By: Wichita State
Missouri State (5-12, 1-5) vs. Wichita State (9-8, 1-5)
2:05 p.m. ? Sat., January 24, 2009 ? Charles Koch Arena (10,502) ? Wichita, Kan. ? Shocker Pioneers Day
Radio: KNSS 1330 AM (Brian Petrotta) / www.shockerradio.comTV: Mediacom Springfield (Don West and Whitney Scott)
On a day filled with memories of the past, the Wichita State women's basketball team looks to the future as the long-standing rivalry with Missouri State is renewed for the 63rd time at 2:05 p.m., Saturday inside Charles Koch Arena. Tickets are just $1 for the game, and three women's athletics pioneers, Sue Bair, Natasha Fife and Yvonne Slingerland will be honored prior to the contest to kickoff festivities surrounding Shocker Pioneers Day.
The third and final feature on the pioneers follows below, as Sue Bair discusses creating women's sports programs at Wichita State.
When it comes to the history of women's college athletics, most programs around the country had a woman, or in Wichita State's case a trio of women, that changed the course of its history.
In Sue Bair's case, it was joining forces in the late 1960's with fellow WSU professors Natasha Fife and Yvonne Slinglerland in an effort to create an atmosphere for women of competitiveness and camaraderie.
“First of all, the three of us were all professors in the Department of Physical Education,” Bair said. “Our responsibilities then were to just teach. We would go to conventions and meetings every year, and we got to talking about starting, ourselves, some athletic programs for women.”
The women earned the blessing of the P.E. Department in the fall of 1969, and without any funding, were ready to start finding student-athletes for basketball, volleyball and softball. As a nationally-ranked volleyball and basketball official, Bair decided to coach the newly-formed basketball team.
“We decided that we would start with those three sports, there was three of us so three sports made sense,” Bair said. “We sat there wondering who was going to do what. I took basketball because I knew a lot about it. I knew the rules backwards and forwards, but that meant that I had to give up officiating for that year.”
Bair took the reins of the basketball team and met the challenge of finding players head-on. Admittedly, it was difficult for Bair to find players, but through her physical education classes and advertising in the Sunflower, the WSU student newspaper, she was able to build a roster of eight women.
And that first season was one of bliss for Bair.
“I can't tell you our record,” Bair said with a smile. “I think we played probably six or seven games, but we were so excited doing this that we just paid our own expenses. It was never about anything but the competition and the camaraderie. That's what these kids were after.”
Not only were the female student-athletes finally getting a chance to feel it, but Bair was as well. As a high school student at Wichita's East High School, she was never afforded the same opportunities as her male counterparts. East High did have a letterwomen's club, where girls could earn points toward letters during after-school activities. But, for Bair and many others, it wasn't the same.
“We had athletics for the boys, football and basketball, everything they have now,” Bair said. “I would go by the football field and say, ?I just wish I could be on a competitive team.' I could never be on one, but I could coach one. Now I could live through my athletes, so it was big deal for me.”
It was such a big deal, that Bair, Fife, who coached volleyball, and Slingerland, who coached softball, paid for travel expenses out of their own pocket for the first few years of competition.
After that first year in 1969-70, Bair switched sports and took over the women's softball program. She remained at the helm for the next six seasons, during which giant strides were made in the world of women's collegiate athletics. In 1972, Title IX was enacted and Bair recalled her sport receiving nearly $2000 in support aid from the P.E. department.
“That was huge for us,” she said. “We would stand there with rolls of quarters and give each kid their lunch money. They thought they had died and gone to heaven.”
But, even with the difficult financial circumstances, Bair continued coaching softball and officiating basketball, and in 1974 Wichita State's women's intercollegiate athletic program was established. They became members of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (AIAW) and the Kansas AIAW.
“Once Title IX was here I knew that there was no holding us back, it was just about how long it would be until they realized we were serious about competing,” Bair said. “It took awhile, but I could see it coming.”
The impact that Bair had on these women who were afforded the chance to be a student-athlete shows in many forms, including many personal letters written by her former athletes.
One student-athlete wrote this to Bair: “I really cannot quote to you our opponent's scores or wins or losses. Those are not the important things with the passage of time. The important things are the memories of teammates, special moments on the court, camaraderie on road trips and the pride of being part of the Wichita State athletic tradition.”
"That's what it was all about back then,” Bair said.
