IWL, rugby to host women in sports panel with senior Bennies

The Institute for Women’s Leadership is partnering with the CSB rugby team this Friday, April 8, to host a student-athlete panel on women in sports on Friday at 4 p.m. in O’Connell’s student lounge.

The rugby team will host a drill clinic afterwards.

Rugby senior Hailee Thayer is running the event along with seniors Tess Glenzinski (rugby), Nora Doyle (track and field), Anna Hughes (lacrosse) and Lily Fredericks (tennis). Glenzinski and Doyle are both editors for The Record.

The group of panelists will talk about what it is like to be a Bennie on campus as well as what it means to be a woman in sports.

They will also discuss how being an athlete has helped shape their college experience and how it will impact them later in life.

“We are going to share our experiences about what it has been like being involved in a college sport and what it has been like especially being a woman in a sport,” Fredericks said. “We all have unique experiences, so it’s important for us as women to be heard about our sports experiences—an area of society that is a lot of the times male-dominated.”

College athletics have allowed many athletes to become leaders on the playing field and in life.

To Fredericks, the effect of women in sports is impactful for the next generation.

“[Being a leader in sports] shows young girls and the community in general that women are just as capable as men of competing in all types of sports and that it is not just a place for men and boys.”

Hughes, a lacrosse player for the CSB team, amplifies voices through leadership.

“While being a leader in sports can be very difficult, it gives me the opportunity to empower my players and give them the space to use their voice.”

Sports are important to hundreds of thousands of athletes across the nation. Almost half a million student-athletes compete every year.

“[Competing sports helps] redefine what it means to be feminine and what it means to be a woman because you’re breaking traditional gender norms by competing in a sport and competing in sports that have been male-dominated,” Thayer said.

Sports have also helped instill values in athletes. Hughes says that sports help build character.

“What I have noticed is that women who play sports, build confidence, teach you to fail and try again, how to use your voice on and off the field and set goals for yourself,” Hughes said.