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DECEMBER 2020 19 BY MELISSA DUDEK A s Virginia celebrates 50 years of co-education at the University, there is one definitive starting point for women's athletics at the school — Barbara Kelly. Kelly, who passed away earlier this year at the age of 82, was one of the driving forces behind the development of the wom- en's athletics programs at Virginia, spending 38 years as a member of the athletics depart- ment staff, before retiring in 2009. Kelly grew up playing sports. She was a four-year letter winner in basketball at Gar- ner High School in North Carolina at a time when that wasn't the norm. Although she was offered one of the first basketball schol- arships in Wake County to Pineland Junior College (1956), she attended Campbell Uni- versity and played basketball for two sea- sons prior to transferring to East Carolina University where she earned a bachelor's degree in health and physical education. She spent a decade working as a health and physical education teacher until she was ap- pointed by Gene Corrigan to be the assistant director of intramurals and physical educa- tion at UVA in 1971, making her Virginia's first full-time female athletics staff member. After developing a successful intramural and club sports program for women, Kelly was named director of women's sports and primary senior woman administrator. She worked to bring about the University's first three wom- en's varsity intercollegiate teams in 1973-74. "They had just admitted undergraduate women in 1970, and I arrived in September 1971, so with only 500 women, I had to find what sports they were interested in partici- pating in," Kelly said in 2017 while reflect- ing on her career. "So we offered one sport per season: field hockey in the fall, basket- ball in the winter and tennis in the spring." In addition to her administrative duties, Kelly also coached women's basketball for its first two seasons. During a time when the only athletic scholarships were offered in football and men's basketball, women's bas- ketball became a scholarship sport. Current Big East commissioner and former WNBA president Val Ackerman became the recipi- ent of that first scholarship, one that she had to share with another teammate. Kelly's activism and vision went beyond just growing women's sports at UVA. She had her sights set on an even bigger goal. "I continued to drop by Gene Corrigan's office and ask, 'When is the ACC going to offer championships to women students?'" she recalled. "Gene would say, 'Barbara, I don't think we're there yet. The programs are developing at each institution. I'll moni- tor the situation and keep you posted.' "So every year after their May meeting, I'd go in and say, 'What's the word?' And it was negative. So I wanted to prove that there was sufficient interest in us. I did a survey of sports they were offering at all the ACC schools, and all the schools had basketball, so I knew that would capture attention right away." In 1978, after two years of hosting her own Virginia Invitational Tournament, Kelly got her ultimate wish. The first ACC Women's Basketball Tournament was held at Univer- sity Hall in Charlottesville, with 2,750 people attending the three-day championship. Kelly's legacy is one that is easy to enu- merate. With the addition of squash in 2017, Kelly's three-sport women's athletics pro- gram had ballooned to 14. That initial one basketball scholarship has grown into 143 scholarships allotted across the women's sports. The $200 budget that the women's tennis team had to work with in its first year has grown thousands-fold. The ACC Wom- en's Basketball Tournament has had single- year attendances that top 70,000 people. She continued her activism throughout her career, serving on numerous NCAA, ACC, AIAW, VAIAW, University and athletics de- partment committees as well as becoming the first woman on the board of directors for the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame. Her alma mater recognized her achievements by naming her among its Legacy of Leadership: One Hundred Incredible ECU Women. Jane Miller, the winningest coach in UVA women's lacrosse history and the longtime senior women's administrator for the Cava- liers, perfectly sums up Kelly's legacy: "Her efforts paved the way for more and more female student-athletes and coaches to come to this great University and participate in a premier athletics program. I was one of those coaches, and I am very grateful to Barbara and others for the opportunity to be at Virginia." REMEMBERING REMEMBERING BARBARA KELLY BARBARA KELLY The Founding Force Behind UVA Women's Athletics Kelly was hired as Virginia's first full-time female athletics staff member in 1971 and spent 38 years paving the way for more and more female student-athletes at the school. PHOTO BY JIM DAVES/COURTESY UVA YEARS OF WOMEN AT UVA