31AUG14_Departments_Draft_06:HST_Departments_Winter_2013
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Draft 6 (31AUG14)
AT THIS POINT IN TIME
Holderness Athletics: Girls Should Be a Part of That Too
This photo first appeared in the 1976 yearbook, the second year the girls had their own soccer team. In the back row are Mr. Beams, Dana Rowe ’77, Kim Speckman ’76, and Mr. Snyder; in the middle row are Anne Barach ’77, Elisabeth Burghardt ’77, Clare Eckert ’79, Viveca Anderson ’77, and Tracy Bowen ’78; in the front row are, Christina Anderson ’78, Carrie Hanaway ’77, Jane Sargent ’76, Cheri Proulx ’77, and Chris Hanaway ’76.
by liesl magnus ’ If you walk around the Holderness campus today, it seems impossible that it used to be an all-boys school. Everywhere you go there is evidence that girls are invaluable—from the leadership of Hedi Droste and Eliana Mallory this year to the win of the nepsac championship game by the varsity field hockey team last fall. Since and the admission of girls to Holderness, the ratio of girls to boys has grown steadily until today, when the freshman class ratio of girls to boys is one to one. However, the introduction of girls to Holderness was not an easy process. Although at the beginning of Pete Woodward’s tenure the induction of boarding girls became a sure thing, how to integrate them was a point of contest. Some preferred to keep the
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girls out entirely while others wanted to adopt a more reasonable approach, which was to look at what other schools were doing and try to do it better. It was the second approach that they adopted when deciding both to admit girls and to create the girls’ athletic program. Before , the few day girls who attended Holderness either managed the boys’ teams or played with them on the soccer, hockey, lacrosse, and tennis teams. For a brief time, cheerleading, modern dance, and gymnastics were also offered. However, until Holderness began admitting more girls into the community, there was very little perceived need to provide a fully-fledged athletic program. It was a small matter to allow girls to participate in activities such as skiing, where girls and boys did not require separate training, but for sports like soccer, a separate
team had to be created. The same was true for field hockey, a sport that had no counterpart on the male side. It was not until that the girls had a team to call their own: soccer. In the same year, the alpine and Nordic teams became officially coed as well. Establishing a girls’ athletic program also meant adding the proper facilities. In a faculty discussion concerning the addition of new facilities to Bartsch, it was stated that if the school was going to be able to support the girls who would be attending in the fall of , “the need for a gymnasium and the accompanying girls’ locker facilities is clear and pressing.” The addition to Bartsch (which consisted of a girls’ locker room, showering facilities, and a new gymnasium) was completed in . It is impressive to see how well the first girls’ teams performed, even before they were equally supported by school facilities. Only five years after the first girls’ soccer team was created, they blew through the season with eleven wins and only two losses. That was also the first year coach Fred Beams had enough players for a full scrimmage. Also in , the school introduced field hockey, a brand new sport to the Holderness fields. The team consisted of girls, who were coached by Alice Henry, and although they did not win a game their entire first season, the team “improved steadily,” showing the grit and determination against all odds that Holderness values so much in its athletes. By there were ten sports that either had a girls’ team and a boys’ team, or a coed team. Today, out of Holderness’ teams, are girls’ teams, are boys’ teams, and are coed. And all of the athletes, every single one of them, still display the grit and determination that was noted in the first athletic contests of the first female students.
HOLDERNESS SCHOOL TODAY | SUMMER 2014
Holderness School Summer 2014 Holderness School Today magazine. Finished size is 11.0 inches tall by 9.0 inches wide.