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Acadia Girls’ Amateur Athletic Association
Women Take Charge
As more women enrolled at Acadia in the 1890s and early 1900s, they formed clubs and groups that reflected their interests, including sports. The women played informal intramural games and sought games with local teams outside the university, but in order to do so, they needed an organization to manage and oversee women’s sports in the same way that the AAAA did for the men. The Acadia Girls’ Amateur Athletic Association (AGAAA), modelled on the men’s group, was designed to encourage and develop sport among women students. Individual committees dealt with specific sports such as basketball and hockey. Like its male counterpart, the AGAAA purchased sports equipment for its members, decided what sports it would sponsor and which challenges to accept or reject. By 1921, when women were able to play sport in an intercollegiate league, the group also set criteria for athletic “A”s and other awards. However, the women were not responsible for maintaining playing fields or arenas. They did have one unique responsibility. In the days of curfews and strict regulations for the conduct of women students, such as requiring a letter of permission from a parent before visiting a relative’s home after church, the AGAAA had to provide approved chaperones for any out-of-town trip taken by one of its teams.
While distinct groups, the men’s and women’s athletic associations did work together to negotiate games with associations from other institutions and from town teams. Occasionally, the women asked the AAAA to arrange schedules for its teams during the annual fall athletic conferences attended by most Maritime universities. In the 1920s and 1930s it was common for men’s and women’s basketball teams to play an intercollegiate opponent such as Dalhousie University of Halifax in a single evening; the women’s game would be the first of a two-game event. By the late 1960s, institutional support for women’s sport had changed and the university had assumed responsibility for much of the organization’s mandate; no longer needed, the organization was dissolved.
(Acadia Athenaeum, June 1921)
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