What's the Score?: 25 Years of Teaching Women's Sports History

295 Pages·4.228 MB·English

by  Bonnie J. Morris

GENDER • SPORTS • EDUCATION WHAT S
’
THE
“This unique book truly holds delights for every reader. Skillfully combining
information and inspiration, Morris—teacher, historian, and fan—offers a
comprehensive, candid, and compelling overview of women’s sports.
Packed with resources, yet always lively, What’s the Score? is both a major
contribution to women’s studies and a downright great read.” SCORE?
—SHANE SNOWDON, Former Editor, Sojourner
• Who is the fi rst female athlete you admired?
M
• Were male and female athletes treated differently in your high school?
O
• Is there a natural limit to women’s athletic ability? R
R
• How has Title IX opened up opportunities for women athletes?
I
S
Every semester since 1996, Bonnie Morris has encouraged students to confront
questions like these in one of the most provocative college courses in America: Athletics
and Gender, A History of Women’s Sports. What’s the Score?, Morris’s energetic teaching W 25
memoir, is a peek inside that class and features a decades-long dialogue with student
H
athletes about the greater opportunities for women—on the playing fi eld, as coaches, and
A
in sports media. From corsets to segregated schoolyards to the WNBA, we fi nd women
T YEARS OF
athletes the world over conquering unique barriers to success. S’

What’s the Score? is not only an insider’s look at sports education but also an engaging T
H TEACHING
guide to turning points in women’s sports history that everyone should know.
E
Bonnie J. Morris, author of 19 books and a member of the Authors Guild, has been S
teaching women’s sports history since 1996, becoming Professor of the Year and emeri- C WOMEN’S
tus professor at George Washington University, Vicennial Medalist at Georgetown, and a O
nominee for the Excellence in Teaching Prize at UC-Berkeley. She is a scholarly adviser to R
the National Museum of Women’s History, a history consultant to Disney, and the archivist E SPORTS
?
for Olivia Records, as well as three-time faculty for the global Semester at Sea program.
Find her talks on C-SPAN and her writing at www.bonniejmorris.com. Morris is currently
a lecturer in history at the University of California at Berkeley. HISTORY
redlightningbooks.com $24.00
ISBN 9781684351800
52400 >
B O N N I E J. M O R R I S

9781684 351800
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WHAT S THE SCORE?
’
WHAT S
’
THE
SCORE?
WHAT S
’
THE
SCORE?
25

YEARS OF
TEACHING
WOMEN’S
SPORTS
HISTORY
B O N N I E J. M O R R I S
This book is a publication of
Red Lightning Books
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
redlightningbooks.com
© 2022 by Bonnie J. Morris
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording,
or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets
the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for
Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing 2022
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Morris, Bonnie J., author.
Title: What’s the score? : 25 years of teaching women’s
sports history / Bonnie J. Morris.
Description: Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press,
[2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021059718 (print) | LCCN 2021059719 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781684351800 (hardback) | ISBN 9781684351817 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Sports for women—History. | Sports—Sex differences. |
Sex discrimination in sports. | Sexism in sports. | Morris, Bonnie J. |
Women college teachers—United States—Biography.
Classification: LCC GV709 .M625 2022 (print) | LCC GV709
(ebook) | DDC 796.082—dc23/eng/20220104
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021059718
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021059719
For Christine Brennan, Billie Jean King,
Mariah Burton Nelson, and Patrick Nero
and
for the next generation of advocates:
Elana Meyers Taylor, Desi Carrasco, Layshia Clarendon,
Colleen Ryan, and my own brother, Coach John Morris.
And in loving memory of two athletic women,
Susan Vetter and Kathryn Dunn
C O N T E N T S
Timeline: 101 Turning Points in Women’s Sports History ix
PROLOGUE
 2
The Bus Ride before the Game—or, A Parable about Our
Low Expectations for Women’s Sports Knowledge
INTRODUCTION
 6
1 Nothing Better to Do on a Friday Night?
Engaging Students with the Past
The Strength of Our Foremothers 32
2
Headlines, Publicity, and Media Activism
How Female Athletes Disappear 56
3
Discussing Gender Roles and Homophobia in Sports
Tomboy Identities, Muscular Ideals 86
4
Title IX and the American Playing Field
From Half-Court to Federal Court 120
5
Teaching Students at Sea
Global Encounters with Women’s Sports 148
6
Evaluating Twenty-Five Years of Class
Challenges for a Women’s Sports Professor 168
CONCLUSION
When the Scoreboard Went Dark in 2020
 204
Critical-Thinking Resources 222
Notes 249
Bibliography 257
Index 263

T I M E L I N E
101 Turning PoinTs in Women’s sPorTs HisTory
Precolonial America 
Indigenous women of differing tribes are
skilled at sports ranging from footraces, swimming, and
wrestling to ball games, including lacrosse. White settlers are
shocked to see women excel at what they consider “manly”
pursuits—including leadership roles in tribal councils,
1780 peacemaking, conflict resolution, and diplomacy.
Women are included in one of the first sports events of the new
United States, horse races at the Hempstead Plains track on Long
1866 Island.
1892 Vassar College fields not one but two women’s baseball teams.
Senda Berenson introduces basketball with adapted rules to
young women. The modified game soon moves from elite colleges
1895 to working-class women, who play at AY WWChAee al nWdi tYhWinH aA W ghyemels.
Suffragist Frances Willard publishes ,
describing the independence and freedom she found by teaching
1896 herself to ride a bicycle at age fifty-three.
The first intercollegiate women’s basketball game, Stanford
versus the University of California, is played with “half-court”
rules before seven hundred female spectators at the Page Street
Armory, with a final score of 2–1. Three years later, Stanford ends
women’s intercollegiate team sports “for the good of student’s
ix