6 minute read
A Lifetime of Empowering Women
By: Lindsay McDowall Davis, Gamma Mu
For 75 years, Corky Carl, Alpha Alpha, has been empowering women and girls to achieve their dreams. Corky began her journey of empowering women by serving as bat girl and supporting her fellow teammates of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League team, the South Bend Blue Sox. After college, she would teach and coach young athletes, many of whom were girls, and eventually make history for becoming the first woman in the state of Minnesota to serve as an athletic director overseeing a co-ed program. And she didn’t stop there.
One of the most iconic and quotable lines in all of film comes from the 1992 classic A League of Their Own. Starring Tom Hanks and Geena Davis, A League of Their Own tells the incredible true story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). The league, formed in 1943, was made up of women from all over North America who wanted to do one thing: play baseball.
With the onset of World War II, many American men were deployed, leading major league baseball executives to become concerned that major league baseball would cease. To make sure baseball remained a favorite American pastime, the executives created the AAGPBL. While women had played the sport since the early nineteenth century, the AAGPBL marked the first (and to this day, only) professional baseball league for women. What made such a league even more unique was that the women played baseball, and not softball, which meant longer distances to throw in the infield, different pitching techniques, and a smaller ball. Active for 11 years, the AAGPBL ultimately folded due to the end of World War II and decentralization of the league. If not for the movie A League of Their Own, this small yet impactful chapter of American history would likely have been forgotten.
Coralyn “Corky” Bradfield Carl, Alpha Alpha, was one such girl. Beginning in 1944 at the age of 13 and continuing all the way through high school, Corky served as the bat girl for the South Bend Blue Sox, one of the four original teams of the league and one of only two teams to play all ten years of the league’s existence. “At the time, nobody knew it would turn into an iconic moment in history,” Corky recalls. “We were on the bandwagon for girls to play baseball, not softball, and that’s what we did.” As a bat girl for the South Bend Blue Sox, Corky occasionally got to catch batting practice and warm up the pitcher. Recalling her father as a driving factor, Corky always had an interest in athletics that started from childhood and continued into college and beyond.
A graduate of Ball State University, Corky recalls a time before Title IX legislation made it illegal for educational institutions to deny girls participation based on sex. When she attended Ball State, intercollegiate athletics didn’t yet exist as commonly as they do now. While the inequality rankled Corky and women like her, it didn’t feel as though they could change the system. Instead, they worked around it. “We had intramurals, and because I was in physical education, I got into different sports through classes. I do wonder what I would have played had we had Title IX back then, though.” In addition to intramurals, sororities often afforded these women a chance to gain leadership experience and independence. A sorority offered an opportunity to be a part of a larger team, which was not granted through the athletics program.
Corky's daughter was a junior in high school when the Title IX legislation was passed, and her senior year saw the first Minnesota state high school girls swim meet. Corky knew without a doubt that the girls were going to meet the challenge set before them. “Back then it was thought that girls couldn’t swim 500 yards or a mile – well guess what? They can!” she says emphatically. Much of Corky’s career as a physical education teacher has been focused on empowering both boys and girls to seek their greatest potential, and to demand equality while doing so. All the while, she herself blazed a trail for others to follow.
“I started coaching with what has become USA Swimming,” she recalls. “I coached first at the Minneapolis YW, and stayed there for a few years.” After having her third child, Corky was asked to coach that summer for a co-ed, all ages team. “I had never coached boys but said ‘heck, they’re swimmers!’ It was really enlightening and I really enjoyed it.” The experience helped to expand Corky’s coaching career, as well as prove that women could coach boys as well as they could coach girls, leading to more opportunities for female coaches within the community.
In 1980, she was named the Athletic Director at Blake School and was the first female athletic director for co-ed programs in the state of Minnesota. Being the first female in this position meant that Corky had the unique opportunity to set the precedent. “I set up the pay scale by being the first, and I made sure it was equal as well as agreed to by every coach.” Corky was eager to set another precedent: how girls sports would be played in comparison to boys sports. She used her new position to make sure that girls had the opportunity to play the same sports as the boys, with the same rules. Remembering her days at Ball State and the inequality she experienced there, it’s something she made sure girls under her tutelage didn’t experience.
Later, she moved to Ohio to become the athletic director at an all girls’ school that aligned with her vision of athletic equality. As freshmen and sophomores, each student had to compete in a sport in order to graduate. “It was really fun seeing girls go through the process of learning that they could compete hard against a friend, and then still go for a Coke afterwards. It was the process of them really learning to become athletes.” She fondly recalls a student that started the ninth grade unable to run a quarter of a block, but finished the 12th grade as the captain of the cross-country, skiing, and distance track teams. “We pushed her to do something in the first place, to join a sport and be a part of a team.”
In addition to molding young athletes, Corky herself is an accomplished athlete. Beginning the bulk of her own athletic career as an adult, Corky competed in US and World Masters cross country skiing for about thirty years. After retiring from teaching in schools, she’s gone on to manage a recreation center, serve as an assistant swim coach, participate in a book club, sing in the church choir, and teach water exercise classes. Not being active is not a possibility for Corky – she strives to try new things and have new experiences whenever she can.
“I’ve been in a hot air balloon off the coast of Maine, I’ve traveled extensively, and I even paraglided in the Alps in France. I had to talk myself into the paragliding,” she laughed. Next on her list is a river cruise to Berlin and Prague, and the next AAGPBL reunion in Syracuse, NY, taking place in October 2019 where she seeks to keep the AAGPBL story alive to inspire the next generations of girls to reach for their dreams.
To this day, Corky looks to level the playing field for women everywhere because, while she recognizes that great strides have been made towards equality, she says we’re not quite there yet. “You see professional male coaches getting paid millions, but the female coaches don’t always get paid equally.” Ultimately, the equality that Corky seeks to achieve cannot be reached unless women work together to push each other and raise each other up, and it’s a responsibility of every woman—women are one team. “I think women can have a great effect on the younger ones, and we need to push them to go for their dreams,” she says.
As a member of the organization P.E.O. she helps to raise money for scholarships, loans, and grants for women. “P.E.O. is a philanthropic, educational organization for and about women. I’ve been a member since 1979 and have served in several different offices. We’ve helped women to get loans to continue their educations and get the resources they need to succeed.” P.E.O. has afforded her many of the same opportunities sisters find in Alpha Sigma Tau, including encouraging women to push themselves to reach their dreams and finding camaraderie with like-minded women.
Regardless of where they come from, where they are going, or who they are, Corky has the same sage life advice for all. “Live each day to the max. Enjoy being who you are and don’t let anyone discourage you. Learn all you can from every direction and establish your own expertise.”
