Women’s History Month: How Far We’ve Come

Quite a while ago, I wrote a piece on what life was like in the Big Ten circa 1990 at the University of Illinois with volleyball. This weekend, there was some complaining about the state of women’s sports and getting short-changed with NIL money, scheduling, and what not. It was interesting since I just saw the photos this week of Iowa State’s *sweet* VB facility and read on the National Enquir—I mean Volleytalk–a thread on NIL money and just how much is being funneled to athletes at the top programs. It’s shocking for me, a jarring change.

All of this made me think back to a different Big Ten program, one that was on a roll at the time it all happened: Ohio State. It was Fall, 1992 and OSU was coming off its first Final Four appearance, led by really strong seniors AND freshmen (those freshmen were the core of OSU’s last Big Ten title/Final Four team in 1994). OSU was in a serious roll from 89 onwards with Holly O’Leary as the program’s first all-American. She was followed by Leissa Wissler and Julie Chellevold (and I think Audrey DiPronio…yes, I could look this up, but I try and write these from memory). As the program built up, you wanted to celebrate that–and the common way to do that? –Put up banners in your gym touting your greatness. Everyone does this, right?

Yeah….no.

So in the Fall of 1992, I got tasked with Linda Grensing to do something that today will sound weird. As the competitive season approached, the head coach, Jim Stone, had ordered banners celebrating the Final Four in 91, the two Big Ten titles, and the all-Americans. These are HUGE things–and this is the Big Ten. Easy peasy.

Yeah…no. See, St. John Arena was a *basketball arena* where volleyball was (basically) tolerated for pre-season practice and for matches. Anything else? Ewwww. So, our job was to put the banners up on temporary mounts–and that the banners *could not remain* after the completion of the last home game–at which time they went into storage until the next season. This isn’t State U. A&M&I —this is *THE* Ohio State University…where you can’t have Big Ten championship banners, can’t have all-American banners, NCAA Final Four appearances listed…because it takes away from basketball.

Think about colleges today–would that ever happen? I think not, perhaps one or two exceptions nationwide. I don’t think taking VB banners down would happen at many high schools for that matter. Instead, today most colleges proudly show banners of their VB team’s success, trophies and award plaques in the hallway–and not just VB; they do this now for all women’s sports, from volleyball to gymnastics to lacrosse.

EDITED IN: And when I went to find a good photo or image for this–I spent 30 minutes looking and nothing came up, so I went to the OSU Athletics page–nothing there either. I was a bit shocked.

Is this the fastest pace of change? No. Real change often is slow and laborious. It’s tedious and it requires a combination of persistence, diplomacy, and a willingness to make a stand for what’s right. That’s part of what we have to remember with Women’s History Month–it is about recognizing the past so that we also know the direction we wish to head.