Texas Tech University Athletics
Fighting for Change
March 01, 2012 | Softball
Jeannine McHaney is the namesake of this weekend's softball tournament.
March 1, 2012
by Jessika Bailey
Texas Tech Athletics Communications
A Pioneer. A Fighter.
Adjectives that might not have typically described a woman in the 1960s and 1970s.
However, these are words used to describe one particular woman who helped change history for women's athletics at Texas Tech.
Jeannine McHaney first joined the Texas Tech faculty in 1966 as a professor in the physical education department, the university's director for women's intramural sports and the head volleyball coach from 1966-1975.
"She was a great teacher," Dr. Judi Henry, Tech senior associate athletics director and senior women's administrator, said. "She was one of those that really made you live up to your potential. She scared you to death sometimes because she set the standard so high that you didn't want to disappoint her."
The softball program honored McHaney along with other women's athletics programs by naming a tournament after her. Also, through the Marsha Sharp Leadership Circle, a Jeannine McHaney Scholar is named every year for each women's sport to keep her name alive.
Prior to Title IX legislation, women were only allowed to play in intramural-type athletics. Henry said days dubbed "play days" provided an opportunity for women to compete against each other. A score was kept but everyone had to `play nice.'
 | "She was very passionate about women's sports and their development. She was women's athletics." - Dr. Judi Henry, Tech senior associate athletics director/SWA |
After its founding in 1975, McHaney was appointed the director of the Texas Tech Women's Athletics Department. She held the position until the men's and women's departments combined in 1985 where she remained a leader in the athletics department as one of the administrators for two decades.
In essence, McHaney was the face of women's athletics at Texas Tech.
"She was very passionate about women's sports and their development," Henry said. "She was women's athletics."
During her time with the women's athletics program, McHaney managed all women's sports and created policies and procedures for game management, former Tech athletics director Gerald Myers said.
"She created a check list of things that a game manager could use," he said. "They could just go over to the event site and make sure everything on that list was ready to go by the time the team, the coaches, the officials, and the fans showed up."
Many of McHaney's policies are still used today.
Another duty of McHaney's while still working in the department was hiring coaches. She gave Marsha Sharp a chance in 1982 when she hired her as the head coach for women's basketball after serving as the assistant coach the previous season.
Sharp eventually lead the Lady Raiders to the NCAA National Championship in 1993, which is still the only team national title in school history.
After all her work setting the stage for success in women's athletics, McHaney fortunately was around long enough to see Sharp and the Lady Raiders win the national title before she lost a decade-long fight with cancer in 1994.
Both Henry and Myers believe McHaney's presence is still felt today as women's sports opportunities and the facilities have grown drastically since the 1970s and 1980s.
 A banner hangs in the rafters of the United Spirit Arena honoring Jeannine McHaney. | |
"Our coaches make it a point to make sure the younger female student-athletes knew that there was someone who laid the ground work," Henry said.
As the women's programs continue to keep her name alive, generations in the future will continue to feel the basis she created for women's athletics.
"I think we all remember the foundation she laid," Myers said. "She was a pioneer and a strong advocate for women's sports, especially with Title IX."
This year marks the 40th anniversary of Title IX, the law that states a person in the United States should not be discriminated against or excluded from participation based on sex under any educational program or activity that receives federal funding.
While not a law designed to govern sports, Title IX legislation eventually lead to the growth of women's athletics in intercollegiate athletics. McHaney embraced the law and began to put forward the effort to expand women's athletics at Texas Tech.
The merge of the two departments in 1985 created a lot of turmoil.
"To some people, it felt more like a take over," Henry said.
However, Henry believes someone as strong and passionate as McHaney could handle the turmoil.
"You had to be someone that had a strong backbone and was a fighter," Henry said.
McHaney has received many honors in her time at Texas Tech. She was the first women inducted into the Texas Tech Hall of Honor and was named Texas Tech Woman of the Year in 1976. A year later, she was named the president of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW).
In 1993, McHaney received the Women's Basketball Coaches of the Year Award and was the first recipient of the Jeannine McHaney High Rider Award. More recently, McHaney was awarded the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators Lifetime Achievement Awards.
"We make sure our players know who Jeannine McHaney was and what she stood for," softball coach Shanon Hays said. "She was a pioneer and advocate so that these players today could play the game they love. There might not be Texas Tech Softball without a Jeannine McHaney."
