American women ruled at the Tokyo Olympics that ended Sunday, which made me think that somewhere in the Great Beyond, Ellie Lemaire, Helen Bert, Alice Sullivan, and Arlene Gorton raised a glass. For they were champions of athletics for girls and women in Rhode Island long before most of the current Olympic stars were born.
More about them in a moment. First, let’s toast the women of the United States Olympic Team. Forget red, white and blue. They wrapped themselves in gold, silver and bronze, accounting for 66 of the 113 medals U.S. athletes are bringing home from Japan. That, folks, is an Olympic record.
American women earned more medals than every nation on the podium except China (88) and the Russian Olympic Committee (71). Russia is banned from international competition as a result of state-sanctioned doping prior to the Winter Olympics in Sochi, but the International Olympic Committee allowed Russian athletes to compete under their Olympic Committee. Some sanction, but that’s another story for another time.
Gold was their favored color. American women won 23 gold medals and pushed the U.S. gold total to 39, the most at the Tokyo games and one more than China. They mined more gold themselves than the women’s and men’s gold total of every nation except China. And gold, as we should know by now, is the standard by which sports historians measure Olympic success and greatness.
U.S. female athletes excelled in the pool and on the pitch, on the track and on the court, on the water and on the mat. They dug out gold on the sand.
Such success in the Olympics is nothing new for American women. As USA TODAY columnist Christine Brennan wrote on Aug, 7, this was the fourth consecutive Summer Olympics the American women earned more medals than the American men. She also noted that this was the third consecutive Summer Games that women outnumbered men on the U.S. Olympic Team.
Explaining the impact of American women on the Olympics is easy. Title IX. So, thank you, President Richard M. Nixon. He signed the Education Amendments of 1972 on June 23, two years before he resigned in disgrace rather than face impeachment and likely removal from office for his role in the Watergate coverup.
Title IX prohibits gender-based discrimination at institutions receiving federal aid, which covers just about every college, university and school district in the U.S. Administrators, mostly men, were slow to implement Title IX, until 1992, when gymnasts and volleyball players sued Brown University for discrimination, a paradox given that Brown had been a leader in sponsoring women’s sports. When federal courts ruled in favor of the athletes, a seismic shift in the landscape occurred. Overnight, it seemed, administrators found or raised money for additional coaching, better equipment, improved facilities and new programs for girls and women.
Ellie Lemaire, Helen Bert, Arlene Gorton, and Alice Sullivan were early and staunch supporters of athletics for women and girls. Lemaire grew up in Bristol, graduated from Boston University’s highly-regarded Sargent College, taught for 12 years and served as director of women’s athletics at the University of Bridgeport for 13 years. In 1976 she joined the University of Rhode Island as senior associate director of athletics and the school’s first senior woman administrator. She was largely responsible for the rise of women’s athletics at URI and was a prominent voice regionally and nationally on opportunity for women. She died on Aug. 5 at 92.
“Ellie was a pioneer and true advocate for women in sports, and her impact is still felt today. She was a valued friend who will be missed but never forgotten,” said URI director of athletics Thorr Bjorn.
Helen Bert was the first woman to work in the athletics department at Providence College. Hired by athletics director Dave Gavitt in 1971, she went on to teach, coach and launch programs and teams that eventually produced Olympic gold medalists and NCAA champions. She was an advocate for women in the early days of PC as a co-ed institution and remained so until she retired as Associate Director of Athletics in 1988. The first women elected to the PC Athletics Hall of Fame, she died in 2002 at the age of 80.
Arlene Gorton grew up in Pawtucket, graduated from Pembroke College before its merger with Brown, taught at Connecticut College, returned to Pembroke as director of physical education and after its merger with Brown in 1971 spent 37 years as associate director of athletics. She championed women’s sports and often was the conscience of the athletics department. She died in 2020 at 88.
Alice Sullivan was the face of girls high-school sports for 40 years. She pushed tirelessly for the addition of girls teams throughout the state and inclusion in the Rhode Island Interscholastic League. She retired in 1996 and died in 2003 at the age of 78. A fund established in her name perpetuates her “life, character and enthusiasm for girls athletics.”
Enthusiasm for girls (and women’s) athletics. The results were on full display the last two weeks at the Tokyo Olympics.
