Riverside-Brookfield Athletic Director Doris Hardy remembers traveling to Milwaukee in 1984 to attend a breakfast meeting of the National Federation of High School Athletic Directors.
“There were maybe four or five women there,” says Hardy, then an assistant to the now-retired Bill VandeMerkt. “It was incredible. There were so few of us, we were drawn to each other like sheep.”
Twelve years later, it’s a whole new ballgame.
That old saying, “Behind every successful male athletic director, there’s a woman,” is passe.
These days, more and more women are running the store at the high school level–a trend longtime New Trier Athletic Director Bob Naughton sees in only positive terms.
“My own feeling,” he says, “is schools that have any interest in meeting the needs of boy and girl athletes wouldn’t hesitate to hire a woman AD.”
Increasingly, they are.
“When I first started this job (in 1988),” says Wheaton-Warrenville South AD Lenore Wilcox, membership chairman for the Illinois Athletic Directors Association, “there were about 20 or so (female ADs) statewide. Now there are 105. The number has really jumped in the last three, four years.”
The Girls Catholic Athletic Association, whose 24 members include 20 all-girl schools, has been a pioneer in putting women in leadership roles since its inception in 1974. A majority–13–of its ADs are women.
“There have been women ADs in the GCAC as long as I can remember,” says Regina Dominican Athletic Director Mike Small. Not that long ago, though, a female athletic director overseeing both the boys and girls programs at a coeducational public school was a rare sight indeed.
(The Chicago Public League has no full-time, salaried ADs. Lincoln Park’s Diane Vrbancic is typical of the 20 women–the rest are men–who are ADs in name only. Their sole duty: checking eligibility. “With school reform, there’s talk of having full-time ADs,” says Vrbancic, “but I don’t see that happening in the near future.”)
On the surface, the boomlet appears to be caused by a recent surge in retirements of longtime male athletic directors. Replacing them have been women who served in a subordinate role for many years–either as the girls AD or as the assistant AD in a combined program.
Kay Rampke was Ron Bonfiglio’s assistant at Thornridge for 14 years before replacing him as AD in the fall of 1994. Jo Ann Heindel was the assistant AD at Deerfield for 15 years before assuming the No. 1 job nine years ago.
Given the rapid growth in girls sports programs since the adoption of Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972, which says schools that receive federal funds cannot engage in sex discrimination in any program, the news that women now are holding the reins of power isn’t so surprising. It was probably bound to happen.
“I’m in a position that didn’t exist for women when I started out,” says Kaneland’s Jill Holmes, who was girls AD from 1983 to 1990 before adding boys sports to her duties upon Bob Pederson’s retirement in 1991. “Being over 50, I came from a unique generation that wasn’t allowed to compete. Younger women have been through the whole thing–as players, coaches and now administrators.”
So where are the snickers? The sexist remarks? The male coaches finding it hard to work for a female boss? Buried in the history books, say Naughton, Wilcox and Rampke.
“I haven’t heard any negative comments at all (about the trend),” says Naughton. “Although I suppose there are some areas of the state where that old-boy attitude prevails. You know: `We’ve never done it that way and, by golly, weren’t not going to do it now.’ “
“Having worked as an assistant for 10 years,” says Wilcox, “most coaches knew where I was coming from. Every one of my coaches was supportive, and they still are.”
“I knew what I was getting into,” says Rampke. “One of the questions my principal asked me during the interview process was how I would feel about being one of the few women ADs. I said, `I’ve been one of the few women (as Bonfiglio’s assistant) for 14 years.’ I’ve had no problems.”
Hardy, Wilcox and their contemporaries aren’t rookies. They blazed the trail in women’s sports before and after the adoption of Title IX and were prepared when the call to the AD’s chair came.
When Wilcox began coaching 25 years ago in Wheaton, there was no such thing as girls high school soccer.
“We played speed-a-way,” says Wilcox.
Speed-a-way?
“It’s a combination of basketball, soccer and football. You can run with the ball or dribble it. They wouldn’t let girls play soccer.”
Hardy recalls that her first girls “coaching” assignment was that rugged, full-contact sport–synchronized swimming.
By contrast, second-year Kankakee AD Lisa Ferry, 33, is part of the new breed. She threw the shot put and discus at Greenville (Ill.) High School. She was the only girl on the boys varsity track team.
“When I was in high school in the ’60s,” says Heindel, “the only career choices were clerical, flight attendant or teaching. Back then, being an AD never crossed my mind.”
Some days, Hardy wishes it never had. No eyebrows were raised when she got the job, but Hardy says she wasn’t surprised.
“I don’t believe anyone else applied,” she laughs.
Why?
The hours, stupid.
“The hours you have to put in,” says Wilcox, whose children are grown, “that’s the hardest part. You need a very understanding husband. Or in a man’s case, a wife. You don’t have time for a life, I’ll tell you that.”
Thankfully, says second-year Elmwood Park High School Athletic Director Jody Littlehale, neatness doesn’t count in her profession.
“I’ve always prided myself on my organizational skills,” laughs Littlehale, recounting the long hours and hectic dawn-to-dusk demands. “But if you looked in my office right now, you wouldn’t know it.”
Happily, the only thing most school administrations care about in 1996, Littlehale says, is if you can do the job. Messy desk and all. The variety of ways schools now administer athletics illustrates the point. In 1996, there are male ADs at all-girl schools (Mike Small, Regina Dominican), female ADs at coed schools (Wilcox, Hardy, etc.), female ADs at all-girls schools (Sue Hansfield, Resurrection), male ADs at coed schools (Ken Shultz, Homewood-Flossmoor), and coed schools where men and women share responsibilities (Shirley Nannini, girls; Willie May, boys, Evanston).
“There are still a lot of assistant ADs out there who are female,” says Heindel. “Many of them started in administration when I did. If you look at pure equity, we’re still not close to a 50-50 balance, but we’ll see more women doing this in the future.”
That’s a prospect Resurrection AD and GCAC President Hansfield applauds.
“It’s important for kids to see women in leadership roles in athletics,” she says. “If they have a role model, maybe they’ll want to grow up to be a coach or an athletic director someday.”
Naughton has been at New Trier for 28 years, the last 14 as AD. From a front-row seat, he has seen the dramatic changes the two decades since Title IX have brought.
“It has gotten to the point now,” he says, “where you don’t even stop and think, `This is a woman athletic director.’ I can’t think of any reason why the job lends itself more to a man than a woman.”
