SUNY Cortland Athletics

The late Katherine “Tyke” Ley, who died in December 1982 at 63 years of age, was a nationally renowned leader in athletics administration who, as the SUNY Cortland women’s physical education department chair from 1966-78, advocated and oversaw the transformation of women’s athletics from “play days” into full-fledged intercollegiate competition.

Ley earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin, her master’s degree from UCLA and her Ph.D. from the University of Iowa.

She began her professional career in 1941 as a physical education teacher in Platteville, Wis., public school system. She taught two years at Iowa State University and was a graduate assistant at UCLA and the University of Iowa. Ley was an associate professor at the University of Colorado from 1946-60 and at the University of Michigan from 1961-66.

During her 12 years at SUNY Cortland, Ley strongly supported the passage of Title IX and the subsequent expansion and emphasis given to women’s sports. Every step of the way, Ley ensured that Cortland’s actions would be based on sound ethical principles.

A national leader, Ley led organizations that created and sponsored the first women’s intercollegiate national championships in 1969. She was president of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education and Recreation (AAHPER), chaired the Committee on Standards for Girls’ and Women’s Sports, chaired and co-founded the Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (CIAW) which later became the AIAW, and chaired the Division of Girls’ and Women’s Sports (DGWS) — a national organization that set standards, established rules and prepared officials for the conduct of women’s sport programs.

Ley was a member of the United States Olympic Development Committee, a member of the Amateur Athletics Union (AAU), and on the governing councils of the U.S. Track and Field, Gymnastics and Basketball Federations

As a member of the NCAA Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, she was the first woman to make a presentation to that committee. She was the AAHPER representative at a White House meeting on equal rights. A noted author, she co-wrote Individual and Team Sports for Women and a Manual of Physical Education Activities.

In 1975, she received the M. Gladys Scott Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Iowa. In 2008, the National Association of Collegiate Women’s Athletic Administrators presented her posthumously with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Inducted into the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Hall of Fame, Ley was named by her peers as a prestigious Fellow of the American Academy of Physical Educators.

In 1983, the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) established the Katherine Ley Award to honor a member school women’s athletic administrator who exemplifies the outstanding values and characteristics displayed by Ley.

From 1978 until her retirement in 1981, Ley was the athletics director at Capital University in Ohio. At the time, she was one of only two female athletic administrators heading both men’s and women’s athletics.