2022 is a special year for past, present and future women student-athletes, as the nation will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the passage of Title IX. Title IX is a civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or educational program that receives funding from the federal government.
The passage of Title IX completely changed the landscape of intercollegiate athletics and allowed women to compete on more equal footing with their male counterparts. Like many civil rights movements, there are many instances of "two steps up, one step back" (or worse) outcomes (see NCAA basketball tournaments in 2020-21), but there is little doubt that more opportunities have been created for women.
Deputy Director of Athletics Jessica Hammond Graf has created a committee that will celebrate the 50th anniversary, along with Women's History Month, in March. I am proud to serve on this committee and hope I can bring to light the accomplishments of our women's programs, their coaches, support staff and student-athletes.
My First Team and the Start of Life-Long Relationships
I began my career in UMBC athletic communications (it was called sports information back then) as an intern in my junior (1983-84) year at UMBC. Although I performed public address duties for both basketball teams, I had more direct responsibilities with the women's team. For some reason, those women – Shawne (Heckler) O'Connor '85, Kori Kindbom '86, M.A. '97, and a first year player named Tammy (McCarthy) Marge '87 , among others – accepted me into their circle and appreciated my intentions of promoting their endeavors. Moreover, their head coach, the late Sue Furnary, could not have been more gracious and also supportive of my efforts. The following year, the team won 10 of its first 11 games, earned the program's first and only national ranking (No. 20 at NCAA Division II level) and ended the season with the magic number of 20 victories.
When I joined the department after I graduated, there were several professional women in place who helped shape my career. Head Gymnastics Coach Cathy (Stocks) Bielawski '77, volleyball and lacrosse coach Kathy Zerrlaut and Head Athletic Trainer Cindy (Stout) Kubiet were some of my favorite and best teachers, advisors, sounding boards, and later colleagues and friends. Cathy and Kathy competed in Title IX's infancy, while Cindy had to deal with the imbalance of care between the men's and women's sports and her own experiences with sexism in the workplace early and throughout her illustrious career.
All six of those aforementioned women are UMBC Athletics Hall of Famers.
Women in Sports Information, Athletic Communications, Strategic Communications – What's in a Name
There were very few women involved in sports information/athletic communications when I first started in the field. One of the first that I encountered was Marie Wozniak, who became the public relations director at the East Coast Conference when UMBC joined that league in 1990-91. After the break-up of the ECC, she continued her career at Seton Hall for many years. Marie and Jan Giel, sports information director at Drexel, demonstrated great acumen for the profession and kindled a spark in my mind regarding my own hiring practices.
With the media and communication studies program still 15 years from becoming a reality, we got very few interns in athletic communications at UMBC during my first 20 years on the job. But in the late 1990's, a psychology major named Roxanne Reyes '01 approached me about an internship.
What a stroke of great fortune! She excelled and eventually became our first female assistant director in 2001. Roxanne (now Roxanne Smalkin, JD) left to pursue law school in 2005, but continues to serve our program to this day as our statistician at basketball games. Roxanne, her husband Fred, and their three children are fervent supporters of the Retrievers!
The department continued to benefit from the contributions of top assistants like Jessica Bernheim (Schuler), Paige Schneider (Payne) and
Shanna Moser, who each brought a different and valuable flair to our rapidly-changing world in athletic communications.
Unsung Teams
The women's lacrosse program had dominated the Northeast Conference (NEC) for several years, posting 5-0 marks from 1998-2000, but the league did not have an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament. In 2001, the NEC was awarded a bid, but, as luck would have it, Monmouth hosted the league tournament and edged UMBC to earn the conference's first NCAA invite. However, the Retrievers avenged that loss the following spring, routing Monmouth, 15-5, to earn the league's bid and a date at UNC. The women followed up with another championship in 2003, the final year of UMBC's stay in the NEC. In six years, Monica Yeakel's teams won 34 of 36 league games.
A year before the men's basketball team made its 2007-08 NCAA Tournament debut, the women's basketball team produced a miraculous run in the America East Tournament. The 2006-07 Retrievers, seeded seventh, knocked off second-seeded Stony Brook and then third-seeded Vermont to reach the championship game versus No. 1 and perennial league favorite Hartford. Led by sharp shooter Carlee (Cassidy) Dewey '10, UMBC held off the Hawks, 48-46, to earn an America East crown and a date at fourth-ranked UConn in the program's initial NCAA Tournament appearance.
A year before Pete Caringi's team's unprecedented run to the national-semi-finals, the women's soccer program wrote an unlikely story. The 2012 Retrievers posted a record of 1-11-5 and were picked to finish eighth in America East in 2013. UMBC got out to a 5-3-2 non-conference start, but, after losing the opening league game at Maine, won six of the last seven America East games to earn a share of the regular season title and the right to host the championships. The Retrievers blanked Hartford, 2-0, in the semis and Jessy Brown '13 made a goal in the 59' that snapped a 1-1 tie and provided UMBC with a 2-1 victory over Stony Brook and an unlikely America East championship.
And a Sad Reality Check
Some years ago, I was frustrated with the lack of media coverage of our women's programs. This occurred sometime in the 1990's, before websites and social media and when the print and television media ruled my world in athletic communications. I made my case to a female assistant sports editor at
The Baltimore Sun and used a Title IX reference in my argument. She correctly pointed out to me that journalists and news organizations were under no obligation to cover men's and women's sports on any kind of equal footing.
That response didn't do anything to assuage my frustration level.
The good news is that there are many more journalists and athletic communications professionals these days – female and male – that do an outstanding job of covering women's sports. It's far from equal, but I think there is progress.
A Personal Note on the 2021 Champions
There is so much you can say about 2021. But, I'll "stick to sports," Retriever athletics specifically.
Our men's basketball and men's lacrosse programs shared America East regular season titles and produced some memorable home games. The cagers defeated Vermont before a national audience to clinch a share of the hoops championship, while the stickmen prevailed in the longest game in school history, a four-overtime win over Stony Brook.
But it was two women's programs that raised hardware on Hilltop Circle. On a personal note, these teams added a wonderful chapter to my UMBC experience.
I was tasked with the role of sport supervisor for softball in 2021. Mind you, all 17 of our sports were competing in the months of February and March, so I attended as many games as I could, but still felt like a stranger at the softball diamond. But once the team took 2-of-3 at Stony Brook to earn the regular season title and the privilege to host the America East Tournament on May 13-15, my team went into a full court press.
We had to provide all communications' services for the tournament, including stats, public address and, most notably, streaming, which had never been done before at our softball complex. Terrell Burney, Dave Castellanos, John Grossman,
Seth Nagle, Kevin Gibbons O'Neill, Dustin Roddy '14,
Zach Seidel '12 and Stephanie Woodson '21 all made major contributions to those efforts and made the tournament a rousing success.
Dave and I split the broadcasting duties, set up behind the fence down the left field line. In my 35 years at UMBC, I have done the play-by-play for nearly all of our varsity sports. But I had never called a championship game. However, there I was, barking out Sierra Pierce's '22, game-winning hit in the bottom of the sixth and the SBU ground out to clinch the title.
And then, it was off to Arizona with Head Coach
Chris Kuhlmeyer, Assistant Coach
Bobby Baxter, Zach, Cally Mackrell and the America East champions. But in a completely different role than I was accustomed to. I have parked myself in dozens of press boxes, scorer's tables and press rows for UMBC's NCAA competitions, but, in this case, I paced the spacious first-base dugout that the team occupied for games versus Arizona and Villanova. It felt great to actually provide encouragement during the game and felt even better that the coaching staff and women welcomed me as part of their "ohana."
The story of 2021 UMBC volleyball is well-documented. The team won two America East titles in the span of seven months. My interaction with the team in the spring was limited, but, in the fall, I was pressed into service as a public address announcer on three occasions and provided the play-by-play in another. The p.a. experience was challenging, but it gave me a better appreciation of the jobs that Brandon Wright '12 (regular announcer) and Dave Castellanos and
Zach Seidel (stats) perform on a regular basis.
As much as I enjoy the sport of volleyball, I've covered only a handful of games during my entire tenure at UMBC. But working those regular season matches and writing the recaps for the dramatic tournament games provided me with a deeper appreciation of the skill and grit of our team. And, to experience their victories alongside the full-throated support of #RetrieverNation added another unforgettable chapter in my UMBC experience.
GOATS
Check out this list of achievements…
a. First UMBC basketball players to score 2,000 points in a career
b. A four-time Olympian
c. A world champion
And who achieved these milestones? All three were women that competed at UMBC.
a. The aforementioned Tammy McCarthy. She was also the first women's college basketball player in state history to reach the 2,000-point plateau.
b. Cleopatra Borel '02, competed in the shot put for Trinidad & Tobago in 2004 (Athens), 2008 (Beijing), 2012 (London) and 2016 (Rio). She is UMBC's lone national champion, winning the NCAA Indoor Championships in 2002.
c. Emily Escobedo '17, just won the 200 meter breaststroke at the 15th FINA World Swimming Championships in Abu Dhabi last month.
And there is a certain current softball pitcher that is re-writing the America East and UMBC record books with a few chapters left to go.
#RetrieverNation Leaders
We have been so fortunate at UMBC Athletics that women have put on display long and strong leadership roles within our department. Administrators Kathy Zerrlaut and
Dr. Jessica Hammond-Graf have made tremendous impacts in campus, conference, and NCAA levels of governance. Since 1978, Cindy Kubiet and
Stacy Carone have been the lone two leaders of UMBC Sports Medicine. They have supervised hundreds of trainers that have flourished on campus and gone onto successful careers. And, they have cared for and built life-long relationships with literally thousands of our student-athletes.
And here are three examples of our former student-athletes serving in high level leadership capacities in the state of Maryland.
- Robbin Lee '13, Executive Director, Baltimore Homecoming, Inc. - the former volleyball standout was recognized by The Baltimore Sun as one of 25 ":Women to Watch in 2021
- Tiffany Robinson, Esq., '97, Maryland Secretary of Labor - part of the Big South volleyball championship team in 1995.
- Karen Woodard '90, Deputy Chief at the U.S. Department of Justice. - earned four women's basketball letters in UMBC's first four NCAA Division I campaigns (1986-90)
Wrapping it Up
I've never worked anywhere else, but it seems to me that our men's and women's programs truly support one another. The recent program-wide support of the volleyball team's efforts is a great illustration of that bond that #RetrieverNation has engendered.
I believe that UMBC and the athletics department have done an outstanding job in promoting that type of atmosphere on Hilltop Circle.
As it should be.
