was a real light to uh to have her in a position uh after dealing with um cox and reno well i think president shot has really helped with that and uh she communicates with the faculty so well and um you know with her emails i mean every week she's writing an email to the faculty and and uh attending a lot of events and i i don't see the a lot of faculty at many events and hopefully she'll she's promoting that and getting people um into whether it's drama or the schneider music museum or the athletic events or music or whatever it is on campus that some of the faculty uh participate and um you know get there with their students and be a part of the activities and i think you know i think a part of that is because i feel like part of our faculty is real transient and um going to the next level somewhere else or um but but i think yeah i think just just more participation on campus and i think dr schott is promoting that speak up i think yeah for a long time i think women didn't speak up set back and took you know because a lot of the times they were answering to men and in roles that uh hired them or evaluated them and i think that women just need to speak up and get their names in line for some of those roles and i think that's what they're doing yeah quite well i love being here i felt like i had so many opportunities in the 80s chuck mills was the football coach and the athletic director and he really gave me a lot of opportunities professionally and i'm grateful for grateful to him for that and because i was associate athletic director with him and before becoming school director because i really loved my job here and the opportunities that i had