WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS. – The fall of 1971 was the first time a four-year class of women and men was admitted to Williams College.
In June of 1972 President Richard Nixon signed the Title IX law that prohibited sex discrimination in any educational program or activity receiving any form of federal financial aid. The first women's Varsity team established at Williams was Field Hockey. That inaugural women's team began competing in the fall of 1972 and compiled a 3-1 record.
Today Williams sponsors 32 Varsity teams with 16 women's teams and 16 men's teams.
The first fifty years of women's Varsity athletics at Williams has been nothing short of remarkable with the college winning 22 of the first 25 Learfield NCAA DIII Directors' Cups awarded. The first NCAA DIII Director's Cup was first contested in 1995-96 and won by the Ephs. The Ephs' longest streak of success was 13 years: 1998-99 to 2010-11.
The Learfield Directors' Cup is considered to be emblematic of athletic superiority as points are awarded to each school based on how its women's and men's teams perform in NCAA championship events.
Williams has won more NCAA titles in more sports (11) than any other NCAA DIII school and Eph teams have
only been competing in NCAA team championships since the 1993-94 academic year. The NCAA created DIII in 1973.
Eph women have won 30 of the 38 NCAA team championships Williams has claimed. The Eph women captured the first NCAA Women's DIII Championship in Swimming & Diving in 1982 and Crew in 2002. Eph Women's Tennis has won the most NCAA titles (10) and Women's Crew has won nine titles.
Ellen Vargyas '71
who wrote the book Breaking Down Barriers: A Legal Guide to Title IX was honored in 1995 by the College when she was awarded the College's prestigious Bicentennial Medal.
The Vargyas Bicentennial Medal citation reads:
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School you served with Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, the Center for Law and Social Policy, and the National Senior Citizens Law Center. Your work in the last of these roles on private pension issues that affect the economic security of women provided a natural bridge to your succeeding efforts as senior counsel at the National Women's Law Center. While there you vigorously pursued gender equity in education and employment and specialized in enforcement of Title IX, the law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal funds. The most visible of the cases you litigated centered on athletic programs for women at colleges and universities. They include the ruling, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, that forced Colorado State University to expand its athletic opportunities for women—considered one of the most important rulings ever on Title IX. And your book, Breaking Down Barriers: A Legal Guide to Title IX, is considered the definitive guide to the subject. Since 1994, however, you have been able to affect the system from the inside, as President Clinton's appointment as legal counsel to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. There, as legal representative and policy advisor, you are able to continue in new and effective ways the admirable focus that your entire career has maintained on making the American legal system more accessible to people of all segments of our society.
Vargyas was one of a group of professionals invited to speak to the 1993 Winter Study Class Inside College Athletics taught by Eph Sports Information Director Dick Quinn. Vargyas explained the legal effects of Title IX on collegiate athletics and took questions from the class.
A week later when Eph Athletic Director Bob Peck spoke to the class and took questions two members of the then Club Women's Ice Hockey team, Gretchen (Engster) Howard '95 and Stacey (Brock) Dufour '93 were quick to question Peck on why their club team had not been elevated to Varsity status. Peck outlined the requirements for club teams to go Varsity. Howard and Dufour continued to press Peck and Quinn intervened to suggest that the three folks set up a meeting to have a further discussion so other members of the class could ask questions.
After class Howard told Quinn, "We're going Varsity or we are going to court." Quinn told Howard that Peck was a proponent of women's athletics so she and Dufour should prepare all of the data Peck had mentioned to support their appeal and have a discussion on what more might be needed to achieve their goal. The next fall Williams Women's Ice Hockey was elevated to Varsity status.
Here is a sampling of some Eph women athlete standouts over the first 50 years of Title IX.
1970s -- Leslie Milne '79 - Field Hockey
Physician/Surgeon Mass. General Hospital Emergency Room, Boston, Mass.
Milne joined the U.S. Field Hockey team in 1978 and played through the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. She was named to the U.S. Olympic Team in 1980 and 1984 and was a teammate of former longtime Eph Field Hockey and Women's Lacrosse coach Chris Mason.
In 1980 the U.S. Boycotted the Olympics in Russia due to Afghanistan having been invaded by Russia. Leslie Milne along with Chris Mason were among the 461 U.S. Olympians who received a Congressional gold medal when the U.S. boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympic Games.
The USA with contributions from Milne and Mason won its first field hockey medal, a bronze, in Los Angeles.
Milne also played basketball at Williams.
1980s – Liz Jex '83 – Swimming
Staff Attorney Federal Trade Commission
Liz Jex was named to the College Swimming Coaches Association of America's list of 100 best women swimmers representing all three NCAA Divisions in 2021. An All-American all four years she won the 50 and 100 free all four years and also won the 100 Individual Medley and the 100 Butterfly and was a member of a host of Eph winning relays teams.
1990s -- Laura Brenneman '99 -- Soccer, Basketball, and Softball
Astrophysicist, Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian
Brenneman won a NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship as an Eph standout 3-sport athlete and was an All-American in soccer as a goalie in 1998.
Brenneman was named the MVP in the World Cup of Baseball in 2004.
2000s – Joey Lye '09 Softball and Women's Ice Hockey. High Performance Consultant Speaker and Assistant Team Canada Softball Coach
Joey Lye played Softball and Ice Hockey for the Ephs all four years. Lye was a softball All-American in 2008. Unbeknownst to Lye her parents signed her up for the Team Canada Softball tryouts the summer she graduated from Williams.
Lye was the last cut from Team Canada in 2009 and she asked the Team Canada head coach what she needed to do to make the team down the road. She returned to Williams and served as an Assistant Women's Ice Hockey coach and Assistant Softball coach all the while committing innumerable hours to her personal training, hitting, fielding, and learning how to maximize her speed.
She made Team Canada in 2010 and competed for Canada in multiple international competitions winning several medals. Lye and Team Canada Softball won a bronze medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Recently Lye gave a Ted Talk at TedXBoston and referenced Title IX.
Gabrielle Woodson '09 Women's Soccer
An English and Political Science major at Williams, Woodson was a 2-time First Team Soccer All-American, earned All-NESCAC First Team honors in 2007 & 2008 and was named the 2007 NESCAC Player of the Year. In her career Woodson netted 34 goals and recorded 17 assists for 85 career points.
2010s – Kristi Kirshe '17
Professional Rugby player with USA Women's Sevens
Kristi Kirshe holds Eph Women's Soccer records for most goals in a season (18) and a career (43) and is tied for most assists in a career (29). She is the all-time career points leader at Williams with 115. She was an All-American in 2014 and 2016 and First Team All-NESCAC for three years and the NESACAC Player of the Year in 2016.
Kirshe took up rugby on the advice of high school teammate after graduating from Williams while she was working for the prestigious Boston law firm Ropes & Gray. The women's soccer league in the Boston area she had joined was not competitive enough for Kirshe.
She quickly advanced to the USA Sevens team. In 2019 she helped the USA Sevens qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and she was named the World Sevens Rugby Rookie of the Year!
Kirshe scored a try on her first two touches on runs over 50 meters in her Tokyo Olympics debut. She was the USA's leading scorer in Tokyo where the red, white and blue finished 5
th.
She is currently in residence with the USA Sevens team in Chula Vista, Calif.
2020s – Georgia Lord – 2021.5 was a member of 2 NCAA Champion Women's Soccer teams and worked in Eph Sports Info all four years and one summer. Lord also founded the Asian-American Athletes organization at Williams.
Lord did a Winter Study internship at NBC Sports in Stamford, Conn. her senior year. She was then hired by the network to work in the NBC Sports Olympic Headquarters during the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games and the 2022 Beijing Winter Games. Tokyo was a homecoming of sorts for Lord as she was born there, but her family had left during her early years.
Most recently Lord was offered two full-time jobs with NBC Sports and in June she chose to work on Thursday Night Football for the network. A remarkable journey for one who never knew Sports Information existed when she enrolled.
