Women of FAU

At FAU, women’s athletic teams and clubs have been present on campus since the 1970’s alongside men’s athletics (FAU Sports n.d.) and have been as successful as, and in some cases, more successful than various men’s athletic teams. Female athletes in the past and present are just as accomplished and do amazing feats just like male athletes, but there is less attention and compensation for female athletes in the media and more obstacles to overcome in their careers. Women’s teams as well as individual members have been successful both during and after their tenure at FAU. I will be discussing two specific programs throughout FAU’s entire history, Softball and Women’s Basketball, as well as a few individuals who either coached for FAU or played for FAU and achieved success before, during, or after their time at FAU.

The most successful athletic program overall at FAU is the softball team, which Joan Joyce built from the ground up in 1994. In an article on FAU Sports website, Joyce was a Senior Women’s Administrator in the FAU Athletics Department from 1996 to 2002. Joyce herself was an amazing athlete; she played softball, golf, and basketball and won many championships, medals, awards, and held records in each sport both as an athlete and coach. She famously struck out Ted Williams and Hank Aaron in exhibition games in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Until her passing in 2022, Joyce was the one and only head coach for the FAU softball team. In 1999, the softball team was the first team from FAU to take part in the NCAA tournament. The softball team has a total of twelve conference championships, eleven of which are consecutive, thirteen NCAA appearances, and thirteen regular season championships as of today (FAU Sports 2022). In another article on FAU Sports website, on March 18, 2022, Joyce achieved her 1000th win as a coach. The only other FAU team to have more NCAA tournament appearances is the Women’s Cross Country team under Head Coach Alex Smolka, which holds the record at 21 (FAU Sports). The achievements of the women’s cross country and softball teams compared to other men’s athletic teams are more meaningful due to the gender gap that is present in our society, especially in sports. While every team regardless of gender has carried out career highs, there are more obstacles for female athletes than male. In a 2015 University Press article, Simplice highlights the wage gap disparity between men and women by focusing on various head coach salaries at FAU, despite contracts stating identical duties as well as female head coaches having the same amount or more time and achievements in their career as head coaches. The article also highlights different issues women face within society and careers, such as the glass ceiling, wage gaps, and labor outside of the workforce such as motherhood and household chores (Simplice 2015). This article, along with the other articles and data points in this analysis, shows the major differences between men and women’s athletics at FAU. Female athletes and female head coaches receive less compensation while also having to navigate different hardships. While it’s commendable that women athletes and teams are able to win, break and hold records in their sport, participate in post-season championships, and even go on to play professionally once graduating from FAU, without equal pay and equal media coverage, these victories ring hollow and perpetuate an overall disinterest in women’s athletics.  

        The Women’s Basketball teams’ inaugural season was in 1984-1985. The team’s first ever game was a loss (Atlantic Sun 1984), but overall, the program has been successful at winning regular seasons and making appearances and winning in post-regular season championships throughout the years (FAU Sports n.d.). An article in Florida Atlantic University Free Press from March 1994 describes that the lady owls were winning more games than the men’s team with smaller crowds in attendance (Antonin Atlantic Sun 1994). While the article is from 1994, this trend of lower crowd size toward the women’s basketball team has held true both before and after 1994. While the Men’s team are more well known for being in the 2023 NCAA Division 1 championship, also known as March Madness, making it to the Final Four (Paul 2023), the lady owls have made more NCAA championship appearances than the men’s team in Division 2 and Division 1 (FAU Sports 2025). The women’s team first appearance in the NCAA Division 2 tournament came in 1989, and their first Division 1 appearance came in 2006 (FAU Sports 2025) which marked the first NCAA tournament appearance for any FAU basketball team. The NCAA Tournament is a major event in college basketball with games reported on and televised nationally regardless of which Division a team is in, which can elevate a college team as well as individual players’ notoriety and post college career success. Media attention such as news articles about the basketball team’s securing a spot in the NCAA post-season tournament should be equal, and yet at the time of writing this analysis there is only one brief article on the women’s basketball teams 2006 entry into the NCAA tournament which is predominantly a recap of the teams’ last game (FAU Sports 2006) with small quotes and no pictures. In contrast, the men’s team NCAA tournament news articles are full of game recaps, quotes, and pictures (FAU Sports 2023). While this difference between the articles could be attributed to passage of time and different journalists and their preferred writing style, it also highlights a difference in media attention and how women’s teams are not as valued as men’s when it comes to celebrating and highlighting achievements.

There is one notable former FAU athlete that has gone on to do amazing things in athletics despite facing challenges such as motherhood and career setbacks. From the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame website, Yolanda Griffith, who played on the basketball team at FAU for a single season in 1992-1993 and was named the 1993 NCAA Division II Player of the Year. She was originally meant to play at the University of Iowa before she found out she was pregnant with her daughter, instead she switched tracks and earned her associate’s degree at Palm Beach State College and then transferred to FAU to earn her bachelor’s degree. Griffith still holds the FAU record of most points scored in a single season, an astounding 621 points, of which forty-six are from a single game (Gennaro 2021). She went on to play basketball professionally in Germany. After three seasons in Germany, Griffith joined the ABL when it launched simultaneously with the WNBA, earning the 1998 Defensive Player of the Year award. When the ABL folded, she joined the WNBA in 1999, she was drafted in the first round, second overall pick to the Monarchs (Basketball Hall of Fame). Griffith has been inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame, WNBA Hall of Fame, and the FAU Hall of Fame (Gennaro 2021). Griffith also represented USA twice at the Olympics, earning the gold medal in women’s basketball during both appearances. Griffith is not unique for facing personal hardships and having her athletic career switch tracks, many female athletes face career setbacks for a variety of reasons. Pregnancy is not an uncommon reason for athletes having to pause or must make a change in their athletic career. As discussed in the Simplice 2015 article, women suffer more lost time in their careers due to life events such as pregnancy, and it can be difficult to re-enter the workforce due to that loss of time. That can lead to less compensation, but one should note that women athletes and coaches are paid less regardless than their male counterparts as shown in the infographic in Simplice’s article.

While examining multiple primary and secondary sources, it becomes clear that women athlete’s as well as women athletic teams are undervalued in terms of media coverage and compensation both in our society as well as here at FAU. News articles from the 1980’s to today, timelines and infographics on FAU’s sports website that document various athletic programs, and encyclopedia or media entries paint a picture of women athlete’s and teams who have a winning record and sometimes outperform their male counterparts but are not treated equally. To celebrate achievements at FAU, equal focus must be given to all athletic teams. When it comes to scholarships for student athletes at FAU, media and press coverage of games both within and without FAU, and wages for coaching staff, FAU may have improved but there is more work to be done to close the gap between both genders in sports.