Who was the first Black woman athlete at Iowa? A question leads to multiple answers with unclear history

Last Sunday's story on Marcella Benson-Quaziena was born out of a question that came naturally to me.

As we were nearing the end of Black History Month, I was reading and learning about the first Black athletes at the University of Iowa for an upcoming podcast series: Frank 'Kinney” Holbrook, Archie Alexander and Duke Slater. It's natural to wonder who the first Black woman athlete might've been.

I first asked Neal Rozendaal, the Iowa athletics historian I interviewed for my upcoming On Iowa podcast series on Black History. He didn't know, but he gave me a starting point in an email:

'As for the first Black female athlete at Iowa, I'm not sure that was ever definitively named. Women played club sports at Iowa for years, but it wasn't until 1974-75 (shortly after the passage of Title IX) that Iowa offered women's sports at the varsity level. By the mid-1970s, Black participation in sports was much more widespread, so I imagine there were a number of Black athletes on several of the inaugural women's varsity teams that year.”

I then asked the Iowa Women's Archives at the University Libraries, which provided me a link to digital access to yearbooks and noted 'C. Vivian Stringer was the first African American woman to coach women's basketball in the Big Ten (hired at Iowa in 1983) and now at Rutgers,” which is great, but not what I was looking for.

I started looking through the Iowa yearbooks online, flipping through 1972 first, and knowing that's when Title IX passed. But there wasn't another yearbook until 1977-78 available. It was there I found Marcella Benson pictured playing field hockey.

I contacted Iowa athletics and, after a day, I had Benson-Quaziena's name and phone number as the first Black woman athlete.

Of course, after the story was published, I found I wasn't correct, Iowa did have club sports for women in the early 1900s, which included some Black women, but I was looking for varsity sports.

Norma Peg Burke, former University of Iowa physical education professor and Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women president from 1976-77, called to tell me Emma Williams (now Squires) was actually the first Black woman athlete at Iowa and she lives 'right in your backyard” in Cedar Rapids.

After I posted this on the Field Hockey Pioneers Facebook page, Liz Ullman, the first women's sports information director at Iowa, sent me an article she wrote for The Daily Iowan, confirming Emma Squires had played basketball in 1973-74, making her the first Black woman athlete.

I called Squires, wondering why her name didn't come up.

'It didn't bother me,” she said. 'I read it, but Dr. Burke called me and told me to speak up.”

Squires has a humble, quiet personality. From what Burke had told me, Squires wouldn't have said anything had I not called her.

Squires played basketball and softball at Iowa from 1972-1974, meaning she missed the cutoff when Iowa women's athletics were considered intercollegiate and therefore wasn't credited as a varsity letterwinner.

That's why people like Andy Piro, the executive director of Iowa's varsity club, declares Benson-Quaziena the first Black woman athlete at Iowa. He said the first intercollegiate women's basketball team was the 1974-75 season under head coach Lark Birdsong when Christine Grant was the women's athletics director, but emphasized that's not to diminish Squires' or any other athletes' accomplishments.

Squires added she commuted from Cedar Rapids during her years at Iowa. Born in the south, she moved to Cedar Rapids at 8 years old and has been there ever since. She graduated as a double major in physical education and art, specifically ceramics. She's also received a culinary degree from Kirkwood Community College.

She worked for a printing press company after graduating from Iowa and was a softball umpire for many years at the little league and high school levels. She also spent 25 years as an umpire for the Triple-A Continental Amateur Baseball Association, watching kids like former MLB outfielder Ryan Sweeney make their way through the ranks.

She's now retired. She raised a family with six children, including three adopted, and now enjoys looking after her grandchildren and coaching them in softball and baseball.

But her time at Iowa was different from Benson-Quaziena's.

She remembers being the only Black woman on the basketball team, but never faced any prejudice. The team played smaller colleges like Coe College or Iowa Wesleyan in Mount Pleasant in her early years, but she did remember playing some Big Ten teams like Indiana and Wisconsin in her later years.

And while Lark Birdsong was credited as the first women's basketball coach at the University of Iowa, Squires had played under Ina Anderson, who preceded Birdsong.

The conclusion, according Piro, is Benson-Quaziena had lettered in softball in 1974-1977 and field hockey in 1975 and 1976.

Historical records of Iowa's women's sports aren't clear, as I stated in my previous story, that's why there's the Field Hockey Pioneers, who are working to piece them together.

March is Women's History Month and, during this time, it's important to reflect on all pioneering women in their respective fields or contributions to history.

Regardless, I'm surprised to be the first to ask the question of who was the first Black woman athlete at Iowa. I may be primarily The Gazette's football reporter, but as a former athlete and a woman sportswriter who has previously documented historic events for women's athletics at the high school and professional level, I ask that we don't forget to think about the women's side of history.

Comments: (319) 398-8387; leah.vann@thegazette.com