Athletic Dept. adds W. Golf to program

The team will make its formal debut in this spring's Ivy tournament. It's only been 258 years since the University's founding, but Penn will finally have a women's golf team -- it will be a full varsity sport starting in the fall of 1999. Penn will be the sixth Ivy League school to field such a team, leaving Cornell and Columbia as the only schools in the conference without one. Women's golf is rising in popularity throughout the country, and many universities are adding teams to keep pace. The first Ivy League women's golf tournament took place in 1997 and involved Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown and Princeton. The conference hopes that all eight member schools will soon be competing. The effort to start a women's golf program at Penn and to endow both the men's and women's programs was given a recent boost by a pair of generous alumni contributions. The Penn golf program received a total of $250,000 from the Judge John C. Pappas Family Charitable Foundation, Inc. and the Thomas Anthony Pappas Family Charitable Foundation. "These gifts will give the men's team an opportunity to build on its past success," Penn Athletic Director Steve Bilsky said. "Equally important, it will expand opportunities for women athletes to compete on a varsity level." Penn women have already competed on what Penn golf coach Francis Vaughn refers to as a "mixed team." According to Vaughn, several men have been joined by a few female Quakers to play golf each year since he became coach in 1996. Vaughn will assume coaching duties for the women's team in addition to his current position as the men's coach. There are already a few women competing as an unofficial team. They competed at the Princeton Invitational two weekends ago but did not post an official score. The team, led by senior captain Lindsay Stern, expects to compete in this spring's Ivy League Championship. The other Quakers currently playing are junior Natasha Miller, sophomore Karen Pearlman, and freshman Victoria Entine. Miller called Stern the "driving force" behind the efforts to function as an unofficial non-varsity sport. Fortunately, such efforts soon will no longer be necessary. While Stern will not directly benefit from the initiation of the varsity program because of her graduation in May, she nevertheless feels excited about starting the program at Penn. "I love it," Stern said. "I think it's wonderful Penn's going to join the five other schools in the Ivy League who already have teams." The women's golf team is the latest effort by Penn to establish the equality of men's and women's athletics, as required by the NCAA's Title IX. "Penn is very committed to providing increased opportunities for women whenever possible," Bilsky said. "Several years ago we added women's soccer and now we're pleased to be adding women's golf." The women's soccer team, established in 1991 as the last Ivy League team and winless in its first two conference seasons, has been one of Penn's top athletic programs the last two years. The women's golf program hopes to duplicate the quick success of that team. The women who are already playing on the unofficial team are in the process of trying to recruit two new players for the spring semester, since Miller is going abroad and the team wants to have five players. Official recruiting by Vaughn is expected to begin soon. Stern said the program will be searching for a full-time assistant coach for the days when Vaughn goes out with the men's team. The new women's golf team also hopes to find a course at which it can play full-time. Over the next several months, the program hopes to settle these issues and continue to add alumni donations in the effort to endow Penn golf. "Thanks to alumni and friends of the program like Jim Pappas, collegiate golf at Penn has a future," Vaughn said. "Hopefully, Jim's gift will foster other endowment gifts so that men's and women's golf will carry on in perpetuity." For Penn women's golf, perpetuity begins next year.