jcollingsworth
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Making The List: Freedom And Progress
jcollingsworth via our good friends at Buckeye Battle Cry
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Last week we went off track, sidestepping football, and dabbling in basketball with the announcement of Fred Taylor as our first person from the world of Buckeyes Basketball to Making The List. Just as Woody was the first in Football (The Teacher) Coach Taylor would be our first in Basketball.
Now comes’ the dilemma.
I was ready to leap back into Football with the announcement of a Defensive Player in Buckeyes lore that I felt was overdue in recognition. But he shall wait. I’ve had another epiphany.
With Basketball season coming upon us I feel it is essential to be an equal opportunity selector. The Women’s season is upon us as well. It actually opened on 11/01 versus Ursuline College with a 113-61 victory.
So with that said I am choosing our first woman for Making The List. There is simply no one else more deserving to be the first than Phyllis Bailey.
Phyllis was born May 10, 1926 in Painesville, Ohio. She would go on to graduate from Earlham College in 1948. Her story spans many years.
Bailey spent nearly 40 years with The Ohio State University in a host of different roles. Some of these roles included being the first women’s basketball coach, to eventually becoming the first woman to hold the position as assistant athletics director. She wasn’t only a contributor to The Ohio State University in athletics, but was an athletics and physical education professor too.
Phyllis Bailey was perhaps the most central source to the evolution of women’s athletics at Ohio State. She helped many club teams conversion into varsity sports, aiding in the building of change at the school after the Education Act of 1972 was passed, requiring men and women to have equality in athletics.
She would become the first women’s basketball coach in 1956. Women’s basketball then was a club sport with no noteworthy attention. She would remain as Head Coach until 1969. It would be this team (1969) that would play in the first National Invitational Tournament.
Arguably in the terms of today’s successes her record was not anything that could raise excitement. (28-10). But understanding the importance of her role in OSU’s Women’s athletics is to comprehend the trail of a pioneer … something “seemingly” long past.
To add further credence to that proclamation it is essential to point out her involvement in the 1971 formation of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), which organized female competition for the first time and set the road for women’s participation in the NCAA a decade later.
Phyllis retired from The Ohio State University in 1994. She’d be inducted into the Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame in 1993 & into the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009. The Varsity O Woman’s Alumnae Society also has an award named after her which pays tribute and recognition to those individual’s who through their careers have contributed to the honor and fame of The Ohio State University in the athletic field.
Let’s face it – Awards just aren’t named after anyone!
Phyllis Bailey is just as deserving to Making The List as anyone whom I have mentioned in the previous weeks. I am also pleased to mention her as the first woman (many more to come). JFK once said: “The best road to progress is freedom’s road.” This is Phyllis Bailey’s life – this quote. In her road to equality in Collegiate Sports she brought progress to our world. And the fact that she was a life-long Buckeye should ignite tremendous pride in all of us.
The post Making The List: Freedom And Progress appeared first on The Buckeye Battle Cry: Ohio State News and Commentary.
Continue reading...
jcollingsworth via our good friends at Buckeye Battle Cry
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Last week we went off track, sidestepping football, and dabbling in basketball with the announcement of Fred Taylor as our first person from the world of Buckeyes Basketball to Making The List. Just as Woody was the first in Football (The Teacher) Coach Taylor would be our first in Basketball.
Now comes’ the dilemma.
I was ready to leap back into Football with the announcement of a Defensive Player in Buckeyes lore that I felt was overdue in recognition. But he shall wait. I’ve had another epiphany.
With Basketball season coming upon us I feel it is essential to be an equal opportunity selector. The Women’s season is upon us as well. It actually opened on 11/01 versus Ursuline College with a 113-61 victory.
So with that said I am choosing our first woman for Making The List. There is simply no one else more deserving to be the first than Phyllis Bailey.
Phyllis was born May 10, 1926 in Painesville, Ohio. She would go on to graduate from Earlham College in 1948. Her story spans many years.
Bailey spent nearly 40 years with The Ohio State University in a host of different roles. Some of these roles included being the first women’s basketball coach, to eventually becoming the first woman to hold the position as assistant athletics director. She wasn’t only a contributor to The Ohio State University in athletics, but was an athletics and physical education professor too.
Phyllis Bailey was perhaps the most central source to the evolution of women’s athletics at Ohio State. She helped many club teams conversion into varsity sports, aiding in the building of change at the school after the Education Act of 1972 was passed, requiring men and women to have equality in athletics.
She would become the first women’s basketball coach in 1956. Women’s basketball then was a club sport with no noteworthy attention. She would remain as Head Coach until 1969. It would be this team (1969) that would play in the first National Invitational Tournament.
Arguably in the terms of today’s successes her record was not anything that could raise excitement. (28-10). But understanding the importance of her role in OSU’s Women’s athletics is to comprehend the trail of a pioneer … something “seemingly” long past.
To add further credence to that proclamation it is essential to point out her involvement in the 1971 formation of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), which organized female competition for the first time and set the road for women’s participation in the NCAA a decade later.
Phyllis retired from The Ohio State University in 1994. She’d be inducted into the Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame in 1993 & into the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009. The Varsity O Woman’s Alumnae Society also has an award named after her which pays tribute and recognition to those individual’s who through their careers have contributed to the honor and fame of The Ohio State University in the athletic field.
Let’s face it – Awards just aren’t named after anyone!
Phyllis Bailey is just as deserving to Making The List as anyone whom I have mentioned in the previous weeks. I am also pleased to mention her as the first woman (many more to come). JFK once said: “The best road to progress is freedom’s road.” This is Phyllis Bailey’s life – this quote. In her road to equality in Collegiate Sports she brought progress to our world. And the fact that she was a life-long Buckeye should ignite tremendous pride in all of us.
The post Making The List: Freedom And Progress appeared first on The Buckeye Battle Cry: Ohio State News and Commentary.
Continue reading...