Ellen Greaves: Taking Advantage of a University of Illinois Education
By Mike Pearson

FightingIllini.com
Dr. Ellen Greaves was born a little bit as well early to have experienced the opportunity to carry out as a varsity athlete for the University of Illinois. Nonetheless, that isn’t going to lessen the effects that she’s been ready to make in behalf of women’s athletics and training in standard in the course of the 50-12 months period since her graduation from UIUC in 1972.
Nevertheless the youngster who grew up in Hinsdale failed to have numerous likelihood herself to contend in sporting activities throughout that pre-Title IX period of time, she’s been steadfastly decided in her position as an administrator to amount the path for these who’ve adopted in her footsteps.
“My mother, bless her heart, was not athletic at all, but she listened to each Cub recreation,” Greaves remembered. “She and a different mother from my friendship group didn’t want us to not have an chance, so they volunteered to be our softball coaches. Well, they were being terrible as coaches, but they located a improved man or woman to mentor us the next 12 months.”
When Ellen received to Hinsdale Central Superior University, there was pretty minor in terms of sports opposition offered to women — a stark distinction to the ample alternatives supplied to all those of the reverse gender.
“We had a superior intramural system for ladies, but had been restricted to just a handful of tennis, badminton and archery matches,” claimed Greaves. “It was fairly insignificant. We had these play times when 5 or 6 schools would get jointly … play our games and then try to eat a bunch of cookies. That was quite unsatisfactory as significantly as we had been involved.”
When a new bodily schooling trainer arrived to Hinsdale in Greaves’ senior 12 months (1968) — a year when she presided in excess of the school’s Girls Athletic Association — the stakes rose considerable
“We considered we ended up very hot stuff and we believed that if the boys can have tournaments, why are unable to we?” Greaves claimed. “So we submitted paperwork to get acceptance from the IHSA (Illinois Substantial College Association).”
A handful of days afterwards, Greaves’ advisor acquired a connect with from the IHSA that told them that their ask for experienced been denied.
“Why not?,” Greaves asked her advisor. “She mentioned ‘It’s because you happen to be women. And if you insist on accomplishing it, they are heading to punish the boys.’ Of program, later on I realized what was going on. They were being threatening to punish the boys to manage the absence of possibilities for ladies. For me, that was a pivotal second. I vowed that if there was nearly anything I could do to make sure that ladies had a likelihood for options, I would do it.”
Greaves matriculated to the University of Illinois throughout a time in background when students protested the war in Vietnam and fought for women’s rights.

“It was an remarkable time to be in faculty,” she explained. “I glance it as a pretty positive, stimulating time. We went from obtaining no student involvement in any college committees to getting (representation) on the Board of Trustees.”
Academically, Greaves was enrolled in UI’s Office of Physical Instruction for Ladies. She participated in 4 club athletics (golfing, volleyball, basketball and area hockey). As a junior, with Dr. Nell Jackson serving as her academic advisor, she served as president of the Women’s Extramural Athletics Association and performed a major job in reworking WESA into the Women’s Intercollegiate Sports Association.
Mere months right after Greaves obtained her bachelor’s degree in June of 1972, Title IX laws passed.
“It was sort of like a time bomb,” she claimed. “Title IX was understated and not covered really significantly (by the media). I was anticipating some pushback for the reason that there was a two-12 months interval when it went by means of an administrative approach of defining what it intended. The NCAA proved me suitable when people recognized what it could probably indicate for equivalent funding.”
From 1974 to 1979, Greaves examined for her doctorate diploma at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She was then employed as UNCG’s Director of Campus Recreation and continued in that capability right until 1990. At that place, her vocation goals altered course, which allowed her to return to her roots in Champaign-Urbana.
“I felt that I might performed all that I could do in campus recreation,” Greaves said. “I consider myself to be a builder relatively than someone who coasts. I really like the exploration element of larger education and learning and I felt that it was significant that men and women have been dealt with reasonably. Heading on to law college (at the College of Illinois) just designed feeling.”
Following completing her degree in 1993, Greaves served as company counsel for the Illinois Condition Workers Affiliation, then as the condition leader for the Female Scouts in Illinois, and then as govt director for the Qualified Educators of North Carolina. Considering the fact that 2007, she’s headed her possess firm in Raleigh, N.C.: ECG Mediation & Consulting Solutions.
Greaves has been significantly uplifted about the long term of women’s athletics about the previous quite a few months.
“This previous yr has genuinely been quite potent,” she reported. “Final March, throughout the NCAA Match, when that basketball participant (College of Oregon’s Sedona Prince) videoed the pounds rooms (displaying the inequities between the men’s and women’s perform-out parts), I feel it lit an outstanding fireplace. Converse about a ticking time bomb. A good deal of time, girls have been taken edge of simply because they failed to know what downside their packages had been less than when they were being employed. Or probably they were employed simply because they wouldn’t make waves. God bless (South Carolina women’s basketball coach) Dawn Staley she is not going to allow that come about. We are at a place the place there could be a revelation of dissimilarities in recruiting budgets and vacation budgets, for example. Some of it is that ladies will not think expansively about how to invest funds, and the men do consider expansively.”
A girl of action and objective, Greaves not too long ago made an endowment to aid UI’s endeavours to bring in and retain remarkable college. Moreover, through that substantial reward in her estate, Greaves will supply options for college students that have fiscal need to have.
“Somewhat than figuring out a specific device, I want to reward the university as a whole,” she said.