After a four-year stint with the All-American Girls Professional Baseball league and getting a master’s degree from Michigan State, Lois Youngen made the long trip to Eugene to join the University of Oregon staff in 1960. Youngen was hired as a women’s physical education instructor and coached 26 different sports at the U of O. She witnessed the introduction of Title IX, a law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, into Oregon athletics.
The Emerald sat down with Youngen to discuss her experiences during her 36 years at the U of O.
After living in East Lansing, what made you choose to come to Oregon?
Basically, I wanted to move out of the Midwest. I was in my 20s; I wanted a change. I was aware of the University of Oregon’s graduate program in physical education … So, I made up my mind that I was going to leave and had two job possibilities: one here at the University of Oregon, and one at the University of Albuquerque, New Mexico. I said, whichever one offers me the job first, I’d take it, and Dean Arthur Esslinger called me on the phone, offered me the job on a Friday at noon. I didn’t know a soul, other than the reputation of people that were here, so I packed up my car and [came] to Oregon.
Out of the 26 sports that you oversaw, which one was your favorite?
Probably tennis and badminton. I was good at racquet-sports, so you tend to enjoy teaching the things you’re good at. … Badminton was a place where the students who weren’t very good at anything could come and have some success, and I worked hard with those kids. I even got a note, I remember, once from a mother who said my badminton class was the only class that her daughter — in any kind of activity — looked forward to attending. Those are the kinds of things that make teachers feel good.
During your 36-year tenure at the University of Oregon, what are you most proud of?
Collectively, I was a good administrator — when it got to the point that if you hung around long enough, you got to be the boss — and people that worked for me thought that I was a good administrator. I would say what I’m most proud of in my 36 years at the university was that I don’t think I ever had one bad term of teaching. I love to teach. I think that my students knew that I loved to teach; I think that they performed and improved and enjoyed the class. I think that you can make learning fun. So, if you were to ask me my greatest accomplishment, it would probably be the fact that I enjoyed the teaching and I don’t think that I ever had one bad term of teaching.
You were on campus during the early years of Title IX. What were your experiences in seeing female sports progress at the University of Oregon?
In the end, the men won. Because, in the end, men fought Title IX all through the 1970s and are still fighting it. They were fighting it on the basis that the men should have more than the women. … Things were changing [in sports] and then in 1972, Title IX hit and everything changed.
The biggest change came in the program, not in sports. Men’s P.E. and women’s P.E. had to come together; everything became co-ed overnight. I became involved as an administrator, to help make the change from the women’s perspective. We had to put men’s dressing rooms over in Gerlinger and we had to put women’s dressing rooms in Esslinger, because co-ed classes were now being held on both sides of the street. … So, 1972 hit like a bombshell and the two departments were combined, and the women administrators for years had had their own little niche. Now, all the men became the department heads and the women got relegated to whatever. One more time, the men got there first, I guess.
It was a wild two years while we tried to comply with Title IX, as far as the activities concerned. There were women who weren’t prepared to teach co-ed and there were men who weren’t prepared. So, it wasn’t just the students being thrown together; it was the faculty that had to do the teaching.
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Q&A: Lois Youngen reflects on her 36 years as administrator, instructor and coach at UO