Central Michigan University Athletics
Female Athletes Will Be Brought To Life During Sports History Series Presentation
Oct. 30, 2002
MOUNT PLEASANT - The history of women in sport will vividly come to life during two presentations scheduled for Nov. 5 as part of the Marge Bulger Sport History Lecture Series at Central Michigan University.
Karla Wolters, associate professor of kinesiology at Hope College, will present "Her Passion to Play" at 3:30 p.m. and "Early Bloomers" at 7 p.m. in the Bovee University Center Auditorium on the CMU campus. Both programs are free and open to the public.
"Karla is a fantastic entertainer," said Janet Helfrich, a professor in CMU's physical education and sport department. "She dresses as characters from the past and talks about their lives in an educational, entertaining and enlightening way. The audience will learn a lot about the women who contributed to the history of sports."
Wolters changes outfits for each character she portrays during presentations, which look back at a single period in the athlete's life and ends with a letter describing her impressions of life at that time, she said.
During the 3:30 p.m. presentation she will portray four female baseball players: Alta Weiss, Maud Nelson, Ruth Richards and Julie Croteau.
At 7 p.m. she will portray four women from different sports: Mary Outerbridge, who brought tennis to America; Senda Berenson, who adapted basketball founder James Naismith's rules for women; Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim the English channel; and Babe Zaharias, voted the greatest female athlete of the first half of the 20th century.
Wolters is in her 30th year of teaching physical education and coaching, 29 of those years at the college level. A year after graduating from Hope College in 1973, she switched from teaching elementary physical education to teaching and coaching at rival Calvin College. Thirteen years later, she returned to her alma mater in a similar position.
In the past three decades she has coached five intercollegiate sports: volleyball, basketball, field hockey, tennis and softball. Currently she coaches only softball and will begin her 25th year on the diamond this spring.
As a teacher in Hope's kinesiology department, Wolters supervises all of the college's physical education student teachers and teaches a seminar on the history of women's sports and a course on the history of physical education and sports.
An avid collector of sports memorabilia, especially women's sports equipment and other collectibles, she is writing a textbook on the history of physical education and sports in her spare time.
A portion of her collection will be featured at the Grand Rapids Public Museum in February.
Wolters gives historical presentations on women in sports two or three times a year, mostly in the Midwest, and talks about other subjects, including women in the Olympics, when asked.
Her parents should have known that sports were in her blood when she broke a collarbone playing football at age 3 and did not want to leave the field, said Wolters.
While growing up, she played tennis and badminton - the only sports available to women at that time - in high school and field hockey, basketball, volleyball and tennis in college.
The lecture series was established in memory of Marge Bulger, former member and chairwoman of the physical education and sport department at CMU, by her husband, William Bulger, a retired CMU history professor.
CONTACT: Janell Johnson, (989) 774-3197