The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Friday, March 29, 2019 — 7

‘That’s the way it is’: Sheryl Szady’s fight against the status quo

In observance of Women’s History 
Month, The Daily’s sports section is 
launching its second annual series 
aimed at telling the stories of female 
athletes, coaches and teams at the 
University from the perspective of 
the female sports writers on staff. 
We continue the series with this 
story from Daily Sports Editor Paige 
Voeffray.
Women’s athletics has come 
a long way since the first official 
varsity Michigan teams took the 
field in 1973. So much so that it’s 
easy to take what the women have 
today for granted. Each team is 
equipped with multiple coaches, 
trainers and nutritionists to stay in 
peak condition. All the athletes are 
given stacks of new clothes every 
season to make sure they’re looking 
their best. They’re even flown all 
over the country to compete against 
the best teams.
This is common practice — 
almost expected.
But it wasn’t always this way.
There 
were 
many 
women 
that came before these athletes 
that fought and pushed for what 
they deserved. But there was one 
woman in particular who couldn’t 
seem to let it go and wasn’t afraid to 
take on important people, and every 
woman who wears a block ‘M’ on 
their chest has her to thank.
Sheryl Szady didn’t want any 
attention. She didn’t want to cause 
any issues. She just wanted to play.
And because of that, Michigan 
athletics has never been the same.
***
Szady attended Michigan from 
1970-1974 and played on the club 
team for field hockey and basketball. 
There wasn’t practice equipment or 
warm-up uniforms, and only some 
teams would have a volunteer coach 
if they were lucky. And that might 
have been suitable for a while, but 
Szady looked around at the other 
universities’ varsity programs and 
wondered how Michigan had fallen 
so far behind.
The club teams would play the 
varsity programs from these other 
universities, but their conditions 
were nothing alike.
“We were playing the varsity 
teams at Eastern, Western, Central, 
Michigan State, Adrian, as a club 
team,” Szady said. “I mean I’m 
calling the varsity coach as a club 
team being like, ‘Can we schedule 
a game?’ And they’re picking the 
day, I mean I had like no clout. They 
were like, ‘Thank you for playing 
us.’ ”
Szady recalls washing her own 
uniform after every game, sharing 
12 rolls of athletic tape over a 
season, and even driving across the 
state in a teammate’s roommate’s 
sister’s friend’s car. It seems trivial, 
but this was a big deal to these 
women.
“We don’t want more. We don’t 
want to take from (the men),” said 
Michigan softball coach, women’s 
athletics advocate and essentially 
the face of women’s athletics at 
Michigan, Carol Hutchins.
“Nobody ever wanted to take 
away 
their 
opportunity. 
We 
just wanted to have the same 
opportunity. And funny how they 
found a way to fund it because you 
can find a way to fund whatever you 
think is important.”
This situation wasn’t ideal, but 
for the time being, it worked — until 
it didn’t.
In the March of her junior year, 
Szady began to call her usual set of 
coaches to schedule games for the 
next season, but they all turned her 
down. Her friend Linda Laird, the 
women’s club basketball manager, 
experienced the same thing.
“Finally, the field hockey coach 
from Eastern called me back and 
said ‘Sheryl, nobody’s going to 
play you this year,’ Szady said. 
“We decided to blacklist Michigan 
until the University elevated their 
women’s program.’ ”
For Szady, the next step was 
clear — elevate the program.
***
For most people, taking a club 
team to the caliber of a varsity 
team would be a daunting task. 
Many wouldn’t even know where 
to start. Title IX had been passed in 
1972, however the implementation 
guidelines weren’t written until 
1975, so Title IX wasn’t available for 
Szady to plead her case.
So as a junior, Szady went after 
the one thing that makes all athletic 
departments run: money.
This would go further than a 
couple of fundraisers. Szady went 
to the Office of Development and 
asked to have Women’s Athletics to 

be added as a solicitation option on 
the donation cards.
“My thought, at the time, was 
that if we had enough money, we 
could run our program at a varsity-
type level,” Szady said. “Which is 
overly simplistic, because you need 
university support.”
Through her efforts, Szady met 
with Henry Johnson, the vice 
president of Student Affairs.
Her initial plan was to ask 
Johnson for funding, but when 
other schools decided to stop 
playing Michigan, she knew they 
needed a varsity program.
“So we talked and he said to 
come back in a week, he was going 
to get me an appointment to talk to 
Robben Fleming, 
the 
president,” 
Szady said. “And 
I 
thought, 
‘OK, 
I just talked to a 
vice 
President, 
I can talk to the 
president.’ ”
While Johnson 
couldn’t get Szady 
on 
Fleming’s 
calendar, 
he 
secured 
another 
opportunity: 
presenting 
this 
situation to the Board of Regents.
Szady and Laird knew they 
needed to impress the group, so they 
came in their best outfits and had 
their materials already prepared. 
However, there was another group 
of students presenting before the 
women. They were requesting 
that Jewish holidays be considered 
when 
making 
the 
academic 
calendar, but their methods weren’t 
so well received.
“They got up there and were 
banging on the table,” Szady said. 
“Good point, wrong delivery. I 
thought, ‘Oh good, they’re just 
going to love hearing from two 
more students.’ ”
Each presenter was given five 
minutes to speak, and the women 
were never cut off and told their 
whole story. And it worked.
Fleming asked Marie Hartwig, 
a professor of Physical Education 
and long-time advocate of women’s 
sports and recreation, to head 
a committee to study women’s 
intercollegiate 
athletics. 
The 
committee began in April, and by 
the end of June recommended that 
six women’s sport club teams be 
elevated to varsity. 
“Do you know how fast that is?” 
Szady said. “Fleming received the 
report and approved it by the end of 
July. Marie Hartwig called me and 
said, ‘I just received a message from 
Fleming’s office, he directed me to 
start women’s varsity athletics this 
fall.’ ”
***
At 
first, 
Szady 
and 
her 
teammates enjoyed some perks that 
they weren’t accustomed to. They 
travelled in University vans, even if 
the coach and a senior had to be the 
drivers, and they were given meal 
money.
One evening, the team went to 
Big Boy after a game. The women 
were given $3.50 for a meal, and so 
after ordering the special for $2.50, 
they all had one dollar remaining. 
Szady feared that if they didn’t 
spend the money they would never 
see it again. So each athlete ordered 
two pies for dessert.
“Here comes these two trays 
with these huge pies,” Szady 
said.“We catch the coaches going, 
‘What the hell is going on?’ and we 
responded, ‘We’re spending our 

money.’ ”
It was a change of pace to what 
they were used to, but the women 
enjoyed it while they could.
They still didn’t have complete 
uniforms, scholarships or media 
coverage, but they knew change 
didn’t happen overnight.
After a gymnast fell of the 
balance beam and dislocated her 
elbow, the women were finally 
granted an athletic trainer.
“Much progress was reactive 
in nature,” Szady said. “So we 
stumbled into progress, but if it cost 
money, it didn’t happen for a long 
time.”
It was Szady’s firm belief that 
athletic director Don Canham tried 
to ignore women’s 
athletics in hopes 
that it would go 
away. It didn’t.
The 
women 
continued to see 
differences 
in 
what they received 
compared to the 
men. The women 
were 
still 
only 
playing 
in-state 
rivals, 
while 
the men had a national schedule. 
The 
women 
would 
receive 
small scholarships, but only for 
the semester that they were in 
season, while the men received 
full scholarships. If the men made 
a postseason run, the athletic 
department and the NCAA covered 
the costs, whereas the women 
had to make their case for athletic 
department funds, if they were 
good enough to make it that far. 
Hutchins 
remembers 
having 
teams sell programs at football 
games or clean Crisler Center after 
concerts to earn the extra money 
for the softball team.
“Title IX had passed in ’72 
and you saw in the mid and late 
’70s people realizing that they 
had to have athletics for women,” 
Hutchins said. “They had to fund 
and support teams or they were 
going to face federal loss of funding, 
because that’s the penalty of not 
complying with Title IX. Lawsuits 
were starting to happen, so having 
a team doesn’t mean you support it. 
It means you just have it.”
But Szady wanted just one more 
thing: varsity awards.
Szady received a lot of pushback 
from Canham, but she wanted the 
same varsity awards that the men 
received, and she wanted the same 
block ‘M’ on those awards as well. 
She was told she was on her own — 
a familiar refrain.
Szady had petitioned the student 
government for a seat on the 
Board in Control of Intercollegiate 
Athletics, and she was quickly 
granted a spot. Canham assigned 
her to the Board committee on 
Varsity Awards. Ultimately, the 
committee agreed on a new 
schedule of awards for both men 
and women: first a jacket, then a 
plaque, blanket and finally a watch. 
 
However, the block ‘M’ on the 
varsity awards was a different 
matter. 
A motion for varsity awards for 
men and women with the same 
block ‘M’ was tabled by Canham 
when it appeared it would be 
close to passing. The vote occured 
six weeks later in June 1975. In 
the meantime, letters were sent 
by Athletics to all the Michigan 
letterwinners — the men of the 
M-Club.
The letters, one from Bill Mazer, 

then president of the M-Club, and 
the other signed by then basketball 
coach Johnny Orr, and football 
coach Bo Schembechler expressed 
similar sentiments.
“The letter read, ‘You can’t allow 
them to give the same Block ‘M’out, 
it’s bad enough we’re giving them 
one at all. How can you let them 
give the same Block ‘M’ for which 
you bled and sweat on the fields of 
Michigan for. They want to give 
your Block ‘M’ to synchronized 
swimmers and softball players.’ ” 
Szady recalled.
At this time, Michigan didn’t 
even have a softball team.
The letter went on to say that 
if anyone had any issues with 
this 
proposed 
vote, 
to 
voice 
their concerns to 
the 
committee 
members 
and 
gave 
out 
their 
home 
addresses. 
Szady could fill 
a paper grocery 
bag two-thirds of 
the way full with 
the 
letters 
she 
received.
Szady remembers one letter 
in particular that still sticks with 
her. A doctor wrote to share how 
displeased he was with what she 
was trying to do, and wasn’t shy 
about voicing his thoughts. But 
at the end of the letter, he drew a 
picture telling her what kind of 
block ‘M’ she should get — a bra 
with the ‘M’ in the cleavage.
On the day of the vote, Szady 
traveled to Ann Arbor. She had 
missed the evening news the 
night before, but Al Ackerman, an 
NBC Detroit sports anchor, had 
stated that if Michigan didn’t give 
the women the same block ‘M’, 
he would never report another 
Michigan score on his broadcast 
again.
This was information Szady 
wished she had known when 
Canham called her into his office 
an hour before the vote. 
Canham immediately asked her 
what she wanted. She explained 
she wanted the same block ‘M’ for 
women as the men. He countered 
with a blue ‘M’, an old english ‘M’, 
anything but the yellow block ‘M’. 
Again, he asked, ‘What do you 
want?’
“Now in retrospect, I should 
have said four tickets on the 50 
(yard-line) for life,” Szady joked.
Instead, she didn’t waiver, and 
told Canham she would take her 
chances with the Board and left 
for the meeting. The vote passed 
nearly unanimously with all but 
one voting against, and the women 
were going to get their block ‘M’.
Months 
later, 
when 
Szady 
received her letter jacket in the 
mail, she opened it to find a jacket 
with a small, square, orange-
colored block ‘M’ — not what she 
had fought for. 
“And so I call up Marie 
(Hartwig) and I say ‘What is this?’ 
And she said ‘It’s the jacket you’re 
getting.’ Meaning she’s not fighting 
for this. She fights Canham and 
she’s probably losing her job,” 
Szady said. “And I said, ‘That’s not 
right.’
“And she said, ‘That’s the way it 
is.’ ”
***
Even 
when 
Phyllis 
Ocker 
became 
athletic 
director, 
she 
couldn’t do anything to change the 
letters until Canham’s influence 

was completely gone. The culture 
he created was so entrenched that 
no progress could be made.
“I remember the jacket. I used 
to hand them out to my student 
athletes. They were ugly,” Hutchins 
said. “And in their own right, it’s not 
that they weren’t nice looking, but 
then (the men) had the letter jacket, 
and then we had that.”
It wasn’t until 1991-92 that the 
athletic director at the time, Jack 
Weidenbach, started to give women 
the same block ‘M’ on the same 
leather-sleeved jacket as the men.
For forty years, she talked 
to anyone she could. She wrote 
letters and made phone calls, but 
to no avail. It wasn’t until she 
ran into current 
athletic 
director 
Warde 
Manuel 
after a women’s 
basketball 
game 
that things really 
started to be put 
in 
motion. 
She 
approached 
him 
about her idea for 
giving 
18 
years 
worth of athletes 
the 
appropriate 
jackets, and Manuel said that it was 
definitely going to happen.
Szady wouldn’t believe it until she 
saw it. While out to dinner in April 
2016, she received the long-awaited 
email from Manuel acknowledging 
the fundamental role played by the 
early women letterwinners, and the 
re-issuing of their varsity jackets 
with today’s varsity jacket. Only 
then did she share her joy with all 
the other restaurant diners.
After the initial wave, the 
University received 120 orders of 
new jackets. The University was 
pleased with itself, but Szady wasn’t 
satisfied.
After doing her own outreach, 
the University received 647 jacket 
orders. But by her estimates, 881 of 
the 900 women had been contacted.

Her work was done. But she 
wasn’t satisfied.
Szady organized for as many 
‘Jacket Gals’, as Szady and the 
women refer to themselves, to get 
together at a football game. About 
300 women came from all over 
the country with their families to 
celebrate, and the icing on the cake 
was they were going to hold the 
banner before the start of the game.
Until they weren’t. Weeks before 
the game, Szady received a phone 
call explaining how there were too 
many Jacket Gals and that they 
would be bigger than the marching 
band. Szady knew the women 
would be crushed. Szady also 
suspected that if they were football 
players, they would be holding the 
banner on the field.
So she did what she does best — 
let right win out.
“Meeting 
with 
Athletics, 
I 
said, ‘You know people are going 
to be really mad about this. They 
bought tickets, they’ve got airplane 
tickets, they got hotel rooms and 
they expect to be recognized 
on the field,’ ” Szady said. “And 
Letterwinners M club just went 
very silent. And the guy in Athletics 
said ‘Sheryl, people are still calling 
saying why do we even have women 
on the football field.’
“And I couldn’t believe he 
repeated that.”
After the Jacket Gals shared 
their concerns, the issue was 
resolved with all 300 Jacket Gals 
honored on the field at halftime. 
As Szady led the 300 in their new 
jackets with the right ‘M’ out of the 
tunnel onto the field, she finally felt 
like all her hard work had paid off.
***
There were times when Szady 
never thought the conditions would 
improve. Everyone seemed so set 
in their ways that progress seemed 
unlikely.
Even in current times she still 
faces struggles that people wouldn’t 
expect. But when she sees what the 
female athletes have now, she loves 
it.
“I know a lot of women, and 
Sheryl Szady’s one of them, who 
fought like hell for that. And went 
through a lot of shit — for lack of 
a better word — from people who 
treated her poorly,” Hutchins said. 
“I know a lot of people who were 
fired in that era and to this day are 
still fired when they bring up the 
inequities that still exist. Because 
there still are inequities.
“We’ve come so far and it’s taken 
a lot of people who are vigilant. 
And people have talked about Title 
IX that we don’t need it anymore, 
because ‘Oh look at what you 
women have.’ I say you don’t take 
down speed limit signs, because 
people will start driving 90. You 
have to have a law because we need 
boundaries. … If they were going to 
do the right thing, they would have 
done it then.”
Szady and Hutchins can both 
agree that women’s athletics still 
has strides to make. Szady has some 
more ideas for how the athletic 
department could change, but she 
won’t rest until things are equal.
Truly equal.

PAIGE VOEFFRAY
Daily Sports Editor

COURTESY OF SHERYL SZADY
Sheryl Szady has fought for over four decades to fight for equality in Michigan athletics — receiving pushback from the athletic department at seemingly

We just 
wanted to 
have the same 
opportunity.

“You can’t 
allow them to 
give the same 
Block M out.”

