The late Ellie Lemaire (pictured) paved the way for women’s athletics at URI. PHOTO CREDIT: gorhody.com
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Title IX, legislation that established a set of amendments to grant equal opportunities to both men and women to prohibit sex-based discrimination.
Since 1972, the women’s athletic programs at the University of Rhode Island have become one of the benchmark examples in how successful and impactful they can be.
URI was quick to make progress in attempting to provide opportunities for women within athletic programs soon after the legislation was established.
While most schools protested the law, the Director of Athletics at the time, Maurice Zarchen, moved swiftly to invite championship women athletes to join men’s teams and hired the first ever Director of Women’s Athletics at URI, Ellie Lemaire, in 1976.
Lemaire was the catalyst for what women’s athletics would become at this institution. She served on many boards and committees to make sure women’s voices within athletics were being heard within the community.
One of her biggest challenges was making sure equal amenities were being granted to women athletes when Zarchen was reluctant to provide funding. According to Lemaire herself in a 2016 interview with the URI Alumni Magazine, she discussed how she would go about copious amounts of expenditures to raise money for equipment. These included “…bake sales, parents providing funding, and contributing from my own pockets….”
Lemaire also fought to provide equal field and locker room use for women’s teams during a time when they were not granted access. Current Director of Athletics Thorr Bjorn praised the work of Lemaire and said her contributions are still being felt at the University today.
“Lemaire is the true first pioneer of women’s athletics at URI,” Bjorn said. “I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know her personally, and she is truly an inspiration and an incredible person.”
Although Lemaire made significant progress in fighting for equality between men’s and women’s athletics, there was still a lot of work left to do.
Former Associate Director of Athletics Lauren Anderson knew a drastic change needed to be made to the coaching positions for women’s athletics when she took over in 1992. At the time, coaches for those teams were only part-time compared to the men. She presented to the state why they needed full-time equivalents for these head coaching positions, and a year later, the state approved the women’s team coaches to permanently be full-time.
Since then, enormous strides have been made to make sure these coaches and student-athletes have security in knowing they have the support and resources they need to succeed.
Over the past year, the women’s basketball team has been making a significant impact in terms of success and progress. They finished 22-7 overall and had a program-record 13-game winning streak. The team also experienced their highest attended game on Feb. 16 when 2,415 fans sat in the Ryan Center to watch the team play Dayton. As a result, Head Coach Tammi Reiss received a record 10-year contract worth $4.4 million.
Currently, the head coaches of all nine women’s varsity sports at the University are all women. Associate Athletic Director and Senior Women’s Administrator Gina Sperry is thrilled at such an achievement.
“All of our women’s athletics are all coached by women, which you don’t find in a lot of places, so that’s pretty amazing,” Sperry said. “It is still difficult to this day for women, in any sport, to get a head coaching job. It is a big bonus here for all of our coaches on the women’s side to have that leadership opportunity to help develop these athletes as young women during their tenure.”
The future of URI Women’s Athletics will continue to open doors with the addition of another varsity sport. The school announced last December that women’s lacrosse will begin competition in the Atlantic 10 during the 2024-25 season.
“We are fulfilling our moral responsibility to provide opportunities for these athletes,” Bjorn said. “It’s special we were able to announce this last fall, especially for the 50th anniversary of Title IX, which is about providing these types of amazing opportunities.”