2011

Chris Voelz

From the time Chris Voelz was a four-sport student-athlete at Illinois State University, she has been a leader. During her successful high school teaching and coaching years, she helped to found the Illinois Girls Coaches Association, served on the AIAW Scholarship committee representing the nation’s high school coaches and authored Motivation in Coaching Team Sports. After leaving Illinois, she served as President of the AVCA and volleyball coach at the University of Oregon. In her role as Senior Associate with the Ducks, she was instrumental in the integration of women into the Pac-12 (then Pac 10).  Voelz also served as President of NACWAA and was selected to the NCAA Gender Equity Task Force, where she was an author of the definition of “gender equity” for intercollegiate athletics and NCAA use.

While at Oregon, she was instrumental in hosting three national championships and led the women’s sports to a #14 overall national ranking. Her expertise in fundraising at the University of Minnesota secured record donations, contributing to the building of eight facilities, the endowment of 28 scholarships, and addition of soccer, rowing and ice hockey teams. She hosted six national championships during her tenure, setting attendance records in most of them. Voelz is most proud of fostering an educationally-framed and value-driven department where student-athletes set academic records for GPA and graduation rates.

Voelz has been inducted into three Halls of Fame; Sports Fitness Magazine named her one of the most influential people in sports in the nation; and The Star Tribune of Minnesota named Voelz #22 of the 100 Most Important Sports Figures of the Century. Included in her numerous awards are NACWAA Lifetime Achiever and Administrator of the Year; the Governor’s Award for Leadership; NAGWS National Leadership Award; Minnesota Pathfinder Award; Building Bridges, Flame of Courage and Founding Feminist awards.

Since leaving the University of Minnesota in 2002, she continues her lifework as an active speaker and consultant, and serves as Leadership Gift Officer and ambassador for Billie Jean King’s Women’s Sports Foundation.

Judy Sweet

Judy Sweet was Director of Athletics at the University of California, San Diego from 1975-1999, and one of the first women in the nation selected to direct a combined men's and women's athletics program. During that time, UCSD athletics teams won 26 NCAA National Championships and received the NACDA Directors Cup in 1998 for being the most successful athletics program in NCAA Division III.

Judy was elected to a two-year term as President of the NCAA in January 1991 and was Secretary-Treasurer of the NCAA from 1989 to 1991, becoming the first woman to serve in each of those positions. She was Division III Vice President, the presiding officer of that division, from 1986-88. In 2001, following her retirement from UC-San Diego, Sweet joined the NCAA as Vice President for Championships and Senior Woman Administrator in January 2001 and was promoted to Senior Vice President for Championships and Education Services in 2003. Judy retired from the NCAA in September 2006 and now does consulting work nationally for universities and organizations and serves as co-director of the Alliance of Women Coaches.

Judy is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and earned a master’s degree from the University of Arizona and an MBA from National University, San Diego.  Prior to her appointment at UC San Diego in 1973, she taught and coached at the University of Arizona and Tulane University.

Judy has served on various local, state, and national committees, including the Board of Directors of NACWAA (serving as president 2000-01) and NACDA, and the Board of Trustees for The United States Sports Academy. She was a member of the United States Olympic Committee's Task Force on Minorities and serves on the Board of Trustees of National University.  Her many honors include the W. S. Bailey Award as the nation's distinguished athletic administrator; the 1993 California State Senate District 39 Woman of the Year; and the Big Ten Conference Centennial Award. In 2006, Judy was named the first NACWAA Legacy Honoree and in 2007 she was named by the Institute for International Sport as one of the 100 Most Influential Sports Educators in America. In 2009 Judy was inducted into the State of Wisconsin Sports Hall of Fame and in 2011 she was inducted into the University of Wisconsin Athletics Hall of Fame.

Established in her honor, the NACWAA Judith M. Sweet Commitment Award recognizes annually a mid-level athletics administrator who is committed to providing high-level leadership and guidance within intercollegiate athletics.

Louise O'Neal

Louise O'Neal retired from a successful career in 2006 after more than four decades as a college professor, coach and athletics administrator at Southern Connecticut State University, Yale University, Dartmouth College and Wellesley College.

O’Neal was one of the coaching pioneers who paved the way for women’s college basketball.  She coached a nationally successful basketball team at Southern Connecticut State from 1962-1976.  Her teams qualified for eight straight national collegiate championships and reached the Final Four four times.  She also coached Yale’s team, taking it from a previous best finish of fifth place to the Ivy Championship in three years and qualifying for postseason competition. Her last coaching role was for the U.S. National Team, winning the Gold Medal at the 1979 International Tournament. She was inducted into the Connecticut Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 1988 and New England Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006. In 2004, the WBCA named O’Neal the recipient of its Jostens-Berenson Service Award, recognizing her lifelong commitment of service to college women’s basketball.

In 1997, O’Neal was elected to the NCAA Management Council. She served on the Championship, Long Range Strategic Planning, Nominating, Women's Basketball Rules and Division III Women’s Golf committees. Former President of the EAIAW, O’Neal served as Commissioner of the AIAW Division I Championships and as chair and member of the National Women’s Basketball Committee. She also served on the NACDA Executive Board and the Sears Cup Selection Committee from 1994-98.

O’Neal, a resident of Wellesley, Mass., and native of Fort Worth, Texas, received her B.S. degree from North Texas State University and her M.S. degree from the University of Wisconsin.  She is also a graduate of the Harvard Institute for Educational Management and the Institute for Higher Education Administration at Bryn Mawr.

Nan Nichols

Nan Nichols served as Director of Women’s Athletics at the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, from 1974 to 1995. During her tenure as Director of Women’s Athletics, Nichols built a broad-based varsity women’s athletics program at Wooster, developing six women’s teams in less than a decade. At the time of her retirement in 1995 a total of 12 varsity women’s athletic programs were in place. In addition to her administrative role, Nichols also served as the head women’s basketball coach where she took two teams to the national championship, as well as the head women’s swimming and diving coach where she led the Scots to a remarkable 70-8 dual meet record. Off the court and outside the pool, she was also a dedicated Physical Education teacher.

Nichols served as chairperson for the Midwest Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (MAIAW) and the Ohio Association of Intercollegiate Sports for Women (OAISW). She was a key player in the establishment of the Centennial Conference and the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) in 1984, helping to establish the NCAC as a conference with equal vote on all issues for women and men.

Nichols graduated from Butler University in 1961, and then went on to earn her Master’s Degree from Bowling Green State University in 1965.