In my romp through the sports world this year, the name of one university has popped up in conversation more than any other — UCLA.

            Here’s one instance:

            In 1939, UCLA enrolled baseball great Jackie Robinson. He became the school’s first athlete to letter in four varsity sports. He was one of four Black players on the football team, making UCLA college football’s most integrated team. Of course, Robinson then went on to become the first Black player on a Major League Baseball team.

            And another:

            In 1974, UCLA awarded the first athletic scholarship to a woman. Ann Meyers Drysdale was a standout basketball player, the first high school athlete to be chosen for a woman’s Olympic team. She was the first woman to sign an NBA contract (the men’s team!) and the first woman to broadcast an NBA game. She went on to have a stellar career in sports broadcasting.

            Yet one more:

            I’ve talked with people who said Title IX’s impact wasn’t felt for many years. Sportswriter Melissa Isaacson said no one really knew about it for at least three years after it became law. Others pointed out that before Title IX could really have an impact, women’s teams needed equipment, scholarships, high level coaching and competitive leagues. That all took time.

            But one day, a friend begged to differ. “We felt the impact right away,” said Roger Freberg.*

            Guess where he was in the 1970s. UCLA!

Tracking the new reality

            Roger Freberg was on a track and field scholarship at the university when Title IX was enacted. He says women appeared on the track almost immediately.

            “It might be because you don’t need much adaptation in track and field,” he says. “And it was a sport that had both men and women. We all adjusted pretty quickly.”

            Most coaches were supportive, Roger says. The pushback — at UCLA and other universities — came from the sports programs with the biggest budgets. In most cases, that meant the football and basketball programs. Coaches were afraid that Title IX would drain resources from their programs.

            UCLA’s track program wasn’t immune from the effects. Men’s scholarships were cut in half, Roger says, and when the team traveled, they no longer stayed in fancy hotels and the per diem allowance for meals was more modest.

            Still, the women were welcome. When asked why, Roger’s answer might sound sexist, but it was the reality of the time — and maybe not so different today.

            “The guys welcomed the women because they were extending the dating pool!” he says. “They’d help the women adjust their starting blocks, even though clearly they didn’t need the help. They played that old, old game.”

            Well, the other men did. Roger had gotten married in 1972, his sophomore year in college. He welcomed the women simply as fellow athletes.

Devil in the details

            Overall, Roger says any resistance was more practical than ideological. How would men and women share the weight room? Could the workout schedule be rearranged or would new facilities have to be built? How should tournaments be run to allow all athletes to remain warm and limber for their events?

            Roger doesn’t minimize the reality of the scholarship issue, though. The opportunity to attend college on an athletic scholarship narrowed.

            “You’d hear teammates say, ‘Well, now my younger brother might not make it unless he gets better,’” he says. “Universities began to offer partial scholarships, but a lot of athletes come from families that need the money and now they can’t afford the college bills.”

One more first

            As for Roger, he was UCLA’s first player to be an amateur in one sport and a professional in another. He was an All-American at UCLA; NCAA runner-up in discus; PAC 8 champion in discus and runner-up in shot put. He was caption of the team his senior year, and they were NCAA champions for three years and runner-up his fourth year.

            He was drafted in 1974 as a defensive lineman by the Los Angeles Rams. Although his premier events were the discus and shotput, football scouts were impressed by his sprinting times and figured he could take his ability to run short bursts to the football field. 

            I asked Roger why he thought UCLA was so progressive in racial and gender reform.

            “Southern California has a history not so much of tolerance but of practicality,” he muses. “If you have a good athlete, you’re thinking, ‘What can we do to help this person get to the next level?’ We just want to see people recognized for their ability.”

                                                            ______________________

* All quotes come from my interview with Roger on October 5, 2022.  

PHOTO: From the personal collection of Roger Freberg.