Changing the game for good

As a basketball star, Dr. Marilyn McNeil always made a difference.

In the decades that followed her stellar playing career, McNeil’s impact continued off the court. As a coach and an administrator, she was a passionate advocate for women in sport. Through her tireless work at the University of Calgary, McGill University, California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) and Monmouth University in New Jersey, McNeil, BPE’68, EdD, became a groundbreaker in gender equity.

Now, 60 years after leading the UCalgary Dinos to the conference championship as a player — during the school’s first year as an autonomous university — and 47 years after guiding the team to the conference championship as a coach, she is being inducted into the Dinos Hall of Fame.

“That’s an important one for me, so I am very pleased,” says McNeil. “I’ve often thought how nice it would be to be elected to this hall of fame. Calgary was such an influence on me, in such a positive way. I loved competing as a Dino.

“I’m very proud and I’m very happy. I’m very appreciative.”

Closing the gender gap

What also thrills McNeil is UCalgary’s Dinos Women Student-Athlete Award fund, an initiative committed to gender equity. The scholarship aims to address the funding gap facing Dinos women, who receive 40 per cent of athletics financial awards, by increasing their share to 45 per cent by the end of the 2025-26 season.

As high-performing athletes and scholars whose discipline, resilience and drive extend far beyond the playing field, UCalgary women Dinos exemplify the best of varsity sport. Increased funding is an investment in that talent, strengthening today’s teams and empowering the leaders of tomorrow.

“Absolutely, I appreciate them taking that step,” says Sydney Milum, a biochemistry student in her fifth year with the Dinos women’s basketball team. “It shows that we have leaders within our athletic department who are willing to push for that. It shows they care.”

And donors are enthusiastically backing the play. “We’re getting support from people who are watching women’s sports more than they used to,” says Milum. “They’re realizing the game is equally as good as the men’s.”

By 2028, UCalgary intends to close the funding gap entirely. “I’m happy for all of Dinos athletics that it’s finally coming to fruition — good for them,” says McNeil, who was a member of the distinguished panel at the inaugural Women in Sport Scholarship Breakfast on Feb. 5, joined by Dinos alum Tamara Jarrett, BSc’14, plus Lara Murphy of the Calgary Wild FC; Sue Riddell Rose of Rubellite Energy; sports journalist Cami Kepke; and UCalgary professor Dr. Tara-Leigh McHugh. “There’s good reason for optimism,” McNeil says.

McHugh, PhD, who is with the Faculty of Kinesiology and is the Canada Research Chair in Gender Equity in Sport and Physical Activity, applauds the progress on campus. 

“I don’t think there’s a better place for this to happen, for UCalgary to be leading this kind of space,” she says. “Certainly, it’s overdue for all organizations and all institutions to have equal funding. But it’s also about access to facilities, how media are representing women. There are so many resource gaps.” 

Those are the disparities McNeil tackled. She instituted change and her career-long contributions to gender equity are still being recognized. Three years ago, she was inducted into the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Hall of Fame. And Monmouth’s basketball venue is now officially known as Dr. Marilyn A. McNeil Arena.

“She’s an icon, really, a trailblazer,” says McHugh. “In that era, she made waves in her role. I can’t imagine that environment and the changes she’s seen.”

The shift from challenges to progress

Recalling the challenges, McNeil is forthright. “When I left Calgary, women were being treated as second-class citizens,” she says. After winning the 1979 conference title and being named the U SPORTS women’s basketball coach of the year, McNeil requested from UCalgary administration of the day a modest salary bump and a commitment to her program.

Proposal rejected, she resigned. “Disappointing,” she says. “It was more a sense of disbelief that I couldn’t talk them into believing in women in sport. I spent the next 40 years fighting for equity. I don’t think there was a moment when I thought, ‘OK, we’ve arrived.’ It was a daily fight.”

At her next stop, Cal Poly, respect remained an issue. 

“I remember being told by the men’s basketball coach, ‘Women don’t belong here. Get out’ — and that was in front of my team,” McNeil recalls. Her players were stuck in a dingy auxiliary gym, but, by the time McNeil left, women were main-gym regulars. “You slowly did make progress, but it was never perfect.”

In 1994, when McNeil became Monmouth’s director of athletics, the first woman in that role at a New Jersey college or university, it was newsworthy. A champion of Title IX — the U.S. federal law ensuring fair treatment for all genders — she chaired the NCAA women’s basketball committee. She also served as president of the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators.

McNeil’s list of contributions is long, her legacy undeniable.

“It was tough to get people to understand that the women were working as hard as the men, that their practices were as difficult and as time-consuming, that their commitment to each other and to their sport and to their academics was the same,” says McNeil, who retired in 2021. “Inherent in my view was, ‘Let’s make this fair. Let’s level this playing field.’”