Jane Campbell '87 speaks about the creation of the 1986 women's varsity golf team.

Title

Jane Campbell '87 speaks about the creation of the 1986 women's varsity golf team.

Description

In this audio clip, Jane Campbell '87 describes the creation of the Davidson College varsity female golf team in 1986 which lasted for one year, of which she and her partner, Heather McKee '87, were members. Campbell explains how the team was created in order to fulfill NCAA's Title IX regulations after the college's removal of the varsity women's basketball team.

Contributor

Jane Campbell '87.

Date

1986

Source

From the "History of Love and Sexuality at Davidson" Oral History Project.

Love and Sexuality at Davidson College Project Oral History Collection

Transcription

"So unfortunately, junior year the very bad decision was made to cut the women's basketball team. And most folks don't know this story, but women's basketball was cut, which is why she [Heather McKee] probably doesn't hold even more records at Davidson. But so, there was not a team our senior year but, in doing that, the College wound up being right on the line of the number of needed sports for Title IX. Well, in early September somebody from the NCAA reached out to the College and said “Got some bad news for you, the women's indoor track team that counted for one of your women sports is—we're going to have to invalidate their season." Because one of the big meets that qualified them has now been invalidated for some reason. "And so, Davidson you've got two choices, you can go on to probation next year, while you find another women sport or you can field an intercollegiate women's athletic team, between now and the end of the academic year and compete at an intercollegiate level.” So, what do you do? You form a golf team, and so we formed the golf team and I had played a very little bit of golf but not well in high school, we had one woman who was a good golfer who had played golf in high school, and then Heather and two of her field hockey teammates were recruited, because the concept of here's a stick there's a ball. And, and so we went off and the men's tennis, or the men's golf coach, was notionally our coach and we went to the Duke invitational. And not that we were any good or anything and essentially every team that was participating in the Duke invitational got to match up against Davidson as an individual match. And so, we lost 17 matches in one afternoon one day. But it qualified in as much as whatever tournament the indoor track team had gone to qualify for their season. But we kept Davidson from being put on to probation [...]"