{"id":2927,"date":"2022-09-30T16:45:45","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T21:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/asc\/?p=2927"},"modified":"2023-06-15T17:18:05","modified_gmt":"2023-06-15T22:18:05","slug":"women-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/asc\/2022\/09\/30\/women-athletes\/","title":{"rendered":"First Intercollegiate Women Athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Long before Title IX, two IWU students, sisters Grace and Rachel Green, were invited to Millikin to participate in a tennis tournament in 1917. It seemed almost certain that this was not a sanctioned event of the Little Nineteen Conference until an oral history<\/a> with Grace Green Shields was found to contain her 1976 recollections of that event. Sanctioned or not, it was definitely the earliest women’s intercollegiate athletic event.<\/p>\n

\"tennis<\/a>

Grace and Rachel Green are pictured in the 1919 Wesleyana with an image of the trophy they won as a doubles team and wearing sweaters that Grace mentions in her interview. She says IWU gave them a letter sweater along with the cup.<\/p><\/div>\n

Grace and Rachel Green are pictured above in the 1919 Wesleyana<\/a> with an image of the trophy they won as a doubles team. Rachel’s granddaughter donated the trophy and a uniform (pictured below) to IWU’s archives this month!<\/p>\n\n\t\t