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Kamilah Kashanie (KK): This year marks two important anniversaries that helped change the world of sports and, ultimately, society. The 75th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier.

George Bates (GB): He walked by me when he went to bat, and I said to him, ‘Show ‘em Jackie!’ 

KK: And the 50th anniversary of Title IX, which banned discrimination in schools based on sex.

Kathy Wagoner (KW): So I loaded up my little Volkswagen and looked at my mom and dad and said, I’m going to Iowa. They have women’s basketball, which was my dream.

KK: It’s the StoryCorps Podcast from NPR. I’m Kamilah Kashanie. Our first story comes from Kathy Wagoner. She’s from a small town in Upstate, New York, in the Adirondack Mountains. 

KW: I grew up thinking it was normal that girls and boys played all sports and that we played together. So I’d sit with my dad and watched a lot of basketball, and I fell in love with Pete Maravich, and I was determined to be the female version of Pete Maravich. So I self taught myself when I was a little kid out in the backyard, and Dad put a hoop up for me on the garage. So that was kind of my start. 

KK: For our non-NBA fans, “Pistol” Pete Maravich was a Hall of Famer. He’s in the top 75 players of all-time. So Kathy was dreaming big. But then she got to high school.

KW: When I got there, it was a different story. There were no sports for girls. The only thing I could do to even be involved in sports was to be a cheerleader, which I did. And I was a terrible cheerleader because I was so interested in the game.

KK: She didn’t have much luck after she graduated from high school either.

KW: I went to a junior college and they did not have any sports for women whatsoever. But there was a gentleman who was the intramural director. His name was Paul Bishop. He was a Black man. And I mention that only because he told me one time, he says, ‘I understand what’s happening with the discrimination against women in sport’. And he says, ‘I want to help get something organized’.

KK: He set up some women’s games, but Kathy didn’t want to just play for fun, she wanted to play some serious ball. And I should warn you, her love for basketball took her on a bit of a journey. But that’s kind of the point of this story, so bear with me.

Next, she went looking for a college that had a sports program for women. And there weren’t a lot at the time. I mean, this was the early 70s. Women were just starting to enroll in college at similar rates to men. So, she packed up her station wagon and moved halfway across the country, to a small private liberal arts college in Iowa.

KW: I got to surround myself with women who had played basketball their entire lives And I think I felt like I’d died and gone to heaven. I couldn’t believe this existed.

KK: And then, the college went bankrupt.

KW: Well, after they closed, you know, I called mom and dad and said, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ And Dad said, ‘Well, you’re going to find another college, aren’t you?’ And I said, ‘I guess so.’ [Laughs] So I applied and started attending Missouri Western State College.

Later on, as I was dating a guy who played on the basketball team. You know, we’d go out all the time and he’d always buy, which was typical back then. And I said, ‘How do you afford to pay your tuition?’ He says, ‘I don’t pay anything to go here’. And I looked at him and I said, ‘What do you mean you don’t pay to go here?’ He says, ‘I’m on an athletic scholarship’. Well, that was like a dagger through my heart. I’m working my tail off to put myself through. And actually, I was putting him through is what it felt like. This is where I really had my first feeling that something was amiss with women’s sports. I went to the president of the college and sat down and had a five minute discussion when he said, ‘We do not plan on having women’s athletics. Thank you for coming. Bye bye.’ 

KK: So Kathy said bye right back, and left the college. But not before leaving them with something to remember her by.

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KW: It really was quite a put down to be point blank. And by that time, I don’t remember how, but I had learned about Title IX. So that’s why we started the complaint.

KK: It was 1973, and Title IX had just passed. It’s a law that’s meant to prevent discrimination based on sex in any federally funded school. It now also covers gender identity.

KW: And a year later, Missouri Western, by golly, hired their first woman coach. And they went on to have a great athletic program.

KK: So here’s the thing, the work that Kathy did wasn’t for her. It was for the women who came after her. Which is kind of what her whole career ended up being. She had to stop playing because of an injury. But then she found out what she was really meant to do: be a coach at a college.

KW: I had a lot to learn naturally. I was coaching by myself. There were very few women. I think at the time that I started coaching, there were five other professors on campus that were women. So it was kind of isolating. Very little support.

KK: Kathy remembers having to drive the van, set up before the games, and even wash the player’s uniforms. But if you ask her? It was totally worth it. All of it.

KW: We gave women the feeling of their own being and their strength and their worth. I think that’s what I would like to leave as my legacy is to have my athletes felt that they were worthy. Our sports are worthy in their own beauty.

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KK: Kathy retired from coaching in 2007.

Title IX passed 50 years ago next week, and women now make up around 40% of US athletes, but they still only get 5% of the sports media coverage and a fraction of the pay as the men.

After the break, how two kids witnessed history get made on a baseball field 75 years ago. Stay with us.

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KK: Professional baseball has been known as “America’s pastime” since the mid-1800s. But that depends on what your version of America looks like. Until the Fall of 1945 you really didnt see non-white players on the field. That’s when the Brooklyn Dodgers made a bet on 26-year old Jackie Robinson. 

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The president of the Dodgers, Branch Rickey, knew integration was coming, and he was looking for a Black player to test the waters with. Jackie Robinson had been playing in the Negro Leagues, and on top of being a good player, Rickey also thought he’d be able to handle the racism he might face on the field. 

Harold Lucas (HL): Branch Rickey was a man with great foresight. He chose Jackie, I think because of his temperament.

KK: He told Robinson: “They’ll do anything to make you react. They’ll try to provoke a race riot in the ballpark. This is the way to prove to the public that a Negro should not be allowed in the major leagues.” 

And Robinson could handle the pressure, so he got a contract with the Dodgers, and started with their Minor League club, the Montreal Royals. Spring Training began in March 1946 in Daytona Beach, Florida. The south was still segregated then, which meant Robinson wasn’t allowed to play or practice on whites only fields with the rest of his team. So he practiced at a local playground in the Black part of Daytona Beach. That’s where Harold Lucas Jr. and his friends would play.

HL: He used to hit fly balls out and we would catch them. And he told us that he was just the beginning of what was going to be the future. He said, ‘If I can do it now, there’s no telling what you’ll be able to do when your time comes.’

KK: At one point, the Royals were about to play a game in Sanford, Florida, but an angry mob stopped Robinson from taking the field. Black leaders in Daytona Beach had to step in. They gave the team a space to play, and a space for Black residents to cheer for him. Harold got to be there and he sat with his daughter, D’Lorah Butts-Lucas, to tell her about it.

D’Lorah Butts-Lucas (DL): What did you expect to see when you saw Jackie Robinson play that first game? 

HL: Everybody wanted to see Jackie play and in the Black community, we all were very excited. And when we found out we could go, people took work off to go down and see him. But, you know, with segregation, white people were wondering why we were down there. So we didn’t know what to expect because we were concerned about the atmosphere. And I didn’t know that then, but I knew that something important was happening. Baseball was America’s pastime, so if he was going to make it, then he had his job cut out for him. 

Jackie was a fiery competitor. He hated to lose, but he also had a lot of common sense. Because he knew that they’re going to call you this word, they’re going to throw popcorn on you. And of course, there was some heckling going on. But Jackie was so enthralling that they couldn’t help but watch him. You know, even though you may not like somebody. If they can play baseball that well, then you’ll cheer for him.

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KK: George Bates, who’s white, was also there for one of Robinson’s first games. He sat down with his son, Bill, to remember how he ended up playing a bigger role than he thought.

George Bates (GB): He was going to be the first Black player with the Dodgers, and I was really excited to get to see my team that I knew from my whole childhood.

William Bates (WB): So what did the team ask you and your brother to do?

GB: I was 12 years old and my brother was 15, at the time, and we just happened to be there when they grabbed us to see if we could be bat boys. And we stayed right down behind home plate in front of the dugout. We had to pick up the bats as they threw them down and we laid them on the ground in order.

WB:  So when you first saw him, what were your feelings? 

GB: It didn’t seem like he ever said anything to anybody. And he did his job and went back to his dugout, so I didn’t know much else about him at all. But I was hoping he was going to do good. You know, there’s a lot of people that were against him going into the leagues altogether. 

And down here in the South, it was pretty well segregated at that time. It was upsetting to me and I just knew it wasn’t right. So I wanted him to show them that he could do what anybody else can do. He walked by me when he went to bat, and I said to him, ‘Show ‘em Jackie!’ Because I was proud of him that he was a Dodger. 

WB: So you said your father filmed this event.

GB: Oh, yeah, major parts of it was me or my brother was in with the players. You can see it in the movie when I tell him to ‘show ‘em Jackie’ that he turns and looks at me.

WB: I remember Grandpa just showing all his old film footage. And as I got older, I realized that that film is the oldest known film footage of Jackie Robinson in the minors, and it’s preserved forever.

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KK: The footage is silent, but you can see twelve-year-old George pass by Robinson, as he steps up to the plate. And if you’re really looking, you can see the moment George and Jackie look at one another. You can just imagine what it was like for this kid at the time, realizing what a big deal this was. 

GB: And I guess you feel pretty good knowing the family is part American history.

WB: Yeah, I mean, it’s not every day that you get to be a part of something so important. He was the key figure to get things on the right track to where they should have always been.

KK: Here’s Harold Lucas Jr. again with his daughter, D’Lorah.

DL: When Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, did you feel more hopeful for Black Americans? 

HL: Well, it gave me a stepping stone. I felt that Jackie was intelligent enough to realize that he was going to open the doors for many Black people in areas other than hotel and motel work. 

And as I look back at it now, I’m thankful for the advice that he gave us to try to prepare ourselves to be somebody. You see, you have to build on what the people who come before you do. So, if you can remember the first, and the trials and tribulations and the things that they had to go through, then that should make you want to do the best that you can do. 

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KK: Harold went on to be a teacher and coach for student athletics in Daytona Beach, for nearly 50 years. 

That’s all for this episode of the StoryCorps podcast. It was produced by Jarrod Sport. Our lead producer is Eleanor Vassili. Jasmyn Morris is our Executive Editor. Jarrett Floyd is our technical director. Our fact-checker is Natsumi Ajisaka. Special thanks to Jerome Nelson.

To see what music we used in the episode, go to StoryCorps – dot – org. You can also check out original artwork by Lyne Lucien. For the StoryCorps podcast, I’m Kamilah Kashanie. Catch you next week.