Women's athletic facilities inadequate until students file grievances
Female athletes had to appeal to the UNC grievance committee to get adequate gym facilities. Since then, the budget, facilities, and workload for coaches have improved.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Frances Hogan, May 23, 1991, and June 3, 1991. Interview L-0044. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- MARY JO FESTLE:
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Basically, you didn't use any facilities in Woollen or the intramural fields?
- FRANCES HOGAN:
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We weren't allowed. We couldn't go down and use the racquetball courts until Title IX came along. Title IX started the change in facilities. The University had a grievance committee. You may check this out for your report. But one of the first grievances was a female student complaining about the locker space in the Women's Gym. We had like five people to a locker. And so, I happened to be appointed to serve on the Grievance Committee along with Jim Cansler and Lillian Lehman. I can't remember the others on it, but the chairman of that committee brought us all over to Woollen Gym and we had a tour. This was before Fetzer was built. We had a tour and they were appalled at what they saw in the Women's Gym as compared to what they saw in the men's. And right away, some of the space in the Men's Gym was converted into women's locker space. As I've said, it's been a battle. The women's gym was designed for very few women students. I think it was something like two hundred students. Anyway, it was a small number. That figure could be given to you by the people over in the P.E. Department. When we were trying to raise the money to build Fetzer, I went out making speeches trying to get the bond passed. All of us did. Fetzer originally was to be a facility for females. And finally the idea was changed. I don't remember now exactly why it was changed. They thought they could get the bond through better if it was not called a female facility. Anyway, it passed. Of
course, it's just amazing how little the women ever got into Woollen Gym. Never in the '40s, '50s, '60s. Finally we started having badminton classes in Woollen and occasionally other classes. I'd say one of the biggest things is how the sports budgets have changed, the facilities have changed. You have special coaches now for the women's teams. The coaches are not having to do a million other things.
- MARY JO FESTLE:
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They don't teach, do they?
- FRANCES HOGAN:
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No. A few of them did when they were not full-time athletics. Now everybody's full-time athletics, except the fencing coach.
