Stories and photos provided by Robert Dunkelberger, Bloomsburg University Archivist
October 9, 1962 – 60 years ago this week, the first varsity women’s intercollegiate athletic contest was held when the newly organized field hockey team traveled to Lock Haven State College. This was the culmination of a long process to integrate women into the school’s athletic program. Athletics at Bloomsburg in the years after the current campus opened in 1867 were limited to gym classes for both men and women. It was not until the 1890s that organized teams for men were created: baseball in 1890, football in 1892, and basketball in 1894. While women did not have official teams, they did play group sports off campus, starting with basketball in 1897. It was sporadic, however, and nothing in the way of organized schedules and leagues.
Women first had an opportunity for more intensive athletic competition in 1926 when Lucy McCammon was hired to teach physical education. She organized the “B” Club, where women could reach various athletic milestones and receive a letter as the men did for their participation in sports. The club also competed against other schools in what were called Play Days.
When McCammon retired in 1958, her position in athletics was filled by Eleanor Wray, who came to Bloomsburg as an assistant professor of physical education from Heidelberg College in Ohio. Wray was a fighter and felt strongly that women should have the same opportunities to compete as the men did. Although it took time, in January 1962 an extramural program of women’s athletics was approved and the following academic year the first official varsity teams in field hockey, coached by Wray, and basketball were formed.
It would be another decade before women’s athletic opportunities at Bloomsburg expanded once more, this time due to the 1972 passage of Title IX. That fall, Eleanor Wray became coordinator of women’s intercollegiate athletics and in the next five years the sports of swimming, tennis, lacrosse, softball, and track and field were added. Wray retired in 1977, but not before realizing her dream of creating a firm foundation for the establishment of athletics for women at Bloomsburg.
Robert Dunkelberger
Bloomsburg University Archivist
An intramural softball game, held on the lawn outside Science Hall, 1938. This was one of the sports where women could accumulate points to earn their “B.” Lucy McCammon can be seen standing behind the pitcher and serving as umpire.
The third women’s field hockey team on the campus athletic field, fall 1964. That November it was torn up in preparation for construction of the first Harvey A. Andruss Library. In the background can be seen, left to right, Centennial Gymnasium, the original Sutliff Hall, the playground for students at the Ben Franklin Laboratory School, and tennis courts that were removed three years later to allow for construction of the Hartline Science Center.
Eleanor Wray (1919-1985), the founder of women’s intercollegiate athletics at Bloomsburg University.
