Mississippi University for Women’s athletics program suffered two harsh blows in late 2002. A November tornado destroyed the gymnasium and the following month, then-President Claudia Limbert asked the College Board to discontinue the university’s intercollegiate athletic program and reallocate the funds to a fitness, recreation and intramural program.
November 2011 was a little more kind, bringing a new president — Dr. Jim Borsig — on campus. Friday afternoon, on the first day of homecoming, Borsig made an announcement met with a roar of applause: Intercollegiate sports may soon be part of MUW’s rich history again.
Borsig said he felt his choice of venue, and the audience assembled, would be a fitting place and time for the announcement, which was made Friday to former MUW athletes, coaches and supporters in the Emma Ody Pohl Gym.
Surrounded by signs commemorating the intercollegiate sports the college once offered — basketball, volleyball, softball, track and field, swimming, tennis, badminton and gymnastics — Borsig outlined his plan.
A committee of faculty, staff, alumni, students and community leaders will be named June 1 to gauge interest in resuming the athletics program.
By fall, Borsig expects the committee to report its findings. If the plan has enough support, a second committee will be formed to investigate the academic and financial feasibility involved in beginning a new athletics program after nearly a decade hiatus.
He began batting the idea around last fall, during his presidential candidate interviews.
“I believe, done right, it adds to the overall intercollegiate experience,” Borsig said. “It strengthens academics and is good for the entire student body.”
Alumni and former athletics faculty said they were pleased with the possibility of a new sports program.
Lea Herndon played basketball from 1995 to 1999 and served as assistant basketball coach from 2000 to the program’s end in 2003.
Limbert’s decision came as a shock and surprised everyone, Herndon said. She had just finished recruiting, when she and the other coaches were told the athletics program was being discontinued.
Herndon believes resuming the program, particularly if men’s sports are incorporated, will help with MUW’s recruitment and enrollment.
“It’s important to young people’s lives,” she said.
Nicole Ebeier Thieler and Lisa Duncan Lindsey developed such a love for volleyball they both became volleyball coaches. Both played for MUW in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but they didn’t know each other. Now, they share the court at Our Lady of the Lake School in Mandeville, La., where Lindsey is the athletic director and head volleyball coach and Thieler is assistant volleyball coach.
They stood in the Pohl Gym lobby Friday, prior to Borsig’s announcement, greeting old friends during a book signing for their former coaches’ new book, “The Legacy of the Blues: A Century of Athletics at The W.”
The 538-page book, released last month by XLibris Corporation, details the rich history of athletics at MUW, between 1884 and 2003. It was written by former athletics coaches Dr. Dorothy Burdeshaw, Dr. Barbara Garrett, Dr. Martha Fulton-Wells, Dr. Jo Spearman and Dr. Joan Thompson Thomas.
Burdeshaw and Spearman are former athletics directors at MUW, with Burdeshaw coaching badminton and Spearman coaching volleyball and track and field. Garrett coached tennis and Thomas coached basketball, volleyball and track and field.
Thieler and Lindsey said they were upset when MUW’s athletics program was canceled, because they had such fond memories of the camaraderie they and their teammates shared.
It was such a powerful experience for Lindsey, she said she still sometimes has dreams in which she is back at MUW, playing volleyball.
When the possibility was raised of athletics returning to campus, their eyes grew wide.
“I have goosebumps,” Thieler said.
Lindsey echoed the sentiment.
“I’d love the kids to be able to have the experiences we had,” Lindsey said.
Thieler nodded.
“I don’t think there’s another place like this,” she said.
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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