Smith College Athletics

Discrimination against women in sport was rampant in the first half of the 20th century. In track, a man could compete at all distances from sprints to marathon, but a woman who ran more than 220 yards would be banned from competition for life. The women's half-mile was grudgingly sanctioned by the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) in 1958, and in 1961, Smith sophomore Julia Chase openly challenged the AAU restrictions by running a much-publicized 5-mile race in Manchester, Connecticut. Whole-hearted public support forced the AAU to back down, and four months later, women's cross country was sanctioned in the U.S. for the first time. From 1960-65, Julia ran at the national level, tried out for two Olympic teams and set multiple records in New England. After Smith, Chase-Brand earned a Ph. D., and for a quarter century did fieldwork in Trinidad and Australia and taught at Barnard. At age 54, she became the oldest person to receive a medical degree at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in the Bronx. In 2012, she was named a Hero of Running by Runner's World.