The birth of women’s athletics at Coe College and beyond
Over 100 years ago, Mabel Lee, Class of 1908, enrolled at Coe College after seeing a photograph of the women’s basketball team. Little did she know she would become one of the most influential figures to advance women’s athletics and even serve as substitute for First Lady Lou Hoover in presiding over the women's sessions of the 1932 Olympics.
“'I made up my mind I wouldn’t marry. I wanted a career, but I didn't know what career. I was groping for something I didn't know existed,” she stated in an article of the Lincoln Nebraska Sunday Journal and Star.
After graduating with a degree in psychology, Lee became Coe’s second physical director in the history of the college in 1910.
“May the play spirit be kept alive in our college women … that every girl who enters Coe College will learn some recreational activities which she may carry through to adult life,” she said.
With her leadership, Coe’s physical training program grew to be one of the best in the nation. She also created a dance and movement curriculum that led to the Colonial Ball and May Fete as two of Coe’s most honored traditions for many years.
After eight years of teaching at Coe, Lee taught at State Agricultural College of Oregon, Beloit College and University of Nebraska. She published four books and co-authored three memoirs.
Lee’s lifelong passion to support the development and organization of women's athletics led to her role as the first woman elected president of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education and Recreation and the American Academy of Physical Education. While she spoke on behalf of young girls and women of all ages, she put greater emphasis on athletics for college women.
“We propose to have athletics for American women, but we propose to have them controlled by women, coached by women, chaperoned by women, officiated by women, trained by women, protected by women physicians, and we say to those men of America who are not concerned with ideals, men who would like to commercialize this growing force, who seek notoriety through women’s athletics, we say ‘Hands off!’ and we mean just what we say,” she said.
Lee received honorary doctorates from Coe, George Williams and Beloit colleges and was inducted into Coe's athletic hall of fame in 1977. There are now 14 women’s athletic teams at Coe. Her passion continues to inspire the Coe community. She died on December 2, 1985, at the age of 99. Lee’s spirit continues to live in the legacy she left behind.