This article originally appeared in the latest edition of Manhattan Magazine.
As Manhattan College celebrates its 40th anniversary of coeducation this year, the campus community has been revisiting the accomplishments of its alumnae, as well as its female students, faculty and staff, and how their contributions have made Manhattan College the thriving institution of higher education that it is today. This is especially evident in the athletics department, where women's sports had to be established and then shaped, within a framework that wasn't really built to accommodate their needs. In tribute to those early pioneers, here's a look back at the achievements of the College's first female athletes.
Replaying the History
1973 was a pivotal year in the history of gender equity and for coeducation at Manhattan College, which joined many other schools in opening its doors to women during the 1970s.
A year earlier, Congress had passed the Education Amendments Act, and one important section that law was Title IX, which protects all people from discrimination based on sex in educational programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance. Becoming effective in the mid-1970s, the regulations were far-reaching and covered many aspects of higher education, including admissions, housing, financial aid, athletics, as well as activities and employment.
While influential in all those areas, Title IX had a tremendous impact on women's athletic programs at colleges and universities, which were forced to commit resources to the needs and interests of female athletes and to expand their athletic opportunities. While Manhattan implemented coeducation, there were no athletics programs or facilities for women, and Title IX spurred the College to expand sports options for them.
In 1975, the Athletics Committee drafted a Statement on Provision for Women's Athletics at Manhattan College, which generally stipulated that the College needed a fair and adequate program for women. Specifically, the statement provided that they need the opportunity to utilize the gym, to join intramural sports, and to organize clubs that might eventually evolve into varsity teams. College administrators admitted that while the recommendations would involve some efforts and some added expenses, they were challenges and expenses every coed school must face.
Until Draddy Gymnasium was completed in 1978, the College largely relied on the nearby College of Mount St. Vincent for women's facilities. In the interim, female athletes expressed concern over unequal facilities, including the inconvenient location and inadequacy of gym locker rooms.
Eleanor Ostrau, Ph.D., then associate professor of government and politics, former department chair, and one of the first female faculty members at Manhattan College, wrote the unpublished History of the Women's Sports Program at Manhattan, 1972-1994 and noted that it was a difficult beginning for female athletes at the College. Sharing of facilities, budgets and other resources presented challenges to the College's athletics department and athletics committee, which worked with the athletics department to varying degrees of harmony during the 1970s and 1980s.
Early female athletes, primarily through their own initiatives, abilities and efforts, are credited with creating numerous teams.
The Front Runner of Women's Athletics
It took two years after women were admitted to the College for the women's sports program to begin. In 1975, women's basketball started as a club sport, as the result of the persistent efforts of these early athletes. One such tireless athlete was a freshman named Kathleen McCarrick-Weiden '79, who arrived at Manhattan in 1975 to study business administration and also to play basketball, a sport she played competitively in high school in the Bronx. She sought out Fred Marro '77, Student Government head of intramural sports, who encouraged her to start a club. She then went about gathering some high school friends from the Bronx, as well as some of her former competitors, including Lisa Toscano '79, whom she remembered from one of her high school's opposing teams. They recruited a student coach in Jerry Fahey and club moderator in John Sich, professor of physical education.
"Our love of the game of basketball pushed us to create a team, so we could continue to play. At the time we had no idea of the opportunity we created for many women to follow," says Toscano, the first captain of the varsity women's basketball team and current associate professor of kinesiology at the College. "We didn't just create a team; we created a competitive culture for future women athletes to play at Manhattan. The bonds created during this time were extraordinary and have lasted a lifetime."
These athletes made their own schedules and transportation arrangements and sought Student Government funding for equipment and uniforms. Practice could only occur in the evening after the men had finished their workouts. Lacking locker facilities, the women were consigned to using an equipment closet to change into their uniforms and had to trek to the fourth floor of Manhattan Hall (now Miguel) to shower and use the washroom in the former Brothers' community.
Despite cramped facilities and some attrition on the roster, the Manhattan College women's basketball team gained early success. In January 1976, the Jaspers defeated the College of Mount St. Vincent and a year later, earned a .500 record. During the 1977-78 season, as the only non-scholarship team in the Hudson Valley League, the women's basketball team won the league championship. At the end of the season, former athletic director Ken Norton promoted the team to varsity status for the 1978-79 campaign.
Michelle Blatt, the first woman appointed to the coaching staff at the College, and the athletics department then assumed scheduling responsibilities and provided equipment. The new gym, Draddy Gymnasium, became fully operational that same year, which further eased the situation.
It was only a few years later that another influential female athlete, Sheila Tighe '84, a member of the team from 1981-84, helped to put Manhattan women's basketball on the map. She brought recognition to the team, and really, recognition to women's sports, as a whole, at the College. Tighe is Manhattan's all-time leader in points with 2,412 and all-time leader in career steals with 310. She played her last three seasons in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC), and is the all-time leader in league history with 22.0 points per game and ranks 10th in total points with 1,871. Tighe is one of only four players in conference history to earn MAAC Player of the Year honors in back-to-back seasons (1982-83 and 1983-84), and was a three-time All-MAAC first team member. She earned All-American honors as a senior.
With basketball paving the way, volleyball gained varsity status in 1980, and then softball in 1981. Women's cross country and track and field joined a strong, established men's program as a varsity sport in 1983 and women's tennis and women's swimming quickly followed. Women's soccer became a varsity sport in 1991, and the College's newest women's sport, lacrosse, began as a varsity sport in 1997, when the Jaspers posted a 4-2 conference record.
With regular visits to the MAAC Championships and other championships, the women's athletics teams are a thriving and seriously competitive part of the athletics program at Manhattan. They are so seamlessly tied into the College's sports culture now that they are no longer referred to as the Lady Jaspers - a moniker that used to distinguish them from their male counterparts for decades - and, in recent years, have simply become the Jaspers. Manhattan College looks forward to its female athletes making more sports history during the next 40 years.
Five Outstanding Moments in Manhattan Women's Sports History:
Women's Basketball wins its first MAAC championship
After a three-year climb to varsity status, the Manhattan women's basketball team had some early successes in the early stages of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) play. In 1983, the Jaspers carried an 18-9 record into the MAAC Championship game with Saint Peter's, the conference's top program throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Saint Peter's came away with a 59-50 victory, but the Jaspers returned to the 1987 MAAC championship game under head coach Kathy Solano, the program's all-time winningest coach with 138 career victories. In the first MAAC title game that did not include Saint Peter's, Manhattan soundly defeated Holy Cross 79-64 to earn the first of four trips the team has made to the NCAA Tournament.
Aliann Pompey '99 Sprints to Glory
One of Manhattan's all-time greats, Aliann Pompey '99 became the first woman at Manhattan to win an NCAA national championship when she won the 400-meter event at the 2000 NCAA Indoor Championships in a time of 52.27 seconds. Later that year, Pompey represented her native Guyana at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia at age 22. Pompey not only competed in the 2000 Games, but she also ran the 400-meter race in Athens in 2004, Beijing in 2008 and the most recent Summer Olympics in 2012 in London. In addition, Pompey coached Manhattan's sprinters during the 2000s.
Volleyball Nets Consecutive MAAC Championships
For most of the 1990s, Manhattan struggled to break into the top half of the conference standings in volleyball. That changed in 1999, when the team went 7-2 in the conference and posted an 18-11 overall record. It was the first of five straight trips to the MAAC postseason tournament for the Jaspers under head coach Peter Volkert. After falling short of the title three times, Manhattan broke through in 2002 behind MAAC Player of the Year Luka Van Cauteren '04. That season, the Jaspers lost their season opener then won an eye-popping 22 straight games. After Fairfield snapped the historic win streak, Manhattan won eight more matches, culminating in a 3-0 sweep of Saint Peter's to clinch the first MAAC title in program history. A year later, Van Cauteren won MAAC Player of the Year honors again, and the Jaspers went 8-1 in the league, swept Fairfield and Saint Peter's, and returned to the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive season.
Women's Lacrosse Wins Back-to-Back Titles
During the 2004 season, seven of the Jaspers' eight regular season victories came by a margin of one or two goals. Entering the MAAC Tournament, the Jaspers expected their contest with Marist to be a tight battle, after the Red Foxes had edged Manhattan 10-9 in overtime two weeks before. However, the Jaspers jumped out to a 9-4 halftime lead on their way to a 17-11 win. Two days later, they pulled out to a similar big lead over Le Moyne at halftime, riding that advantage to a 15-6 win and their second MAAC title in four years. In 2005, the Jaspers defeated Marist again in the first game of the MAAC Tournament, a game that took three overtime periods to decide until Molly Pheterson '06 found the back of the net to send the Jaspers into the MAAC finals. Manhattan then routed Siena 12-4 to celebrate a trip to the NCAA Tournament for the second straight season.
Softball Wins Conference Championship
The 1999 Manhattan College softball team conquered all odds on its way to the program's only MAAC championship. Finishing the regular season with an 8-8 record, the Jaspers clinched the fourth and final seed in the MAAC postseason tournament on the final day of the conference's regular season. In the tournament, Manhattan dropped the first game in the double-elimination round-robin tournament. That loss forced the Jaspers to win its next game or go home early. They edged Saint Peter's 3-1 to advance to play top-seeded Canisius. The team defeated Canisius 3-2 in game one to set up a decisive final game against the Golden Griffs that the Jaspers won 2-1 to advance to its first NCAA Tournament.
