Janis Taylor, left, and Cheryl Renneckar reminisce as they look at BGSU field hockey photos from the late 1960s and early ‘70s prior to the Feb. 4 “Leadership Years” banquet in the Bowen-Thompson Student Union. Taylor, who received her bachelor’s degree in 1971, was a freshman when Renneckar was a senior at BGSU. They were among more than 200 former Falcon women athletes who returned to campus to receive varsity letters earned before 1977, when women’s sports were granted varsity status on campus. The banquet, held in the Lenhart Grand Ballroom, was one of many activities tied to last week’s BGSU celebration of women’s athletics, “Women and Sport: Before, During, and After Title IX.”

Alumna who chronicled women sports pioneers is honored as one

Dr. Janis Taylor chronicled the first female professional baseball players on film several years before they were featured in the movie “A League of Their Own.”

Last weekend, Taylor was among the BGSU alumni recognized by the University as women sports pioneers in their own right.

Roughly 800 female students played competitive sports at BGSU before women’s athletics received varsity status on campus in 1977. About 215 of them returned to receive varsity letters at a Feb. 4 banquet and ceremony. They were also introduced at the women’s basketball game versus Ohio University the next day in Anderson Arena.

The University recognized their contributions during “Women and Sport: Before, During, and After Title IX,” a five-day symposium celebrating women in athletics.

“Every university and college needs to consider giving this type of recognition to pre-Title IX athletes,” said Taylor, who graduated from BGSU in 1971 with a bachelor’s degree in health and physical education.

During her college years, she played volleyball, basketball, field hockey and softball—the sport on which she focused after being “crushed” to learn at age 11 that “girls don’t play baseball.”

“When I was 15, a woman by the name of Katie Horstman joined our softball team,” Taylor remembered. “She said that she had played baseball when she was 16. Of course, I said what everybody had said to me, ‘No, you didn’t; girls don’t play baseball …’”

But Horstman, a player in the All American Girls Professional Baseball League from 1951-54, made a believer of Taylor on their team’s next practice day, bringing scrapbooks with newspaper stories about, and photos of, women playing baseball.

“Just to know that somewhere, at some time, women DID play baseball and got paid for it made all the difference to that little 15-year-old kid,” recalled Taylor, who also earned a master’s degree in college student personnel from BGSU, in 1973.

She went on to pursue a Ph.D. in film and broadcasting, eventually receiving the degree from Northwestern University in 1985. That same year, her former softball team, the Oxford (Ohio) Merchants, reunited to host a state tournament in Hamilton. She returned for the event, as did Horstman, who told her, “Jan, the All American Girls are reorganizing and having a reunion in Fort Wayne. You’ve got to come and make a documentary.”

With the help of funding from Northwestern, where she had become an assistant professor of radio/television/film, Taylor produced “When Diamonds Were a Girl’s Best Friend” in 1986. Released in 1987, it was followed by “When Dreams Come True” in 1989. The short documentaries were reviewed for setting of mood and some narrative aspects, she said, by producers of “A League of Their Own,” the 1992 film that told the story of the AAGPBL’s birth during World War II.

Taylor moved on to Northern Kentucky University in 1990, becoming an associate professor of communication. After retiring, she was granted emeritus status in 1999—the same year she took her current job as an administrator at Grailville, an environmental, education and retreat center in Loveland, Ohio.

More than 30 years removed from graduation, the Oxford resident was excited to come back to Bowling Green for the ceremonies honoring those who paved the way for today’s women athletes.

“Our professors and coaches were outstanding individuals who influenced and inspired so many young women,” Taylor said, noting that returning to BGSU “always feels like coming home.”

Pointing out that pre-Title IX women athletes could turn professional only in golf or tennis because no pro team sports were available, she added that she viewed last weekend’s event “as recognizing the shoulders on which the present professional athletes stand, particularly those women athletes who are participating in professional team sports now.

“The shoulders they stand on are coaches and athletes from programs like BGSU.”