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Women in Sports: Title IX Anniversary

By Rayna Jackson, BA ’04 (romance languages), UO Alumni Association director of communications;
and Peyton Hall, class of 2024 (theatre arts), communications student associate

The long legacy that women have made in sports at the UO and beyond

When Title IX was signed into law 50 years ago, it was not widely received across the nation as a move forward. However, the 1972 legislation spurred the University of Oregon to create an equal space for women on campus.

“Title IX was the spark for tremendous change,” says Nicole Commissiong, assistant vice president and chief civil rights officer and Title IX coordinator. “On this 50th anniversary, it is important to look back and realize that while we may not be where everyone would hope, truly just how far things have come for women’s athletics. And this is another opportunity to think about what is next.”

Commissiong, who double-majored in both history and journalism during her undergraduate career at the UO, and received her juris doctoral degree from Oregon Law, says that many times when society talks about women’s empowerment, it refers to women in positions of leadership.

“I do not believe that you must be in a position of power to be a leader, to have something to contribute. Every single woman out there has something to contribute in everyday life, and those contributions make the world go round.”

While Title IX continues to impact generations, we look at a group of alumnae who have inspired countless women and girls who came after them.

This list does not include all alumnae who have made a lasting impact, but we extend a thank you to all those who honor their alma mater through dedication to blazing a path in the communities where they live.

Edniesha Curry
Photo credit: Bruce Ely, Portland Trail Blazers

Edniesha Curry, BS ’02 (sociology) - basketball

First female assistant basketball coach, Portland Trailblazers
First female assistant basketball coach, University of Maine

Curry joined the women’s basketball team in 2000 as a guard. While at the UO, Curry helped the Ducks win the 2002 Women’s National Invitation Tournament (WNIT) championship. She was then drafted by the Women’s National Basketball Association’s the Charlotte Sting. Curry spent four years in the WNBA with Charlotte and then the Phoenix Mercury and Los Angeles Sparks before heading overseas and playing in Europe.

In 2009, she retired as a player and went right into coaching—a career she never expected to have.

“As an athlete, I didn’t see myself as a potential coach, but my coaches encouraged me to keep an open mind. Eventually, it came naturally to me. For me, it’s always been more than basketball; positively impact and change individual lives, and that’s what I love about coaching.”

After years of coaching part-time as a skills instructor for high schools in the US, and then abroad in China, Taiwan, Israel, and Vietnam, Curry began coaching in the US as an assistant coach for women’s basketball at the University of Maine.

However, it wasn’t until she was hired as the University of Maine’s men’s assistant coach that she made news, becoming the only female coach in Division 1 basketball. In 2021, Curry made history again as the first woman to hold a spot as an assistant coach on a Trailblazer’s bench.

Looking at her success, Curry says that she has a word for young girls who dream of being where she is today.

“You can’t let anyone tell you that you aren’t good enough. It took over ten years to get a coaching job, but I didn’t get discouraged. When I decided to be a coach, I was all in.”

Discover more about Curry’s career journey.

“I want all the young girls and young women out there to not be afraid, and to turn the voice that’s in your head into a dream come true. It’s there for a reason. Don’t give up and don’t give in. Keep believing in yourself and you’ll make it happen.”
Edith Green

Edith Green, BS ’40 (education) - advocate

Representative for Oregon’s third congressional district

Green may not have played sports while at the UO—but she shaped women’s athletics not only for Oregon women, but women athletes across the nation. In 1954, Green was elected as the representative for Oregon’s third congressional district, becoming the second Oregonian woman elected to the US House of Representatives. In her first year in DC, she was appointed to the House Committee on Education and Labor and remained on it for eighteen years.

Green’s biggest triumph in reform and legislation may well have been the work she did leading up to the creation of Title IX in 1972.

As the chair of the Subcommittee on Higher Education, Green was responsible for conducting the week of hearings that led to the development of Title IX. She preceded the series of hearings by stating, “Let us not deceive ourselves. Our educational institutions have proven to be no bastions of democracy.”

The week of hearings was arduous, with university administrators and congressmen alike protesting the bill, saying it would force schools to build unisex bathrooms and admit equal numbers of male and female students. After Title IX passed, Green said, “I don’t know when I have ever been so pleased, because I had worked so long, and it had been such a tough battle.”

Nicknamed “the mother of higher education” by her peers, Green became the second highest ranking Democrat in Congress, and seconded the Democratic presidential nominations in 1956 and 1960. John F. Kennedy offered her the position as US ambassador to Canada, but she declined; when he later appointed her to his Committee on the Status of Women, she accepted.

Green retired in 1974 and became a professor of government at Warner Pacific College. She was appointed co-chair of the Oregon State Board of Higher Education in 1979 and was later appointed by Ronald Reagan to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships in 1981.

Discover more about “The Mother of Higher Education”

Cassandra Law

Photo credit: 2022 US Department of Veterans Affairs Official Portrait – Cassandra M. Law, Eugene Russell

Cassandra Law, BS ’88 (leisure studies and services) - track and field, rugby

World Champion on the first-ever Women’s Rugby World Cup
First UO women’s rugby team organizer and coach
Deputy Chief of Staff, US Department of Veterans Affairs

Cassandra Law is a former member of the UO women’s track and field team, a former coach and player for the women’s UO rugby team, and a retired player on the USA Eagles national rugby team.

Along with her distinguished rugby career, Law has spent more than three decades working with the US Department of Veterans Affairs—the second largest department in the President’s Cabinet. She currently serves as the department’s Deputy Chief of Staff in Washington, DC.

Law says that although she began her collegiate athletic career as a javelin thrower for the UO women’s track-and-field team in 1982, she fell in love with rugby her junior year in college when she began playing with a local team, the Eugene Housewives.

“The initial passion and love for rugby that I cultivated in Eugene as a complete rookie, exploded into a full-fledged rugby addiction,” says Law.

Law went on to bring rugby to the UO college campus and began coaching the new women’s club sports rugby team. The club was small, but Law says that it was enthusiastic and the UO was supportive of her efforts.

“I felt incredibly supported as a female athlete at the UO,” says Law. “Despite many challenges in the late 1970s and early 1980s around Title IX, track and field along with numerous other sports like rugby at the UO grew in support, popularity, and stature.”

Law worked with the Department of Veterans Affairs in California while simultaneously playing rugby. She was eventually selected by the USA Women’s National Rugby Team in 1990 and was on the first-ever US women’s team to play and win the World Cup Championship in Wales in 1991. From there she spent five years playing in New Zealand, Wales, Scotland, England, and France.

“I am so grateful for the role athletics has played in my life over the past fifty years,” Law says. “The heightened level of play and competition, intensity of training, commitment of and to teammates, and stellar, unparalleled coaching were magical and grounded me in discipline and commitment that shapes my life today.”

Learn more about Law’s historic World Cup Championship victory.

“I share this advice with everyone that I mentor now: take advantage of the opportunities in front of you. Fear can be a big deterrent or a big driver. And confronting it can be both rewarding and empowering.”
Victoria Lindsey
Photo credit: Chris Pietsch/The Register-Guard

Victoria (Brown) Lindsey, ’75 (English) - rowing

First female coxswain of the Pac-8 Conference

Fifty years ago, Victoria Brown, now Victoria Lindsey, made history as a freshman at the University of Oregon. As an 18-year-old coxswain on the men’s club rowing team, Lindsey was responsible for steering the boat and coordinating the rowers.

At the time, crew was considered a “male sport” and although there were no laws in 1972 stating that Lindsey couldn’t participate, the Western Intercollegiate Crew Coaches Association said that she was not eligible. However, the team’s coach, Don Costello, put her on the roster and in the boat—and in conflict with the Pac-8.

Teams such as Oregon State and Stanford refused to race Oregon if she was in the seat. Despite this, the crew team stood beside Lindsey and voted to withdraw from its race against University of Washington when the coach at the time would not compete with Lindsey as coxswain. The decision by the team made national news including the New York Times and Sports Illustrated.

“Being a national figure was a little hard to fathom, but I remember getting a lot of letters,” Lindsey said in an interview with the Register-Guard. “It was surprising, but it was fun.”

Looking back at her experience, Lindsey shared that if there had been a women’s rowing team, she would have been on it. But a women’s team wasn’t formed until 1973.

“I guess I have always been a person who was spontaneous and looking for challenges. I had good coaches and good teammates; everyone was welcoming. Everything mellows over time. It was a wonderful experience.”

For more than 32 years Brown served as the vice president of human resources at various organizations. It is in this leadership role that Lindsey says she made the most impact.

“I have always been a champion of the underdog,” Lindsey told the Register-Guard. “In HR, you get the opportunity to find those gems of people who have potential and then you want to help them grow and learn. That would be what I’d say is the biggest legacy. I’m always looking for that person who doesn’t know their own potential and you have to bring it out.”

“I’m always looking for that person who doesn’t know their own potential and you have to bring it out.”
–Victoria (Brown) Lindsey, the Register Guard
Mighty Oregon Podcast

Mighty Oregon Podcast: Interviews with Legends

Tune in to the official podcast of the Oregon Ducks. In these select interviews, host Rob Moseley, BA ’99 (news editorial), connects with several alumnae from Oregon in a way that’s equal parts entertaining and interesting, giving insight to their journey to greatness.
Ellen Schmidt-Devlin

Ellen Schmidt-Devlin, BS ’81 (health education), MBA ’12 (general business) - cross country

Nike’s first female general manager, Bangkok, Thailand
Cofounder and executive director, UO Sports Product Management Portland Program
Producer, We Grew Wings documentary

Ellen Schmidt-Devlin remembers the first day she ran cross country for Oregon. A gentleman came up to her to shake her hand.

“He said, ‘Hi, my name is Bill Bowerman,’” she recalls from the 1976 encounter in the podcast Women Inspired World. “He said, ‘Would you get the girls of the team together to test Nike shoes?’ I shook his hand and said, ‘Nice to meet you Mr. Bowerman, but we’re not girls. We’re women.’ He thought that was very funny and we became fast friends.”

That encounter set Schmidt-Devlin on a path that changed her life. While at the UO, she worked in Bowerman’s Innovation Lab as a student. After college, she wrote a letter to Bowerman, asking him to be her reference, and his response was, “Come work for me. Bill.” And that started her on a 27-year career at Nike.

At Nike, Schmidt-Devlin managed and directed footwear design across Asia, Canada, and Central/South America. She was the first female to serve as a general manager leading Nike’s Bangkok, Thailand Liaison office in 2001. Schmidt-Devlin recalls that while there were eight similar positions around the globe, no other women were at that level. However, by 2009 when she left the Nike Liaison Office as general manager in Busan, Korea, and Qingdao, China, six of the eight positions were held by women.

“What I found in my career is that I would have to go first,” Schmidt-Devlin told Women Inspired World. “I would have to be brave enough, have enough courage to say, ‘Okay, this may not work out, but if it does work out, it will work out not just for me, but for many other women.’”

After retiring from Nike, she returned to the UO and received her master’s degree in general business in 2012. She then saw an opportunity to educate the public about the legacy of women’s track and field at the University of Oregon and to inspire the next generation of athletes through the documentary, We Grew Wings.

“Oftentimes we sit back and say, ‘Why aren’t the stories of women being told?’ I think we have to look at ourselves and realize it’s up to women to begin to tell the stories of women. And since I had run track, I decided that it was my obligation to tell the stories of women at the University of Oregon.”

Today, Schmidt-Devlin serves as the Lundquist College of Business’ cofounder and executive director of the Sports Product Management Program.

“What I found in my career is that if I could do something then I could show people who weren’t able to do it how to do it.”
–Ellen Schmidt-Devlin, Women Inspired World
Tiana Tozer

Photo courtesy of Tiana Tozer

Tiana Tozer, BA ’90 (romance languages) - rugby, wheelchair basketball

Two-time Paralympian, wheelchair basketball
Humanitarian, author, public speaker

When Tiana Tozer gave the commencement address to the Class of 2013, she claimed that she was no one special—just someone who wanted to make an impact in the world.

“I’m nobody. I’m not a US Cabinet member,” she said in her speech. “I have never been the CEO of a company. Heck, I’ve never even held elected office. I am just a U of O graduate, a member of your community. Somebody who has always tried to do her best—somebody who has tried to contribute to the best of her ability. I’m just somebody who thinks that she can change the world.”

And change the world she has. After being hit by a drunk driver during her sophomore year at Oregon, Tozer’s entire life changed. Her legs crushed by a 3,000-pound vehicle, Tozer was told she would never walk again, let alone play any sport.

She recalls spending one month and three days in the intensive care unit and three months in the hospital that summer.

“After I was injured, my rugby team constantly visited me in the hospital, supported me in my recovery, and dragged me around to all the rugby games in my wheelchair; being a woman in sports at the University of Oregon was life-saving,” Tozer said.

Although her rugby career was over, Tozer channeled her love of sports through wheelchair basketball. Her efforts led her to play for the United States and earn two medals in the 1992 and 1996 Paralympic Games.

Tozer chose a career path in humanitarian aid, creating and implementing a disability advocacy program in Iraq. In addition, she served as state director at the Southern Kordofan branch of Mercy Corps Sudan until she was extracted due to the civil war in 2011.

“I took over a program in Iraq that taught 10,000 women how to read and write. I was also tasked with starting a civil rights movement for people with disabilities, and I did,” Tozer said of her international work. “I may not be an important person, but I have made a difference in people’s lives and that is truly what I think is most important in this life.”

Listen to Tozer’s TedEx Talk about redefining disability.

“I hope that opportunities for women in sport continue to grow. Since I played, there are a lot more college scholarships for athletes with disabilities; you can actually watch the Paralympics on television or stream it. Women’s sports have come a long way, but they have a long way to go.”
–Tiana Tozer

Then and Now: The early years

Women's Basketball Team 1920

Women’s athletics at the University of Oregon from the 1890’s to the 1920s were comprised of organized competitions and social gatherings. UO Libraries records show that there were a handful of practices, sporadic contests, and minimal resources, women athletes enjoyed only limited opportunities during the first 75 years on campus.

Fun Facts

  • Women earned awards for their participation in intramurals during the 1920s. The points were based on their skill level in each activity-100 points were granted for making the first team, 75 points for second team, etc. Winning an "O" letter required 500 points. Sweaters were awarded for 1,000 points and stripes for 2,000 points. The award system was not well publicized and was eventually discontinued as the national trend of discouraging women's participation in competitive athletics gained momentum.
  • In 1930, Janet Woodruff organized a match between Oregon and the US Field Hockey team.
  • The 1941 Oregana credits the women's riflery team for beating the university's men's team.
  • The 1939 top women's sports were tennis followed by basketball.

Discover more about the early years of women’s athletics.

Women in Flight: Go Do Anything

Women in Flight

Women In Flight elevates the UO’s mission and leads the charge to further grow support of women’s athletics. Through a yearlong campaign, women are being encouraged to “Go Do Anything” – a message that inspires, empowers, and supports women everywhere. With a fundraising goal of $9 million dollars, the campaign aims to grow on the foundation built with Women In Flight and to further enhance the Oregon female student-athlete experience with scholarships, technology, facilities, and more.

Support Women in Flight

“Competing as a collegiate student athlete provides opportunities for championship experiences in sport that creates champions in all walks of life, from family to business to community service,” says Lisa Petersen who is UO’s deputy Title IX coordinator, deputy athletic director and senior women’s administrator.

“The enactment of Title IX into law 50 years ago opened the door for young women to reach their full potential, not only as student-athletes, but also as future leaders and Fortune 500 boardrooms, halls of government, and many other fields of endeavor as well as in professional competition. With the help of Women in Flight supporters, student-athletes at Oregon can take full advantage of those opportunities, turning hopes for more equitable future into reality.”

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