by Julie Sowell

Hager is a championship golfer, with several tournament and club titles to her credit.

In 1961, when Dr. Joy Hager started teaching in Berea’s women’s physical education department, there was a $33 budget for travel and no women’s intercollegiate sports program. The men’s and women’s PE programs and facilities were separate (but not equal).

“When I took a group of students to a volleyball sports day for women at Centre College—we weren’t allowed to have inter-collegiate competition at that time— I went over the budget we had for the entire year,” Hager recalls.

Forty-one years later, the situation has certainly changed. Today, Berea women compete in eight sports ranging from basketball to cross country. Among the reasons for Berea’s strong sports program for women are the passage in 1972 of “Title IX,” the federal legislation mandating equality in school sports, and the efforts of Hager and others at Berea. Credit is also due to a less-well-known source: Minnie Maude Macauley, early director of Berea’s women’s physical education department.
“Wherever there are strong college sports programs now for women, there was some woman there at the beginning of it that was pushing this,” says Hager. “If Minnie Maude hadn’t established what she did, then those who came afterward would have had a harder time.”

Macauley was recruited to Berea in 1942 by President Francis Hutchins to direct women’s physical education. She also was in charge of social and recreational activities for the campus. A Kansas native, she held a bachelors degree from the state’s Ottawa University, and a masters degree from Boston College. After a 25-year career at Berea, she retired in 1967 to take a leadership position in Kentucky’s American Association of University Women (AAUW) organization.

An administrator who excelled as a planner, organizer and leader, Macauley oversaw Berea’s physical education program based on “Body Mechanics” in the 40s and 50s, the establishment of a major in physical education in 1954, and the renewed emphasis on exercise and physical fitness in the 1960s. Guiding her professional efforts was the philosophy of R.S.M.P—developing equally the religious, social, mental and physical aspects of the “four-fold balanced life.” The importance of win-loss records may not have resonated with her, but she was a successful advocate at Berea for the importance of physical and social development, and managed to defeat periodic attempts during her tenure to eliminate Berea’s physical education requirement. She also was insistent about securing good facilities and equipment for women’s activities. “She made her presence known if she felt that the women were not getting certain things,” says Hager.

But it would remain for the women who came after her to develop opportunities in sports for women at Berea. “She hadn’t had that competitive taste like I had, and I thought women should have more,” Hager explains. “I was more interested in sports opportunities for women than she and so were most of the people I was working with at the time. But she supported us. She was supportive of physical education, of women, and things that would advance women and women’s opportunities, and had been all her life.”

Hager, a Prestonsburg native, has been a leading defender of gender equality, working for women’s full participation in a broad range of sports. She has coached tennis, field hockey, volleyball and basketball, and officiated volleyball and basketball. She also has been chair of the women’s physical education department as well as athletic director. She holds degrees from Eastern Kentucky University and MacMurray College in Illinois and earned her doctorate from the University of Kentucky in 1987.

In 1995, Hager was recognized nationally for efforts to improve sports opportunities for women when she received the Pathfinders Award of the National Association for Girls and Women in Sports. The annual award honors a person from each state who has been a strong and continuous advocate for the advancement of women’s sports.

Dr. Joy Hager teaches swimming and water fitness, as well as courses on motor skills and the psychology of sport.

Hager provided leadership in the early organization of women’s sports in Kentucky, holding key offices in the state Women’s Intercollegiate Conference. She also has served on the Executive Board of Citizens for Sports Equity in Kentucky for many years, and as president of the Kentucky Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (KAHPERD.) Macauley, too, distinguished herself in KAHPERD, serving as president and receiving the organization’s highest award, the Mustaine Award in 1966. Peggy Stanaland, a sports historian and retired professor of physical education at Eastern Kentucky University, and herself a former KAHPERD member, remembers Macauley as something of a legend throughout the state. Working tirelessly to promote the organization among professionals and to organize members for action, she wrote so many personal notes to members that she earned the nickname “postcard Minnie” among her colleagues. Ever efficient, she signed them with her famous signature “M3.”

“There weren’t many people in physical education in the state of Kentucky who didn’t know Minnie Maude Macauley,” says Stanaland. “She had very high standards and she was viewed with great respect by all.”

Recent students at Berea are probably most familiar with the name Minnie Maude Macauley through the award named for her given each year by women’s athletics. The idea originated with Hager, who more than anyone, appreciated how, and how far, women’s sports at Berea had come.
“By the mid-80’s, we had a travel budget, we had sports, and I thought we should have an award for women’s sports,” says Hager. “We named it after Ms. Macauley because she had been instrumental in keeping the women’s gym and women’s physical education program.”

Since 1983, the Macauley Award has been given annually to the senior woman intercollegiate athlete “who best embodies those traits of skilled performance, campus-wide versatility, academic prowess, recognized positive personality and energy in a variety of sports.”

The award is a fitting tribute to M3 and one of which she would have approved, recognizing at once the value of athletic achievement within a well-balanced life and the positive role women’s competitive sports at its best brings to higher education.