Bulldog pioneer discusses women in sports

In 1969, Yale College opened its doors to women for the first time. Although numerous changes obviously accompanied the women to campus, perhaps one of the largest was the permanent alteration to the face of Yale athletics. Women, now established on campus, could be expected to be an equally visible presence on the fields.

JULIA TIERNAN/YH Lawrie Mifflin, SY '73, was a pioneer in the plight for female varsity sports during her time at Yale.

Enter Lawrie Mifflin, SY '73. Bolstered by strong experience in high school field hockey and a determination to continue her athletic career in college, Mifflin worked to create the first female varsity team at Yale. In 1969, she and a group of other enthusiasts assembled a club field hockey team. Armed with only t-shirts and cutoff jeans for uniforms, the women scrimmaged against surrounding schools. Only three years later, Mifflin found herself the first female athletic captain at Yale.

Her career since her time as Eli field hockey captain has been just as impressive. Currently a media reporter for The New York Times, Mifflin began her journalism career with the New York Daily News and, after a stint with the city desk at the paper, broke new ground as one of the first female beat reporters in sports. Mifflin then moved to the Times where she covered, among other topics, the New York Rangers and the Olympics. She eventually rose to the position of assistant editor at the Times before moving to media coverage for the paper.

In January, the NCAA honored Mifflin with its Silver Anniversary Award, awarded to notable college athletes on the 25th anniversary of their graduation to commemorate accomplishments both on the playing fields and in their fields of work. On Thurs., Sept. 24, Mifflin was the guest of honor at a Morse College Master's Dessert. The Yale Herald sat down with Mifflin following the Dessert to discuss her feelings on the current state of sports and female athletics.

The Yale Herald: When you look at women's collegiate athletics now, how does it compare to when you first captained the field hockey team 25 years ago?

Lawrie Mifflin: The thing that impresses me most is the professionalism. I guess a better way to put it would be the respect for the women athletes and the self-respect they have for themselves. When I played, it was just a lot more casual. We didn't even have locker rooms. When we finished practice, we just threw on a sweatshirt or whatever after practice and took the bus back to our rooms--we had to shower in our colleges!

Now, the female athletes are really taken seriously. It's so great to see the women out on the fields, just walking around like they belong there. They even had a trainer at practice this afternoon. I don't even think we had a trainer at one of our games!

YH: Despite the start-up of the WNBA and other women's professional leagues, such games still seem to get treated an afterthought. Why is this?

LM: [The games' popularity] is really an evolutionary process, and progress comes slowly. But you can look at women's athletics coverage in the Olympics and see how much that has improved--now we hear about Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Marion Jones as much as some of their male counterparts.

As far as the women's pro leagues are concerned, their media coverage is dictated by newspapers' audiences. The WNBA is not going to get coverage simply because it's politically correct to do so. Even when I was a sports editor, I, despite my own interests, couldn't in good conscience do a story on NCAA field hockey--there's just not enough interest among our readers.

YH: How, then, can changes be made in our perception of these games?

LM: I guess you just have to spend more money--on both the players and the coaches. Things will then become better run. Then, more parents will start their daughters off in sports. More families will say, `Maybe she can become a professional.' But if these pros are getting paid [very little], then what's the incentive to become a professional?

So, a lot of it is money, but that money needs to come from ticket sales, sponsorship, commercials and television, and that comes from greater popularity. So, it's a bit of the `chicken and the egg' question.

YH: With your experience with both sports and the media, you must be interested in the national spectacles recent sporting accomplishments have become. Why do these sports stories become such events?

LM: They're fun to play, and they're fun to watch. It's fun to imagine what it would be like to be that talented at something. Plus, sports are simple--somebody wins and somebody loses. But sports are also not life and death.

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