Christine Grant, University of Iowa’s trailblazing athletics administrator, dies at 85

IOWA CITY — Among all of the plaques and all of the honors Christine Grant received throughout her trailblazing career at the University of Iowa, one of her most treasured items was a letter of reprimand.

It came from the Iowa City Fire Department.

“I got in a little trouble,” Grant said in 2010, remembering a historic overflow crowd at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in 1985. “We had broken the fire code.”

Grant, who died Friday at age 85, broke a lot during her 27 years as director of women’s athletics at Iowa. A lot of barriers that today’s young female athletes can only begin to comprehend.

Along with the late E. Wayne Cooley, former executive director for the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union, nobody was more responsible for the growth of girls’ and women’s athletics in the state than Grant.

“I don’t know if my words can do her justice,” Iowa women’s basketball coach Lisa Bluder said earlier this year. “She means a lot to me. Of course I’m thankful that she hired me (in 2000). I’m equally thankful that she didn’t hire me in 1995. I became a better coach in my five years at Drake. I love her dearly for so many reasons. She gave all of us an opportunity to compete in a sport that we love.”

Born in Scotland in May 1936, Grant later coached field hockey in Canada before coming to Iowa City to pursue a degree in physical education. She earned her bachelor’s degree in 1969, her masters in 1970 and her Ph.D. in 1974.

Grant became the first women’s athletics director at Iowa in 1973. After she retired in 2000, the university merged the men’s and women’s departments.

The Hawkeyes won 27 Big Ten titles under Grant’s direction, and she hired such coaches as Judith Davidson (who led the field hockey team to the 1986 national title), Gayle Blevins (who directed the softball team to five Big Ten titles and two tournament crowns), C. Vivian Stinger (who took Iowa’s women’s basketball team to the Final Four in 1993) and Bluder (more than 800 career wins).

“She’s a giant among giants,” Stringer told the Des Moines Register in 2013. “I really can’t think of any woman who’s done more for women (in sports) in this entire country than Dr. Grant. Not one. Not one.”

A vision for Stringer and Grant came to fruition on Feb. 3, 1985, as the Iowa women’s basketball program was making its climb toward national prominence. On a sunny Sunday afternoon, a crowd of 22,157 filed into Carver-Hawkeye Arena for the Hawkeyes’ game against Ohio State.

“By 11:30, I knew we were in trouble,” Grant said. “I was slightly panicked.”

Cars were backed up all the way to Interstate 80. The state police called Grant, urging her to tell people to turn around. But the people kept coming.

“I remember looking out my office and seeing all of those cars behind Carver,” she said. “They kept coming and coming. People pleaded with us to let them in for a minute or two, to say they were there.”

A few days later, the letter of reprimand came from the fire department. Grant framed it and hung it to the wall in her office.

Grant was a leader in Iowa — and nationally — in girls’ and women’s athletics, testifying before Congress several times and serving as a consultant with the Civil Rights Title IX Task Force.

“Dr. Grant helped write Title IX,” senior associate athletics director Paula Jantz said upon her retirement from Iowa in 2016, after 36 years in the athletics department. “She was an advocate for equal opportunity from Day One. It was life-changing for me.”

In 2007, Grant became the fourth recipient of the Gerald R. Ford Award, which “honors individuals who have provided significant leadership as an advocate for intercollegiate athletics on a continuous basis over the course of his or her career.”

That same year, she was named one of the 100 most influential sports educators in America by the Institute of International Sport.

“People around the country are now finding out what we Iowans have known for a long time; Dr. Christine Grant was a wonderful teacher, coach, athletic administrator and proponent of women’s athletics,” Iowa athletics director Gary Barta said in 2007. “There’s no question the status of women, in today’s athletic world, is in large part due to the ideals and efforts championed by Dr. Christine Grant.”

Current IGHSAU executive director Jean Berger said, “Even after all of these years that I’ve known her, I will never call her anything other than Dr. Grant. It’s not Christine. It’s just reflective of the tremendous respect I have for her. I don’t know if there will ever be another person like her. She lived a life well-lived, and a life with so much meaning for so many people.”

Grant was honored with the Billie Jean King Award and the NCAA Honda Award of Merit for outstanding achievements in women’s athletics. She is a founding member and former president of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women and was president of the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators.

She was inducted into the Iowa Athletics Hall of Fame in 2006 and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016.

Iowa’s field hockey field was named in Grant’s honor in 1991 and, in 2019, Christine Grant Elementary opened in North Liberty.

“There’s no award that I have been given or will be given that means more to me than the naming of this school,” Grant said at the time. “Education is of the greatest gift that we can give to the next generations. It’s difficult for me to convey to you how much I’m honored by this recognition.”

J.R. Ogden of The Gazette contributed to this report.

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