CNJ+ May 2024

WOMEN CHANGING HISTORY THE YEAR WAS 1966 By Pam Teel

What might seem archaic in this day and age, was the norm just fifty years ago. There were those individual women who bravely stood up in defiance of things and events that were deemed for men only. Take the Bos ton Marathon, for example, until 1972, under the AAU (Amateur Athletic Union rules), the Boston Marathon was for men only. Women were not qualified to run in any men’s division races, not just in Boston, but all over America. The Boston Marathon, a prestigious an nual marathon race held in Massachusetts since 1897, usually around St. Patrick’s Day, has a course that winds through various roads, in cluding Route 135, Route 16, Route 30, and city streets, and ultimately leads to the official finish line at Copley Square in Boston, alongside the Boston Public Library. Twenty-three year old, Roberta (Bobbi) Gibb attempted to register for the 1966 race but was refused by the race director, Will Cloney, in a letter in which he claimed women were physiologically incapable of running 26 miles, and that under the rules that governed amateur sports set out by the AAU, women were not allowed to run in a race that was more than a mile and a half. Gibb trained for two years to run the Boston Marathon, covering as much as 40 miles in one day. Her running included daily commuting of the eight miles to school. She ran in white leather Red Cross nurses’ shoes because there were no running shoes available for women at the time. She was already established as a long-distance runner. After the initial rejection of her application, Gibb realized that it was more important than ever to run that race and that her run would have a social significance far beyond just her own challenge. After three nights and four days on a bus from San Diego, California, Gibb arrived the day before the race at her parents’ house in Winchester, Mas sachusetts. On the morning of Patriots’ Day, April 19, 1966, her mother, reluctantly, dropped her off at the start in Hopkinton. Wearing her broth er’s Bermuda shorts and a blue hooded sweatshirt over a black, tanked-top swimsuit, and men’s sneakers, she hid in the bushes near the starting pen. After the starting gun fired, she waited until about half the pack had started and then jumped into the race. It didn’t take long for male runners in Gibb’s vicinity to realize that she was a woman. Gibb expected them to shoulder her off the road or call out to the police. Instead, the other runners told her that if anyone tried to interfere with her race, they would put a stop to it.

Encouraged by their friend liness and support, she re moved her sweatshirt. As soon as it became clear that a woman was running in the marathon, the crowd erupted with pure joy. Many men, not all, cheered her on, and women cried out in support. The press began to report on her progress towards Boston. The word spread to the Wellesley Col lege campus that a female was running in the race. It wasn’t long before crowds of college students, both male and female, lined the streets in support of her, waiting for her to pass by the campus. By the time Gibb reached the finish line in Boston, the Governor of Massachusetts, John Volpe, was there to

Rather than simply letting her run, officials tried to pull her from the race. Fortunately, Kathrine Switzer was running alongside her boyfriend, who helped fend off those around her.

shake her hand. At first, she feared that he would arrest her. She finished the race in three hours, twenty-one minutes, and forty seconds, ahead of two thirds of the runners. The following morning her feat was front-page news in the Record American, where the headline read: “Hub Bride First Gal to Run Marathon.” In another Record American article, a headline read: “Ro berta Gets Official Support: Females May Run Marathon.” Yet another read: “Roberta the runner may revolutionize Boston’s fabled BAA marathon- and for that matter, every other long-distance run staged in the country.” On the other hand, the furor over a woman’s intrusion into what had been an all-male domain was mounting. The May 2, 1966, issue of Sports Illustrated featured an article written by Gwilym S. Brown entitled “A Game Girl in A Man’s Game”: “Last week a tidy-looking and pretty 23-year-old blonde named Roberta Gibb Bingay, (her married name), not only started but also covered the 26-mile, 385-yard course at a clip fast enough to finish ahead of no fewer than 290 of the event’s 415 starters.” In another article from the Boston Traveler dated April 20, 1966, the day following the marathon, the race director, Will Cloney is quoted questioning the authenticity of Gibb even participating in the race. “Mrs. Bingay (Gibb) did not run in yesterday’s marathon. There is no such thing as a marathon for a woman. She may have run in a road race, but she did not race in the marathon. I have no idea of this woman running. She was not at any of our checkpoints and none of our checkers saw her. For all I know she could have jumped in at Kenmore Square.” Gibbs simply replied, “If you don’t believe me, ask the runners who saw me, or the spectators who were cheering for me. I don’t want to get into a public debate with Mr. Cloney about it. If he doesn’t believe me, that’s his business.”

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