The AVCA Diversity Development Team History Commission was formed in December of 2020 with the goal to recognize, amplify, and celebrate the rich history of the sport of volleyball. 2021 marked Phase 1 of the Commission’s work in conjunction with the AVCA’s 40th Anniversary celebration. Phase 2 of the Commission’s work will begin today with a Black History Month feature on the late Dr. Donnis Thompson written by award-winning sportswriter Cindy Luis. It is fitting to spotlight this trailblazing woman who embodies Black excellence on National Girls & Women in Sports Day. Her contribution to the fight for gender equality that led to groundbreaking change and opportunity for female student-athletes in the mid-1960s still resonates today as we commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the signing of Title IX legislation into law in 1972. Dr. Thompson passed away on February 2, 2009, after a decades long battle for opportunities for girls and women. Will you finish the battle?
Her eyesight failed her at the end, finally conceding to the harsh realities of age and disease. It was one of the few battles that Dr. Donnis Thompson lost during a remarkable career that spanned decades and mirrored that of the rise of women’s intercollegiate athletics.
Thompson, who died in 2009, was more than a pioneer. She was a visionary, one who overcame the trifecta of prejudice during her lifetime: An African American. A woman. A female athlete.
Whether they are aware of it or not, thousands of female University of Hawai‘i athletes owe Thompson their careers. It was her tenacity and commitment to equality and justice that paved the way for the Rainbow Wahine program that currently sponsors 12 sports and offers playing opportunities for hundreds annually.
But her legacy reaches beyond the islands that were 4,200 miles from her hometown of Chicago. There was a reason that the late Congresswoman Patsy Mink (D-Hawaii) asked Thompson to help her write the legislation for Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the landmark law designed to prevent discrimination based on gender in education or activities that received federal financial assistance.
The intent of Title IX, Mink said in a 2002 interview with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, was to end the discrimination that women such as herself encountered when applying to colleges. When denied acceptance to a number of medical schools, Mink instead pursued her law degree at the University of Chicago—one of the few that admitted women at the time—partly, she said, to help end the discrimination in academics.
Mink found a kindred soul in Thompson, who prized education and athletics equally, the combination of which shared the top spot on her passion podium. She graduated from high school at 16, and carried the belief that academics and sports were all part of the higher learning of life.
Doors had cracked open while Thompson was in high school. She excelled at track and field, and began traveling with AAU teams and, later, the Chicago Comets Track Club. Thompson then enrolled at George Williams College, an institution that had its genesis in the YMCA’s key concept of integration of body, mind and spirit, and won a national shot put title in 1953 prior to graduating.
And then came the biggest throw of her life. Thompson received a call from the University of Hawai‘i asking if she’d consider coaching the school’s inaugural women’s track and field team. It was 1961, two years after statehood, and having UH teams compete in intercollegiate athletes was seen as recognition of the 50th state’s transition from a territory.
“I had 1 minute to decide,” Thompson said in a 2007 interview. “I didn’t know what to do with the other 59 seconds.”
She became one of the first African-American women to coach a college team and, a year later, Thompson was chosen to coach the U.S. Women’s National Track Team in a meet against Russia.
Academia continued to call and Thompson, who was also teaching in addition to her coaching duties, and she left Hawai‘i after three years to pursue her doctorate at Northern Colorado. The Wahine track and field program quietly folded.
Thompson returned to the University of Hawai‘i to teach and, after the passage of Title IX, she was appointed the school’s first women’s athletic director, becoming one of the first African-American women to hold that position. Her budget was $5,000, and the only female on scholarship was the band’s baton twirler.
Her rise in the athletic world coincided with that of women in sports and the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). Thompson was an integral part of the AIAW, officially established in 1972, which had a parallel path of struggles and success.
The two had their share of both, with lawsuits in the name of equality and equity, and the growing popularity of their respective programs. In 1975, the first women’s college basketball in Madison Square Garden drew more than 12,000.
In 1976, Hawai‘i became one of the first schools to charge admission for women’s volleyball—and one of Thompson’s dreams was realized. The Rainbow Wahine volleyball team sold out Blaisdell Arena, and 7,813 were on hand for a marquee match against rival UCLA. (The two programs had met in the AIAW championship match the previous two seasons with the Bruins winning both).
She remained relevant nationally and internationally. Although she lost what would be the final election for AIAW president to Donna Lopiano, the Texas women’s athletic director, Thompson was named the administrator of the World Games in Mexico City.
By the time Thompson announced her resignation to become the Hawai‘i Department of Education’s first female school superintendent in October 1981, five more women’s sports had been added at UH, bringing the number to seven; the Wahine volleyball team had won its first national title (AIAW 1979); and the University of Hawai‘i women’s teams—as happened with most of the rest of the country—had been absorbed by the NCAA.
Following two years as schools superintendent, Thompson returned and taught at the university until 1991. She often attended athletic events, saw the Wahine volleyball team add three more national titles (1982, ’83, ’87), saw one of her first hires—women’s volleyball coach Dave Shoji, part-time at $2,000 a season in 1975—become the winningest coach in the sport, and saw the program become the first in the country to turn a profit and UH lead the nation in average attendance from 1994-2012 at over 6,000.
Before her death on Feb. 2, 2009, Thompson continued to be recognized for her influence on athletics and education. She received the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Outstanding Service Award; was a Girl Scout Council of Hawai‘i Woman of Distinction; earned the YWCA Leadership Award; and received lifetime achievement awards from the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators and Women Leaders in College Sports. She was inducted into the University of Hawai‘i Sports Circle of Honor and the Hawai‘i State Sports Hall of Fame, and her statue was permanently erected on the concourse of the Stan Sheriff Center, the university’s 10,300-seat arena.
Thompson also is the central figure featured posthumously in the 2014 documentary “Rise of the Wahine: Champions of Title IX.” As she was fond of saying, “Anything worth having is worth having now.”
“She was an amazing lady,” said Beth McLachlin, who played for the Wahine (1974-75, ’77) and captained the 1976 U.S. national team. “At a time when it wasn’t cool to be a strong woman, she knew where we needed to go and pushed things in that direction.”
McLachlin recalled a time in fall 1977 when she and Thompson went to see newly hired athletic director Ray Nagel, whose agenda included beefing up the football budget after the team’s tumultuous 3-6 season in 1976.
“I would have told him off, but she was so calm and confident,” McLachlin said. “She told him we were all excited to see the football team do well and she knew he wanted to bring the women’s programs along, that lifting one program could lift all.”
Thompson’s voice was as distinctive as her signature red earrings and red shoes.
“What I remember is, whenever she spoke, she always used her words so eloquently,” said Marilyn Moniz, who played for the Wahine volleyball team from 1972 to 1975) and was the third UH women’s athletic director from 1989-2017. “It was composed and intense, but rational. I remember thinking a number of times, ‘I have to write that down.’
“When we went to (the AIAW volleyball national tournament in 1975 at Princeton, N.J.), she made sure that we went to Washington, D.C. We met Patsy Mink, had lunch with her and (Sen.) Spark Matsunaga. Yes, she was my A.D. but she also was my role model. When I was hired, she told me I didn’t have to be like she was. She said she HAD to be strong and aggressive.
“I have such respect for her. I still call her ‘Doctor Thompson.’ She wasn’t just involved on campus, she was engaged with others and all aspects of the community.”
Cindy Boerner Mazda was hired “on the spot” to be Thompson’s graduate assistant in 1976. Boerner Mazda had been working at the Pro Football Hall of Fame and flew out to Hawai‘i to be interviewed.
Five years later, Boerner Mazda became UH’s second women’s athletic director.
“Nobody could replace Donnis, I just succeeded her,” said Boerner Mazda, who went on to become the assistant commissioner at the Atlantic 10 Conference before retiring. “I learned a lot by watching her and paying attention to how she dealt with situations.”
The battles were constant, from the state legislature, which was in charge of funding the university, to the UH athletic administration.
“She was one tough lady, who really believed in what she was fighting for,” said Shoji, who retired as volleyball coach after 42 seasons in 2015. “She had a constant battle with our male administrators. It’s not that I was enlightened, but it was her pointing out that our women athletes didn’t have the same things as the men. She was way ahead of her time.
“She was a real pain in their … sides. It may have not been politically correct to grant her wishes. I think they kind of gave in a little because they didn’t want her in their office every day!”