Sue McAvoy '77 speaks about the beginning of the women's tennis team in 1973. · College Archives: Women of Davidson

Title

Sue McAvoy '77 speaks about the beginning of the women's tennis team in 1973.

Description

In this clip, Sue McAvoy speaks about the start of the women's tennis team as well as Davidson College's level of preparedness for having a female athletic program after coeducation.

Date

1973

Transcription

SM: In retrospect, Davidson really didn't do much to prepare for student athletes--women student athletes. So, when we started this tennis team, the only reason we really could start it that was our president, President Spencer, was a big tennis player. One of his good friend’s daughter was a year ahead of me; she had transferred in. So that woman and my hall counselor created our team. They reached out to the different schools and would say “Hi, we're at Davidson College. Yes, we have women. Can we play you?” I mean, they were just calling up the schools to make up a schedule. And so we didn't have any institutional support in that kind of way. The school did give us money to buy some rackets, and we had to find a seamstress to make us tennis skirts. We just wore these red shirts and these little skirts that this woman made for us, and we didn't have any facilities. There wasn't anything structured. If anybody had a car on the team, that's how we got to matches. We didn't have the Davidson vehicle or anything. It was very much home grown, and I didn't think anything about it. And that was fine. But looking back on it, the college really should have put something in place. And then the next year...Actually, the guys were really nice. The men's team let us use their tennis house.You know, to be in there. But the next year, they did give us a coach, but she didn't know anything about tennis--she was the wife of a football coach. So even sophomore year, we didn't really have a coach, and that was fine. We all grew up playing tennis and we all knew what we were doing. So that is how I identify an institutional challenge. And then this is not a challenge, but it's sort of funny: we still had urinals in a bathroom in the freshman hall. I mean, it's not a challenge, we didn’t care. (laughs)
GL: Were there many other women's sports teams that were coming about at that time, too?
We only had two that the first year, and the second team was the women's basketball team. And one of your compadres will be learning about that, because they're going to be interviewing Becca Simpson, who was also on my freshman hall and on the tennis team.