Hall of Fame
Perhaps no one person had more to do with the foundation of women’s sports at Slippery Rock than Marie Wheaton.
A New Castle native, Wheaton followed up on her bachelor’s degree from Slippery Rock in 1947 with a master’s degree from New York University and a doctorate from the Peabody School of Education at Vanderbilt University.
Wheaton, who was a professor in the SRU physical education department for nearly a quarter century, not only helped launch the field hockey and volleyball programs at The Rock, but also led the charge to lift women’s sports as a whole to varsity status.
Despite a past history in the early 1920’s of women’s teams competing against other colleges, that practice had long been stopped at Slippery Rock by the time Wheaton came to The Rock as both a student and later a professor and coach. Wheaton explained to Leah Brown in an interview conducted in 1994 what caused the cease in intercollegiate events for women at Slippery Rock and what it meant to the students.
“Everyone was against women’s intercollegiate teams here,” said Wheaton. “Now we used to do it anyway, but they were against it and we were not allowed to officially say we were from Slippery Rock. Intercollegiate competition for women was not in the philosophy here at that time. The students at that time wanted sports, they were dying for intercollegiate activity.”
Along with colleague Nancy Barthelemy, Wheaton successfully petitioned then-president Weisenfluh to once again allow women to represent Slippery Rock in intercollegiate contests.
“All we were asking for was permission to take our team out and say that we were from Slippery Rock,” said Wheaton. “That’s it, we didn’t ask for money, we didn’t ask for uniforms, we didn’t ask for gas. We just wanted that one thing, to say we were from Slippery Rock. It’s a far cry from what they have now, but it was a big first step at the time.”
In a show of appreciation for Wheaton’s many contributions to Slippery Rock athletics throughout the years, the 2009 SRU volleyball team presented Wheaton with a signed game ball. Head coach Laurie Lokash explained why in an interview for ROCK Magazine in 2009.
“We gave her the game ball because of the difference she made,” said Lokash. “It was made very clear that she’s the reason why current women players have the opportunities they do today, because of her and the others’ pioneering leadership.”
While sports have changed drastically since Wheaton coached the core principles that make athletics great remained the same.
“It wasn’t as fierce competitively and I sometimes wonder if we had more fun, but even back then our goals as coaches were much the same,” Wheaton said in an interview conducted in 2009. “We pushed and motivated our athletes to work hard and do the best they could. It was gratifying to see them satisfy a desire to improve their skills and themselves.”
Wheaton passed away in 2016 at the age of 91. A true supporter of Slippery Rock volleyball until the very end, it was asked in Wheaton’s obituary that in lieu of flowers that memorial contributions be made to the Dr. Marie Wheaton Volleyball Fund.
