by Suzy Frisch

It didn’t take long, after Minnesota became a state and the University of Minnesota opened its doors, for women to begin advocating for their own athletic programs. Female students of the 1880s paved the way for an illustrious history of leadership in women’s physical education and athletics that has culminated in the groundbreaking Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport, a one-of-a-kind institution in the U.S.

“Women have been leading the college and the University in terms of creating and supporting the important connections between physical activity, sport and wellness, and sports from the very beginning,” notes Jo Ann Buysse, director of sport studies in the School of Kinesiology. “We have an incredibly rich history of female leadership in physical activity and health and wellness.”

Though competitive sports for women were frowned upon at the time, the University had a few early outlets: The Ladies Tennis Association started in 1895 and women’s interscholastic basketball began in 1902. Both teams were part of the Women’s Athletic Association, which came under the auspices of the college’s Department of Physical Education for Women, the successor to the Department of Physical Culture.

In 1912 J. Anna Norris, M.D., came to the University to head the Department of Physical Education for Women. Appalled at the paltry facilities for women, Norris strongly argued for a women’s gymnasium. The University opened one of the first gymnasiums built exclusively for women at an American college in 1915; later in the century it was renamed the Norris Gymnasium.

Women athletes at the University continued to struggle to find opportunities for high-level competition, funding, and physical space, notes emerita professor Eloise Jaeger, in Minnesota Women in Sports: Leveling the Playing Field.

Jaeger, as head of the School of Physical Education, Recreation, and School Health Education, precursor of today’s School of Kinesiology, became the first woman in the nation to lead a department of physical education for both men and women when she was appointed in 1971.

But over the years, leaders like Norris; Gertrude M. Baker, M.D., who succeeded Norris; and Jaeger fought for facilities and opportunities for women to compete. “If we hadn’t kept plugging away we wouldn’t have gotten anywhere for women,” says Jaeger.

It wasn’t until Congress passed Title IX in 1972, equalizing funding for men’s and women’s sports, that athletics for women really came into their own at the University.

Two decades later, Mary Jo Kane, professor of sport sociology who also is current director of the School of Kinesiology, kept hearing about the “explosion” of participation among girls and women in sport over the previous 20 years. But she was frustrated that no institutions of higher education seemed to take the topic seriously.

“I didn’t want the academic community to make the mistakes of the medical community, where they did research for years and years on males and automatically transferred the results to females,” says Kane. “I wanted to investigate whether sport and physical activity might impact women and girls differently than men and boys.”

In 1993, Kane wrote a proposal that culminated in the development of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport. Dorothy McNeill Tucker, an alumna who earned a degree in recreation leadership from the college in 1945, supported the idea of conducting groundbreaking research on girls’ and women’s involvement in sport and physical activity. It remains the only university-based research center in the country devoted solely to girls and women in sport.

Women basketball players at the turn of the century laid a foundation.

In its short history, the Tucker Center has made a huge mark on the field. “We’ve provided solid, scientific evidence that has been used by practitioners, parents, students, academics, and policymakers on why sport matters so much for girls and women,” says Kane, executive director of the center. “Providing scientific evidence that investing in women’s participation in sport isn’t just about doing the right thing—although it’s a noble enough cause. It’s about investing in the future of the country.”

Throughout the history of the college and the University, women have taken the reins to make sure their needs and desires for physical activity were met. Under the leadership of some pioneering women scholars and advocates, females have paved the way for many others, both in Minnesota and beyond, to play, lead, and succeed on and off the playing field.