ATHLETICS AS MASCULINIZING FORCE

In 1908, President Thomas declared, “The grave danger immediately in store for Middlebury College is the increasing attendance of women in proportion to the men. . . . Let us get at that gymnasium, about which we have talked so long, and have something to stir the imagination of the boy, and to take part of the awkwardness and callowness out of him” (cited in Stameshkin, The Town’s College, 238).  Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, plans to grow the athletic program were closely tied to students’, administrators’, and alumni’s anxieties about the emasculating effects of coeducation and of middle-class men’s changing roles.