Reprint Courtesy of Geezer Jock Magazine
The 1972 federal law that opened organized sports to girls came too late for these women, but they found ways to become world-class Masters athletes.
Sister Madonna Buder, a 74-year-old nun and an accomplished triathlete, can't remember how many Ironman events she's completed. It's either 29 or 31. "I lose track," she says.
Buder, who lives in Spokane, Wash., does proudly recall her three age-group records set in the Canadian Ironman-ages 60-64 (13 hours, 16 minutes and 37 seconds); 65-69 (13:28:54) and 70-plus (15:35:41). While those records are remarkable, what may be even more amazing is that Buder, like so many women who came of age before Title IX, is competing at all. She didn't discover the full joy of competition until late in life. She first started running at 49. As a member of Sisters of the Good Shepherd (in 1991, she transferred to Sisters for Christian Community), she attended a conference on the Oregon coast for her order and overheard a Catholic priest touting running as a panacea for depression, diabetes and other illnesses. Then she heard the priest say, "Running harmonizes the mind, body and soul."
That night, she decided to see for herself and went running along the beach. "I discovered that I could run," she says, "and what the priest said was true." She found her mind more focused. She says she could even pray better. And she enjoyed the joie de vivre. "I felt complete," she says.
Sister Madonna BuderBefore Title IX, the 1972 federal law that opened the door to women's sports in public schools, if women like Sister Madonna found their competitive talent, it was usually an accident. Prior to Title IX, the primary athletic opportunities for female athletes were cheerleading programs. Athletic scholarships for women were unheard of.
Without equal access to school sports programs, young girls who wanted to compete either did without - or fell into sports such as water skiing or equestrian competitions. Indeed, many of today's top female Masters athletes have spent their lives somehow finding sports and competition on the margins.
"If I was exposed to sports when I was in school, I wouldn't be in the Senior Olympics. I would've been in the real Olympics," declares Flo Meiler, a 70-year-old world record holder in the women's 70-74 110-meter hurdles.
"Before Title IX, there was the completely unfair stereotype of women not being able to play sports," says Neena Chaudhry, senior counsel at the National Women's Law Center in Washington, D.C. "And if they played sports, the conventional wisdom was that they were damaging their reproductive organs."
But Title IX changed that. In 1971, fewer than 295,000 girls participated in high school varsity athletics, accounting for just 7 percent of all varsity athletes; in 2001, that number leaped to 2.8 million, or 41.5 percent of all varsity athletes, according to the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education. Prior to Title IX, 30,000 females competed in intercollegiate athletics. By 2001, that number jumped to more than 150,000, accounting for 43 percent of all college athletes. While there are still inequities - of every new dollar going into athletics at Division I and II levels, male sports receive 58 cents; female sports, 42 cents - no one denies that great progress
has been made.
Echoing that progress is the tremendous leap in athletics by older females. Buder, Meiler, Linda Kennett and Jacki Hirsty are prime examples of Masters athletes who love the second childhood they've found in sport. Now that they've found competitive sports, they can't imagine ever stopping.
"Every year there are new and inspirational stories of women breaking barriers at an older age that we used to think were impossible at any age," says Craig Masback, CEO of USA Track & Field. "Clearly, there has been a revolution in fitness and high performance activities among 'older' athletes, male and female." When she was younger, Buder says she saw no formal competitions for running, biking or swimming for girls. She did, however, find activity and a modicum of competition where it was available: She rode horses and competed in equestrian shows. On the weekends, she rode with her three younger brothers on foxhunts in the woods around St. Louis. "In my day, they didn't have track for girls," she says. But in the years since she discovered running, Buder has been making up for lost time. In 1982, a year after she started jogging, she ran a marathon, qualifying for the Boston Marathon with 48 seconds to spare.
That same year, she read in the newspaper about a half Ironman. "I knew I could run," she said, "I swam as a girl, and I used to ride my mother's balloon tire bike." She bought a 10-speed bicycle and at age 51 did her first triathlon. "I loved it," she said. Since then, she hasn't stopped; in one season, she completed 15 triathlons.
Off season, she runs to church in the morning (about four miles round-trip), swims competitively, and bikes when she can (usually a 40-mile loop). If there's snow, she enters cross country ski or snowshoe competitions. "I find consistency is important to my training and also setting goals," she says. One goal is to put together a women-only triathlon. She's got the name, "Maidens of Mettle," and is currently working out the course. Another goal is completing the Hawaii Ironman again. On her most recent tries, she's missed the midnight deadline because of stomach troubles or being blown from her bike and breaking her clavicle, or trying to do it with two broken toes. Her best time is 13:19:01, set when she was 62 years old. "I'd like to beat that 13 hours," she says.
Flo MeilerFlo Meiler, who lives in Shelburne, Vt., also has big plans. In addition to setting the age-group world record in the 300-meter hurdles (1:07.16), Meiler ran an 80-meter hurdle time at the USA Masters Outdoor Track & Field Championships held in Decatur, Ill., that was good enough for a record, but the wind was too strong for it to be official. She also competed in the 100 meters, the high jump, pole vault, long jump, triple jump, shot put and discus. Remarkably, in the outdoor pentathlon, Meiler was the oldest woman in the event, but she scored the most points of any woman (3,996), outperforming women more than 30 years her junior. She says she'd probably do more events, but typically one is scheduled at the same time as
another. She's qualified for the National Senior Games(known as the Senior Olympics), which will be held in June in Pittsburgh.
"They don't have hurdles, so I'll do the other events," she says. Meiler grew up near Lake Champlain in New York on a dairy farm, where she helped her father milk cows and clean the gutters and any other farm job. "I was a tomboy," she says. She attended a private secondary school, which had a girls basketball team. Unlike the boys, however, the girls played a modified, half-court version of the game. "I played
guard, and guards weren't allowed to shoot," she says
with a laugh. One day, she wandered over to a ski club on Lake Champlain and discovered she could water ski - very well. She became a competitive water skier and competed for the next 30 years, winning the Vermont state title several times. At age 40, she decided to take up tennis and immediately began competing. "I've always loved sports and enjoy a challenge," she says.
Several years back, she entered the National Senior Games as a singles tennis player in Baton Rouge, La. "I had a singles match at noon," she says. "It was 95 degrees out, 90 (percent) humidity and the match lasted two and a half hours. I almost passed out. I vowed never to play singles again."
And that is how she found track and field. After her match, someone suggested she think about running. She'd never run before, but that didn't stop her. She qualified, went to the next National Senior Games without a coach, did the long jump and placed fourth. "One lady asked me afterwards whether I counted my steps, and I told her that I didn't know to do that," she says. She also competed in high jump and tied for third place.
She now has a coach and trains with Barbara Jordan, 69, who is a champion in the 65-69 division. "If I didn't have someone to train with, I don't think I'd put as much effort into it," she says. Her coach has told her she'd do even better if she concentrated on three or four events rather than nine. "But I don't want to do that," she says, "I love them all." Linda Kennet
For Linda Kennett, there is only one love: rowing. She won the Head of the Charles, a three-mile course in the women's Grand Masters singles division, for four consecutive years, 1998-2001; in 2002, Judy Geer, an Olympic athlete who won a medal in sculling, moved into the 50-plus age group. Since then, Kennett has been relegated to second place.
But that's not so bad considering that Kennett didn't take up the sport until she was 41. She's now 57.
Kennett, who is a trained architect living in Ithaca, N.Y., has always been active. She played field hockey in high school through a loosely organized after-school program. Her son rowed for Cornell and introduced her to the sport. "It looked so pretty," she says. "Eight people in a boat, everyone synchronized." When she first started rowing, she rowed eight- and four-people boats. Within a year, she was competing. Then she tried single rowing. "I was amazed that I had such strength," she says. Other top-notch rowers tell her she could have competed in the Olympics if she had found the sport as a girl. "There's just this little pang," the grandmother of three says. "What would it have been like to go the Olympics? I don't know if I would have had the dedication, but my life might have been different."
These days, she trains as if she's making up for lost time. Off-season, she lifts weights three times a week and swims. She also runs and walks, but none of these activities do it for her the way rowing does. She'll put her boat in at Lake Cayuga in Ithaca sometime in April and won't stop rowing until Thanksgiving. "There's something about moving that big skinny boat by myself," she says. "It's very empowering. And then there's being with other women who like to do this. We end up talking about the best oar length and what equipment we're using."
Jacki Hirsty understands that kind of passion. "Swimming is like breathing to me," she says. "I can't imagine living without it." Hirsty, who is 52 years old, set the world age-group record for the 50-meter freestyle two years ago, 28.54 seconds. This year, she swam it in 28.58. In fact, she's held the world record in the 50-meter freestyle in every age group she's competed in. "I float well," she says.
Jackie HirstyHirsty, who lives in Providence, R.I., swam competitively as a girl, and her parents were always sitting in the bleachers, cheering for her. But she stopped when she went to college because there was no competitive swimming for women. She was 28, working as an architect in Washington, D.C., when she happened to walk by a brand new YMCA and saw the pool. She signed up for the Masters program and began setting national records in every event, except the mile. Swimming has given her so much. She met her husband at a meet in Palo Alto, Calif., and at age 40, gave birth to their son. That took her out of the water for five years.
At 45, she found the water and competitive swimming again. Hirsty swims three times a week and is a member of The New England Masters Swim Club. "It's not just the competition, it's the social network," she says. "We travel up and down the East Coast for swim meets. I know people everywhere." She lifts weights twice a week and does Pilates. She plans on competing in the national Masters this year and in 2006 at the world Masters aquatic chapmionships. And most likely her 75-year-old mother will be watching. "She loves to
come to the meets," says Hirsty. "She thinks what I do is tremendous."
Kim HamrockKim Hamrock is pretty much your garden-variety 44-year-old housewife. She's got three mostly grown kids and a silver anniversary in her rear-view mirror. Oh yeah. We forgot one thing: Hamrock is also one of the world's top surfers. Male, female, young, old. It doesn't matter. Hamrock can kick some serious surfer butt.
"Kim is one of the best, and I've known Kim a long, long time," says Sheri Crummer, 54, a former national champion surfer who now judges top surfing contests. "She goes for it. Kim is totally a free spirit, and she's actually toned down her style a bit, which is good in my mind."
Good, because Hamrock was, and still is, a crazy, wild surfer. Her nickname: Dangerwoman.
How good is she? In 2002 she won the Women's World Longboard Championship. After skipping the championships in 2003, she came in third last year. She's got a total of 11 surfing titles on her résumé. "I'm naturally competitive. That's just the way it is," says Hamrock. "My 22-year-old son is a really good skateboarder, but he says he does that because he says he couldn't be as good at surfing as his mom."
There's another thing we forgot: Hamrock didn't start competing until she was 30 - after she had children.
She was able to steal moments at the beach while her husband, Marty, watched the kids. Now, with her youngest in high school, Hamrock is in surfer heaven. "I finally get to surf like a kid," she says. This month she's in Hawaii competing in a big wave contest. In doing so, she'll be joining a club that is now essentially all-male.
Hamrock is not big: She's a 5-foot-1, ripped 120-pounder. Her strength and light weight is an advantage on the water. She is an exceptionally speedy paddler, which allows her to catch waves that other surfers miss.
"I can never get enough. I talk to people and they say, 'I get tired just watching you,'" she says.
The sporting life has always been in Hamrock's blood. In her school years, however, her gender sometimes kept her on the sidelines. "I was in the fourth-grade and I used to go out during recess and play soccer with the boys. I was the only girl playing. And then one day a teacher came out and
said I couldn't play with them, that I had to do something else that wasn't so hard."
Hamrock ran track and played basketball and gymnastics. Eventually she began to surf, which at the time was almost exclusively an all-male activity. "When I was growing up it was very hard core. I would see maybe one other woman a year out surfing," Hamrock says.
Today, Hamrock often surfs with her 16-year-old daughter, Margeaux. Hamrock has her own surfing school (find it at Dangerwoman.com) and many of her clients are women.
Hamrock says she sees no end in sight to her competitive surfing. If she has a problem, it's that competitive surfing, like figure skating, is fraught with politics during judging. Hamrock admits that her contrarian nature puts her at a disadvantage among some judges who want female surfing stars to be more marketable.
"I have a mouth," Hamrock says. "I don't kiss ass, I kick ass. I don't put out. I'm not a guy. They can't categorize me. I'm a happily married woman with three beautiful children." Hamrock shrugs. If she cares, she doesn't let it bother her too much. Hamrock says surfing judges will see plenty of her in the future, biases or not. "I've not hit my prime yet," she says.
Nina Schuyler lives in California and is the author of the novel "The Painting," published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Still crazy, and champ, after all these years.