Mary J. Culhane Papers

Mary Jo Culhane was born on August 30, 1921 in Des Moines, Iowa to James Leo (1893-1973) and Maye Holland Culhane (1893-1924).  She attended the University of Iowa where she received a B.A. in 1943, and a M.A. in 1956, with a brief stint in a graduate program at the University of California, Los Angeles.  She taught physical education in the public schools at Muscatine and Des Moines, and Riverside, California before coming to Oberlin’s Department of Physical Education in the fall of 1956 with a specialization in aquatics.  She taught at Oberlin until her retirement in 1988, with the exception of two years teaching in California in order to be close to her ill mother, from 1966 to 1968.  In 1969 she contributed a chapter on trampolining for the book Physical Education Activities for Women edited by her predecessor at Oberlin, Elizabeth Foster "Betty" McCue (1916-1996), published by MacMillan.

Beginning in 1957 she directed Sync-Swim, a synchronized swimming club that practiced twice weekly and gave performances each spring in Crane Pool.  The Oberlin swimmers competed in the annual Midwestern collegiate championships at the University of Michigan in the 1960s, and Culhane’s teams had first-place winners in both the solo and duet competitions.  The program went into decline in the 1970s owing partly to tensions on campus during the Vietnam War.  Culhane was a professor in the Oberlin College Peace Corps Training Program in the summer of 1964 and 1966.

In 1972 Title IX was passed, mandating equal opportunities for women in physical education.  Culhane’s career in women’s athletics spans the period both immediately before and after this landmark legislation. Within a few years, women’s varsity athletics would become a large part of the physical education program at the college.  In 1974 Culhane was promoted to associate professor, and in 1977 Culhane was made Women’s Athletic Director at Oberlin.

Culhane was instrumental in the formation of the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) in 1983, the country’s first intercollegiate conference to be created with a coeducational structure.  Each of the original seven NCAC schools had an equal number of varsity sports for men and women and distributed money equally to men’s and women’s programs.  (The NCAC now consists of ten institutions).  Oberlin had long been a member of the Ohio Athletic Conference, which had resisted official sponsorship of women’s sports in the early 1980s.

On Women-in-Sports Day (now the National Girls and Women in Sports Day Celebration) in 1988, Culhane was honored as one of the “outstanding women athletes, coaches, and athletic directors” at a ceremony in the Ohio senate chamber.  At the time she was Oberlin’s head coach of women’s indoor and outdoor track, assistant head coach of volleyball, and a teacher of water-safety instructor-training, scuba diving, and other swimming activities.

After her retirement in 1988, Culhane continued to swim competitively in U.S. Masters Swimming events.  That year she won first place in the 50-meter breast stroke at the senior long course nationals held in Raleigh, North Carolina.  She was also on the winning women’s 200-meter medley relay team, and placed in five other events.  In 1992 she captured three first-place finishes and one second in the 70-74 age category at the Ohio Masters State Swimming Championships held in Cincinnati.

Mary Culhane passed away on December 31, 2009. In April of 2010, the department of athletics rededicated the softball field in her memory. Culhane Field is recognized with a commemorative sign in the outfield.

Sources Consulted

Memorial minute for Mary J. Culhane by Joe Karlgaard, Director of Athletics and Physical Education, 8 September 2010 (Faculty file for Mary J. Culhane).

Faculty File for Mary J. Culhane (RG 28/3).

Note written by Anne Cuyler Salsich