Betts champion of women's cause

In the 1940s and '50s, Greenwood, Ind., wasn't exactly rural, definitely not urban. It stood in the shadow of Indianapolis, but ``you didn't have to go far outside the city limits," says Jane Betts, ``to be in the cornfields."

Situated at the crossroads, Greenwood was a microcosm of US women's athletics at the time.

There were none.

Oh, the gals could sell corn along the roadside. They could bake apple pies. And if they wanted exercise, there was always quilting.

Basketball? Lacrosse? Swimming? Track? Men's stuff. If women wanted to join a team, that's what the PTA was for.

Such was the enlightened place and era of Jane Betts's childhood. She could play hoops in her backyard with the neighbors -- preferably not hard enough to work up a sweat -- but when she went looking for games that included uniforms and scoreboards, she was dribbling to nowhere.

``No organized sports," says Betts. ``No opportunities for women to play."

That wasn't good enough for Betts. ``I liked to play sports," she says, ``and I liked to try things."

The determined child gave way to the crusading adult. By the time Betts finished trying things in sports, she'd played an integral role in the evolution of women's athletics -- not to full-fledged equal status with men, but certainly a lot better than nothing, with improvements still being vigorously pursued.

There are many monuments to Betts's work, and the most impressive adorns the Charles River, on the campus of MIT, where Betts served in various coaching and administrative capacities from 1976-93 and became the founding mother of the women's sports program. Her pioneer efforts will be recognized this weekend in Sacramento, where she will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award during the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators convention.

``I look at it as a nice career-ending experience," says Betts, 65. ``It kind of pulls it all together that it was worthwhile."

It was virtually worthless when Betts arrived at MIT three decades ago. ``Women's athletics" was basically an oxymoron. But an explosion of interest -- forced or otherwise -- in upgrading (or in many cases instituting) sports was occurring in the aftermath of Title IX.

``MIT had created a task force that filed a report saying in no uncertain terms, `MIT must do more to create opportunities for women,' " recalls Betts. ``They needed to take giant steps toward improving women's sports."

Betts filled the shoes of women's athletic director and, eventually, associate AD and senior associate AD. Her mandate: Give the women the opportunities she herself always had been seeking -- through high school and college at Franklin (Ind.) and Southern Mississippi and as the founder and coach of the women's gymnastics and tennis teams at Valparaiso.

Her arrival coincided with the hiring of three full-time women's coaches: basketball, softball, and Betts for gymnastics. That put MIT in the vanguard of the women's athletics movement. By default.

``From the perspective of providing anything other than [venues] for women, there was nothing," says Betts. ``The locker rooms were awful. For instance, the boathouse had a nice locker room for men and nothing for women. No place to change their clothes. And there was no trainer, no training room for women."

Betts went about refurbishing the facilities and expanding the scope of the program. A sport was added each year -- sailing and fencing, volleyball and lacrosse, swimming and cross-country -- until there were a dozen when she retired. MIT now features 17 women's sports and three coed groups among 41 teams.

All of them were grassroots projects.

``Students would come knocking at the door saying, `We want a team,' " recalls Betts. ``We encouraged them to start club teams, and if there was enough interest, we grew them into varsity teams. We wanted a program that would mirror the men's."

Betts's influence extended far beyond the campus. She was a guiding force in local, regional, and national organizations. She cofounded what is now the New England Women's-8 conference. She became president of the Massachusetts Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women and the Eastern AIAW, and vice president for Division 3 of the national AIAW. She took a two-year leave from MIT to serve as volunteer executive director of NACWAA, where she implemented NACWAA/HERS, a program for training women, especially coaches, to become administrators.

All the acronyms spelled out this: Betts was instrumental in the passage and enforcement of Title IX. She remembers one pilgrimage in particular.

``Through the MAIAW, we sold buttons at the Marathon to raise money to rent a Greyhound bus," she says. ``Then we took 50 students and coaches down to Washington for a march" supporting Title IX.

In retirement on Cape Cod, Betts is involved with another mode of transportation. She hops the Hyannis ferry two mornings a week and lands in Nantucket, where she works as a part-time island tour guide. ``It's great fun," she says.

So, belatedly, are sports for countless women who no longer have to miss the boat.