Item Information
Title
Frances Hogan, former Director of Women’s Athletics at UNC, from an oral history conducted in 1991
Description
Frances Hogan, former Director of Women’s Athletics at UNC, from an oral history conducted in 1991. Performed by Kathy Williams.
Creator
PlayMaker’s Repertory Company in collaboration with the University Archives at Louis Round Wilson Library
Source
Interview with Frances B. Hogan by Mary Jo Festle, 23 May 1991 L-0044, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Series L: University of North Carolina, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/04007L/
https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/04007L/
Date
2021
Language
English
Identifier
https://exhibits.lib.unc.edu/items/show/7589
Transcription
Frances Hogan, former Director of Women’s Athletics at UNC, from an oral history conducted in 1991.
We had clubs in a lot of sports. The clubs were designed for the highly skilled player. If you participated in a club in a certain sport, then you could not play intramurals in the same sport.
We had to call them clubs rather than varsity teams. We had the craziest regulations back then.
And even when we became a charter member of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women in 19 7 1, which was the first national governing body of intercollegiate athletics for women, the North Carolina Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women had strict rules which were stricter that the national association. The NCAIAW limited us to fifteen contests a season.
Some have never considered women as having any athletics until we became member s of the NCA A or until the women' s program was placed under the Athletic Department in October 1974. It makes me mad because we had outstanding athletes as far back as I can remember. We did not have as many because it was frowned on so much for women to be so athletic. It's entirely different now.
The last field hockey club I coached, we were playing Meredith College. We played where the Student Union Building is now. That was a first because the baseball diamond was there. The baseball coach agreed that we could use the outfield. We'd been maybe five minutes into the game when the band came out. They just started their practice right out in the middle of our game and marched right through. The Meredith team had to go home and we never finished that game. That is the way it was back then. We had to fight for every little thing.
[field hockey] way back in the forties and early fifties, out in Kenan Stadium, and we weren't allowed to put any lines down on the fields. So, for the striking circle, Mr. "Hutch", who was in charge of Kenan, would staple the circles down for me with rope, and any other markings I had to have were done with rope. And of course, by the end of the game, the players were all caught in the ropes and tripping around. But we had to do everything in Kenan. We couldn't use the field. We had to use the end zones, except for hockey.
The women did not have an outdoor facility. Even out there in Kenan the band would take over. And so one day I was fed up with it and I said, "All right." And I told the girls to hit the ball directly in the middle of the band formation. I told everybody to chase the ball. I said, "Goal keeper and all. Everybody chase it." Instruments went everywhere and we made our point. It's just been a battle to practice.
Even after my tennis club became more of a team than a club, and we were practicing every day, it was a hassle. I had to use the worst tennis courts on campus
We weren't allowed [in Woollen or on intermural fields]. We couldn't go down and use the racquetball courts until Title IX came along. Title IX started the change in facilities. The University had a grievance committee. ... But one of the first grievances was a female student complaining about the locker space in the Women's Gym. We had like five people to a locker.
Laura Dupont won the National Collegiate Championship in tennis in 1970. It was called the USTA Women's Collegiate Tennis Tournament.
All of a sudden, she started winning and won the whole thing... And when they announced the "University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Laura Dupont," and they went out with this big silver bowl full of red roses. Tears were just running down my face. …. So. I thought, "Well, when we get back, they'll really have this written up." Do you know the P.E. Department was so mad, the chairman was, that he would hardly speak to me because I had gone over his head. Before I left for [the tournament], I went over to see Jack Williams in sports information. I left all the information about Laura and where we were going to be. When I returned, there had not been one word in the papers.
[Laura] was the first female student athlete to have her portrait hanging in Carmichael. It was a struggle to get her picture in Carmichael. Now there are many female athletes on the walls in Carmichael.
Well, let me just say this. When I started as Director of Intercollegiate Athletics, I was paid... Well, first of all, no women coaches were paid until '73, '74. And it didn't matter what you were coaching, you were paid one thousand dollars. So, if you did tennis, a thousand, basketball a thousand, and so on. It didn't matter the length of your season or how long you worked or who did what. You were paid the same amount. And I was paid three thousand dollars as Director of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. And I gave up my vacations, worked all summer on handbooks and stuff...
I can remember that first year after 1974 when I worked on the women's athletic budget, the budget had been something like... I don't remember whether it was seven thousand something the year before. Maybe it was $2,000 something. Anyway, it was very little. I remember the hockey team received fifty dollars. The tennis team got a little more.
We had clubs in a lot of sports. The clubs were designed for the highly skilled player. If you participated in a club in a certain sport, then you could not play intramurals in the same sport.
We had to call them clubs rather than varsity teams. We had the craziest regulations back then.
And even when we became a charter member of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women in 19 7 1, which was the first national governing body of intercollegiate athletics for women, the North Carolina Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women had strict rules which were stricter that the national association. The NCAIAW limited us to fifteen contests a season.
Some have never considered women as having any athletics until we became member s of the NCA A or until the women' s program was placed under the Athletic Department in October 1974. It makes me mad because we had outstanding athletes as far back as I can remember. We did not have as many because it was frowned on so much for women to be so athletic. It's entirely different now.
The last field hockey club I coached, we were playing Meredith College. We played where the Student Union Building is now. That was a first because the baseball diamond was there. The baseball coach agreed that we could use the outfield. We'd been maybe five minutes into the game when the band came out. They just started their practice right out in the middle of our game and marched right through. The Meredith team had to go home and we never finished that game. That is the way it was back then. We had to fight for every little thing.
[field hockey] way back in the forties and early fifties, out in Kenan Stadium, and we weren't allowed to put any lines down on the fields. So, for the striking circle, Mr. "Hutch", who was in charge of Kenan, would staple the circles down for me with rope, and any other markings I had to have were done with rope. And of course, by the end of the game, the players were all caught in the ropes and tripping around. But we had to do everything in Kenan. We couldn't use the field. We had to use the end zones, except for hockey.
The women did not have an outdoor facility. Even out there in Kenan the band would take over. And so one day I was fed up with it and I said, "All right." And I told the girls to hit the ball directly in the middle of the band formation. I told everybody to chase the ball. I said, "Goal keeper and all. Everybody chase it." Instruments went everywhere and we made our point. It's just been a battle to practice.
Even after my tennis club became more of a team than a club, and we were practicing every day, it was a hassle. I had to use the worst tennis courts on campus
We weren't allowed [in Woollen or on intermural fields]. We couldn't go down and use the racquetball courts until Title IX came along. Title IX started the change in facilities. The University had a grievance committee. ... But one of the first grievances was a female student complaining about the locker space in the Women's Gym. We had like five people to a locker.
Laura Dupont won the National Collegiate Championship in tennis in 1970. It was called the USTA Women's Collegiate Tennis Tournament.
All of a sudden, she started winning and won the whole thing... And when they announced the "University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Laura Dupont," and they went out with this big silver bowl full of red roses. Tears were just running down my face. …. So. I thought, "Well, when we get back, they'll really have this written up." Do you know the P.E. Department was so mad, the chairman was, that he would hardly speak to me because I had gone over his head. Before I left for [the tournament], I went over to see Jack Williams in sports information. I left all the information about Laura and where we were going to be. When I returned, there had not been one word in the papers.
[Laura] was the first female student athlete to have her portrait hanging in Carmichael. It was a struggle to get her picture in Carmichael. Now there are many female athletes on the walls in Carmichael.
Well, let me just say this. When I started as Director of Intercollegiate Athletics, I was paid... Well, first of all, no women coaches were paid until '73, '74. And it didn't matter what you were coaching, you were paid one thousand dollars. So, if you did tennis, a thousand, basketball a thousand, and so on. It didn't matter the length of your season or how long you worked or who did what. You were paid the same amount. And I was paid three thousand dollars as Director of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. And I gave up my vacations, worked all summer on handbooks and stuff...
I can remember that first year after 1974 when I worked on the women's athletic budget, the budget had been something like... I don't remember whether it was seven thousand something the year before. Maybe it was $2,000 something. Anyway, it was very little. I remember the hockey team received fifty dollars. The tennis team got a little more.