The 2024-25 academic year marks 50 years of Brown University’s women’s varsity athletics. To celebrate the occasion, 200 Brown student-athletes, coaches and alumni attended a panel discussion and viewing of a new documentary film on women’s athletics at the university.
The documentary, tentatively titled “Champions and Change: 50 Years of Women’s Intercollegiate Athletics at Brown” is a student-led project in progress. It began in 2024 as a collaboration between the Brown Arts Institute and the Division of Athletics and Recreation.
According to Brown News, “The project will share the stories of trailblazing athletes, coaches and administrators, and offer reflections from leaders in women’s athletics.”
Brown University vice president for athletics and recreation M. Grace Calhoun said, “We thought it would be really powerful to tell the story of women’s athletics at Brown through the documentary process, particularly in honor of this 50th anniversary.”
At last weekend’s viewing, attendees previewed sections of the documentary that included the founding of women’s club rugby, the history of Title IX and a roundup of Brown’s legendary coaches and student-athletes.
One attendee at the screening, Marcia Hoffer, was a member of Brown’s women’s ice hockey team, the first intercollegiate women’s ice hockey team in the nation. “We were complete pioneers,” Hoffer said. “We didn’t have a coach. We didn’t have much equipment. We had terrible ice time. We had no one to play in this country. But we loved hockey, and we were so thrilled with having the opportunity to just play. I hope women at Brown continue to have these great opportunities and reap the benefits of being part of a team.”
When Title IX was enacted in 1974, an estimated 15% of student-athletes were women. Now, women make up an estimated 44% of NCAA student-athletes. At Brown in particular, the legacy of female student-athletes will continue to be celebrated and remembered for the remainder of the school year.
