Illustration by JARRETT QUON/Daily Bruin
Carolina Reyes
Daily Bruin Contributor
Back in the 1930s, some professors at UCLA did more than just
lecture and research.
Walter Mosauer, a professor in the zoology department, was the
first chairman and coach of the UCLA ski team.
One of the first amateur skiers in Southern California, Mosauer
began the movement that made the winter sport popular here.
Ardent fans once hoped that the day would come when ice hockey
would be classified among the major sports of the university in the
1931 Yearbook for the Southern Branch.
“Fast growing in interest at UCLA and all over Southern
California, ice hockey passes another successful season,”
stated that year’s yearbook.
During that time, riding and archery were popular sports offered
by the Women’s Athletic Association. Sororities would
participate in Gymkhana, an equestrian event that took place in
March in which members would race one another and perform novelty
stunts.
University Archives Heavyweight wrestling champion of the PCC,
UCLA’s Jack Ellena (right) competes against UC
Berkeley’s Ray Mastin in this archives photo.
Men’s boxing was also a popular sport at UCLA for many
years. Team members participated in the annual Men’s Do, an
athletic competition that banned women from attending the
event.
“The program features the best weight lifting, gymnastic
exhibitions, wrestling and boxing bouts that the school can
produce,” according to the 1939 yearbook.
But in the following decades, sports like basketball and
football began to eclipse all others, all thanks to J.D. Morgan,
director of UCLA’s athletics programs from 1963-1979.
Between 1966-1979 Morgan made UCLA’s athletics a
“money making organization” through ticket sales and
television, said Marc Dellins, director of Sports Information.
Eventually, Morgan led UCLA teams to 30 NCAA championships over
17 years.
Before Morgan, the athletic department generated most of its
funds from ticket sales, Dellins said. After Morgan, Robert Fischer
took over as director and began obtaining private donations to help
support the athletics department.
“Allocation from registration fees originally went to help
finance women’s sports because it was a separate department
but is now used to help finance olympic sports”, he said.
In the past, a distinction existed between varsity and minor
sports, but now all “varsity” athletic sports are
referred to as olympic sports.
In the early 1960s, the recreation program was established to
offer all students the option of doing sports in college. The
department was officially put together about the same time the
Sunset Canyon Recreation Center was being built, according to
Dennis Koehne, assistant manager of the John Wooden Center.
The recreation program offered students, faculty and staff the
opportunity to arrange club sports that were not offered through
the athletic department.
“If you could put together enough people to have a club
and demonstrate that there where people you could play against,
then you ended up becoming a club sport,” Koehne said.
Today, club sports still operate on three main principles:
student interest, individual funding and facility availability.
“The additions and subtractions are basically generated by
interest,” Koehne said. “It’s not something where
our department goes out and says, “˜We need these types of
sports.'”
Originally sports like women’s water polo and
women’s soccer started as club sports but then became olympic
sports, while men’s rugby, lacrosse and men’s crew
which were part of the athletic department became club sports.
Club sport members have to either pay their own way or they can
obtain corporate funding, Koehne said. The ice hockey team, for
example, obtains money from both corporate and donor
sponsorship.
Although women’s sports existed in the form of club teams
at UCLA, an official department and administration was not
established until 1974.
This athletic reform occurred due to the 1972 Title IX Education
Act, a federal civil rights statue that prohibits sex
discrimination in educational programs.
During that year, people had conflicting views about the impact
Title IX would have on the future of inter-collegiate sports at
UCLA.
In the Nov. 12 1974 issue of the Daily Bruin, Big Sky Athletics
Commissioner John Roning said Title IX “(would) be a serious
threat to inter-collegiate athletics through diversion of funds to
women’s programs.”
On the other hand, others like Katherine Ley, president of the
American Association of Health and Physical Education and
Recreation, said in the article that Title IX did more for women
than anything since women got the right to vote.
Since the 1974 enforcement of Title IX, several sports have been
added or cut from the program. Between 1993-1994 men’s
gymnastics and men’s swimming were cut from the program.
The two teams were dropped primarily because of a huge budget
crisis on campus, said Betsy Stephenson, associate athletics
director and UCLA senior women’s administrator.
Based on the athletic department’s income projections,
they would have accumulated a $9 million debt if they had kept the
programs running, she continued.
“The history associated with dropping and adding sports in
the athletics program here at UCLA has been primarily based on
fiscal responsibility and the university’s obligation to
comply with Title IX,” Stephenson said.
Recently, the athletic department announced that they would be
adding women’s crew to the program instead of women’s
lacrosse next year.
Suzanne Steiner, assistant coach of the UCLA women’s
lacrosse team said in a letter to the Daily Bruin that crew was
added instead of lacrosse on the sole basis of the number of
participants officially allowed in each sport.
“Whereas lacrosse can only carry 30 to 40 members, crew
can have as many as 100 participants, a number that would make any
athletic administration dealing with Title IX salivate,” she
said.
According to a recent press release issued by the athletic
department, by adding rowing as an intercollegiate sport for women
UCLA is currently addressing the athletic interests of its female
students and is increasing the rate of female enrollment.
“Although we have the same type of need to be fiscally
responsible we also should be in compliance with the federal
law,” Stephenson said.
In the Oct. 4, 1974 issue of the Daily Bruin, Morgan expressed
his desire for change within the department, achieving total
equanimity in athletics.
“I hope the day will come when UCLA will have both men and
women competing together on the same team,” he said.
“This will most easily happen in sports which are associated
together such as swimming, track and field, golf and tennis,”
he continued.
But Sharon McAlexander, program coordinator for the department
of intercollegiate athletics, did not see the women’s
department merging with the men’s in the distant future,
according to the article.
“This could only occur when women finally reach the same
level as men to enable them to compete on the same team, and this
will never happen,” McAlexander said.
But maybe Morgan’s dream is attainable. Though men and
women continue to participate on separate teams, the athletic
department continues to change.