Follow-Up Interview 2017_PARTI
Interviews; African American women; African American women athletes; African American professional athletes; Civil rights; Women's rights; Olympics;
This is Part I of the Follow-Up Interview with Dr. Alpha Alexander for my Senior Independent Study Thesis.
***=Interview Questions
Transcript Below:
***DO: So, during our 1st interview, I asked what you knew about Title IX and you mentioned that you had an interview on Voice of America last summer and mentioned that it was Dr. Ellen Staurowsky who reminded you that she heard you speak at Oberlin. When was this talk at Oberlin and how was it? Was it then that you learned about Title IX?
AA: No, actually, uh, when I found out about Title IX it was when Dr. Maria Sexton took me and a group of students from the College of Wooster to Oberlin to hear about Title IX in 1972. I do not remember when years later Dr. Ellen Staurowsky saw me speak at Oberlin and she may know the year and I could be able to send you maybe possibly her email so you can ask (DO: Okay). I remember I was a freshman at the College of Wooster and I remember when Dr. Sexton took us to Oberlin. It was to learn about this thing called Title IX, which was a new law. I did not have a clue what Title IX was before then (DO: Okay). I was a freshman so I was really green right off the branch on that topic (DO: Sure was). And as you know, in 1972 was when the law actually came into action but I don’t remember speaking at Oberlin College and I don’t remember her being there seeing me speak years later. So…that’s about as far as I can give to you on that (DO: Okay).
***DO: You stated that Title IX has had a major impact on women in sport but later you argue that Title IX really did not make much progress for women of color and diversity within the realm of sport. Can you help me understand how Title IX differentially affected women?
AA: I really believe that Title IX made a difference in gender regarding women in sport but when you look back over the years, not a lot of growth in the participation of women of color increased in this area. Uh, specifically look at Chanel Lattimer’s study and how many women of color participated in women sports when her study was completed. And also, due to making Title IX in effect at schools some of the sports were eliminated where there was participation of women of color (DO: Hmm). I also witnessed this working at a HBCU school where women sports were few and not many available. In particular, look at HBCU schools that offer only volleyball, basketball, and maybe softball. What about tennis and golf? Renee Powell and myself tried to get golf started in the SIAC conference and it resulted in a flat no.
DO: What does SIAC stand for?
AA: That’s the conference that Morehouse, uh, it’s a historically HBCU conference. Off the top of my head, I think it is the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (DO: Okay). But if you Google it, it’ll spell out what SIAC means (DO: Okay). And there’s all the schools in there are HBCUs in that conference itself
***DO: Okay, I was going to ask if there were any specific examples that you could recall regarding these issues? So, you mentioned you and Ms. Renee Powell were attempting to get golf.
AA: Yes, we tried to implement golf… but it really resulted into a flat no. So, we could definitely you know, have evolved what I call a non-traditional sport into HBCU and for both men and women… the resources and the dollars. Where I worked at, um, at Lane College eventually they did add softball and that sport apparently, you know, based on the conference eventually Title IX made an impact to, you know, add more sports but you know, the opportunity for HBCU participants particularly with the African American female, I think it is important to take a look…it would be amazing research study to look go back in history and sort of review what the growths of the women sports in NCAA schools, if there were growths and if there was not growth (DO: Hmm) and HBCU schools regarding women in sport. (DO: Okay). Uh, basketball, volleyball tends to be the traditional sports that HBCUs offer and over the years, you know, they have tried to adjust with compliance of Title IX. But, I think the opportunity to really expand, uh, particularly in some nontraditional sport could still be rooms for improvement in that area.
***DO: Okay. Tell me more about your work with the Young Women’s Christian Association’s Office.
AA: My work at the YWCA of the USA made a major impact on the United States Olympic Committee (DO: Okay). When I came to the YWCA, the executive director Dr. Gwendolyn Baker, she said “Alpha, I need something that is like the Girl Scout Cookie for Girl Scouts” and I noticed that they talked about Girls, Inc. but, they did not talk about the YWCA being involved when the Los Angeles Olympic Games were here. When the LA Games finished, they had made so much money, they designated millions of dollars just to be kept for the development of sport in Southern California but, they also distributed monies to different organizations to really develop sports. And Girls, Inc. really didn’t do a lot to do that and actually they ended up losing their name, selling their name for $750,000 to the Boys Club.
AA: So, Boys Club really became the Boys and Girls Club (DO: Hmm). I think the YWCA, we applied for membership and became a member of the United States Olympic Committee. We made an impact of inclusion and the growth of women in sport in the United States. Specifically, if you look at the Peter Westbrook Foundation impact on fencing this past Olympic Games…that all started out of a grant from the USOC through the YWCA of the USA and also Wendy Hilliard Foundation Gymnastic Foundation, the same thing it started out with grants from the USOC through the YWCA of the USA (DO: Okay).
The organization made an impact on the governing body levels and representations on different committees for inclusion of women. And then also through a grant via Nike, we made a major impact on women's basketball and volleyball in the United States. We got about a $3 million grant from Nike with development of women’s basketball and volleyball uh, in this country and were very successful in organizing the players of the WNBA to do clinics and things of that sort.
DO: Umm Hmm
AA: It was interesting the YWCA of the USA made an application to USA Basketball and they had the audacity to send a letter back to the executive director, Dr. Gwendolyn Baker of the YWCA stating that we were the YMCA and they really felt that basketball didn’t need any development in the country because it really didn’t take a lot of money to play basketball. There is a net, a court, and there was plenty of accessibility across the country (DO: Umm Hmm). But at that time there was no specific program directed for the development of girls getting involved in basketball and as you see history has proven, it really has exploded, you know, over the years.
And uh, so my executive director got very mad…first of all, they called us the YMCA (DO: Umm Hmm), which we were the YWCA. And then second of all, we went to an outside corporation, outside of Nike, who was not a sponsor of the United Stated Olympic Committee at that time and Sue Levin was very instrumental in securing this long-term grant to really help development women’s volleyball and basketball in this country (DO: Okay). I hope that helps (laughs).
DO: Yes. It is also just interesting to me as well.
AA: I also wanted to say because of the YWCA of the USA mission, it really…we were instrumental in pushing the USOC to really have inclusion of women. The USOC, they had a rule, which I thought was very unique…that if a sport represented both men and women, they would have athletes, both female and male, that would represent in terms of the athletes, on the United States Olympic Committee. But it involved representation on other various governing bodies as well as in terms of the multi-sport group. There were very little women involved, I was one of the few (DO: Umm Hmm). And definitely one of the few women of color. So, we helped really push to get more women involved on the governing body level as well as different committees and leadership positions within the United States Olympic Committee (DO: Okay).
***DO: Well with that, do you feel that the YWCA has contributed to this “gap” for women of color regarding Title IX?
AA: Well, the gap in terms of women of color…yes, I do. In a sense, because you are talking about on such a very elite level, you know, being an Olympian it is sort of like the ultimate of a lot of athletes…to be able to be an Olympian athlete and if you look at the results of Rio…that just took place, look at the success of gymnastics and look at the success of fencing (DO: Umm Hmm). And I know, some of the roots of that, even, I am very much interested, I remember really pushing that support be given to women’s wrestling (DO: Hmm). Also, looking at women’s boxing (DO: Umm Hmm). I use to chair the United States Olympic Committee member service committee and gave out the money (grant monies) to the national governing bodies as well as to the different organizations involved in…Now, you look at the growth of women participating in boxing and wrestling and, you know, lots of sports across the board
DO: Umm Hmm
AA: I think ultimately it did help (DO: Okay).
Unpublished
2017-02-08
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"></a><br />This work by <span>Dyese Osaze</span> is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>.
Skype Video Recording
Moving Image
InterviewPARTI_2017
The College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio
Follow-Up Interview 2017_PARTII
African American women athletes; African American college athletes; Olympics; African American universities and colleges
This is Part I of the Follow-Up Interview with Dr. Alpha Alexander for my Senior Independent Study Thesis.
***=Interview Questions
Transcript Below:
***DO: When you mention that it was strange being the only African American in some of your classes at Temple University, were you not one of the only ones in your classes taken at Wooster?
AA: No, that is not a true statement that I was the only one in my classes at the College of Wooster. I think when I was at Wooster this past I think it was October (DO: Yes) you met one of my classmate, Patsy Ratleff Stone and we actually help led the freshman orientation class and some other classes there were people of color in my class. The influx of international students, there were some there but not a lot as it is today at the College of Wooster. But, I think the difference is the College of Wooster was undergraduate and Temple University was a graduate school (DO: Okay). Uh, I went to the graduate program there but what I thought was very interesting was that it was in a setting in a large urban city in North Philadelphia. And so, my assumption even when I went to look at the Temple University considering whether or not to attend grad school there…I actually thought it was a Black institution
(DO: Giggles, I remember). Being naïve (Laughs) I guess coming from Ohio. I had not a clue that it wasn’t. It is quite, um…the population of attendance of students at that time and even faculty were literally white (DO: Hmm). And so, I was quite surprised thinking that I was going to graduate school at a Black institution and that was my assumption of my quick visit when I went to look at graduate schools in that urban area and not really taking a close look because the first day of classes there were not, there was only two other people of African American descent that was in my graduate class. (DO: Hmm).
***DO: Do you think there were more African American students at Wooster during your years there in Wooster?
AA: Well let me say this if you can think back in the…we were 1972 (DO: Umm Hmm) of the incoming class. And if you think about the pushes in the late 60s (DO: Right). Wooster really did try to outreach to bring more African Americans to the College of Wooster. Now, my class I think it was an incoming class of that of about out of 1800, 1700 students totally on campus, and in our incoming class was about twenty African Americans. But they did very heavy recruiting in the New York area as well as in the Cleveland area (DO: Okay). So, um, out of the twenty of my freshman class coming in at 1972…um, you know there were some African Americans and then upper classes at the College of Wooster, you know, there had been, you know, African Americans attending the College of Wooster.
And a lot of the recruitment and the outreach, um, I learned about Wooster through the Presbyterian church where we attended (DO: Right). A lot of African Americans from Dayton, Ohio came out of my church and ended up going to the College of Wooster. So, I think it was the timing (DO: Okay).
AA: Was it a lot in comparison? Um, you know that’s questionable. There’s twenty African Americans coming into a freshman class a lot. Well on a bigger scale no, but you know we sort of thought, we were a very close community on campus (DO: Umm Hmm. Okay).
DO: That is something I would mention is that push in the early 60s is relating to this research now. As far as the era of Title IX and Black females…Black female athletes (AA: Right).
***DO: Do you feel that there was a colorblind atmosphere when participating in sport at Wooster?
AA: It clearly was not a colorblind atmosphere when I participated in sport at the College of Wooster because it was of the timing, you know it was early 70s, you know. Integration and late 60s rolling into the 70s. I participated from 1972-76 and if you remember what was going on in the context of the United States at that time, um, color and whether or not you were colored, Black, African American all of that stuff was being discussed, you know (DO: Umm Hmm). I had a poster on my door and I really thought I was Angela Davis (DO: Laughs).
You couldn’t tell me I wasn’t Angela Davis with my afro. (DO: Laughs) Okay. You know, War (DO: Yeah) (Laughs) you know the musics was loud, the big afros were in fashion and if you look back in my class. So, I think it was the timing that I was in school at the College of Wooster that it couldn’t be that it was colorblind…um, because race, racial, integration, or segregation and, um, you know the Race Riots were in the 60s. It was a lot still on people’s minds (DO: Hmm).
DO: That probably would have been a question for current or more recent athletes if it’s a colorblind atmosphere (AA: Absolutely, I think so).
AA: And there were very few in, you know, in terms of the men’s program there were African Americans that participated in you know, football in you know, other sports but women, you know it was about me and then Jackie and that was about it, you know.
DO: Jackie?
AA: Yeah, Jackie Lewis (DD: Oh, yes) remember I told you she was from Cleveland (DO: Yes).
***DO: Who was Ginny Hunt to you?
AA: Well, uh Ginny Hunt was my volleyball coach (DO: Okay) Okay, she was the volleyball coach at the College of Wooster. Uh, she also, you know, taught. You know, she was a professor there. But Ginny Hunt, really…who was she to me? Not only being the volleyball coach, because doing my four years there, she ended up leaving and she went to, if I am not mistaken, the University of North Carolina, um, but instrumental, she was very instrumental in me getting to get a graduate assistantship at Temple University (DO: Okay).
Ginny Hunt knew Carole Oglesby and she made a call on my behalf to Dr. Oglesby and told Dr. Oglesby about me. And as a, in result ended up getting a graduate assistantship at Temple University. So, she was a major impact even though she, you know, had left Wooster. I continued to stay in contact with her and, uh, as you know in my story, I did not play volleyball my freshman year at Wooster. I thought I had to really study (DO: Umm Hmm) and pay attention to my classes (DO: Right). So, consequently I missed out my freshman year playing volleyball. But then the second year, you know, I ended up playing on the team, making the team and playing. But she was very instrumental later on in my career going on to graduate school (DO: Okay).
***DO: Is there anything else regarding this project that you’d like to share?
AA: Well, I’d just like to thank you for including me in on your research project. And it has been a pleasure to work with you and I hope its…my input has been helpful (DO: Absolutely). And you know, for the future in light of the state of where this country is, you know, women in sport is still going to be going forward. There may be psychologically, or legislatively a lot of things done to the laws in this country that will impact for example, like Obamacare and things of that sort (DO: Hmm)
…the wellness and health of women. The YWCA of the USA, I wanted to go back to that question. You know, we were really known for elimination of racism by any means necessary (DO: Malcolm X!). And that was a powerful statement because a lot of people confused it with the YMCA, you know, which was a whole, totally different mission than the YWCA. But also, another large part of the YWCA of the USA was about wellness of women. They had a national breast cancer program called ENCORE, for anyone who even thought about breast cancer in terms of the impact that, you know, psychologically. They had a program that you could go through and as well as in combination with exercise when women were having radical mastectomies at that time (DO: Hmm).
AA: So, the YWCA of the USA played a very instrumental role, I think of wellness of women period, you know in the United States. So (DO: Umm Hmm).
DO: Everything that is going on just really encourages me, pushes me to keep striving for excellence. Especially, you know you talk about the medical care and things like that because that is my ultimate goal, like I shared with you before is to become an Ob/Gyn (AA: Right).
But women’s health overall, even in this project this is something I was, I am passionate about. And so, just it’s rewarding to do this kind of work, but I look forward to seeing what I can do in the future with this type of work.
AA: Right, well you got a bright future ahead of you.
Unpublished
2017-02-08
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"></a><br />This work by <span>Dyese Osaze</span> is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>.
Skype Video Recording
Moving Image
InterviewPARTII_2017
The College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio