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Vol.24, No. 05 October 2, 1998

Ivy League Celebrates Silver Anniversary of Women's Athletics

TWO PICKED FROM EACH IVY SCHOOL FOR ALL-STAR TEAMS

By A. Dunlap-Smith

As part of next year's Silver Anniversary of the Ivy League Women's Athletic Championships, the Ancient Eight are each placing two women athletes on commemorative all-star teams in all league sports. In soccer, the Columbia-Barnard Athletic Consortium has named Kristin Friedholm Bissinger (CC '9O) and Liz Cheung (CC '98).

The athletes representing Columbia-Barnard on other Silver Anniversary all-star teams will be announced in The Record throughout the fall. "I am very proud of the women who have been named to the Ivy Silver Anniversary Team for both their athletic feats while at Barnard or Columbia and their accomplishments since graduation," Merry Ormsby, associate director of athletics and senior women's administrator at Columbia, said.

"As a varsity athlete myself in the infancy of women's athletics in the 1970s, I can well appreciate the strides we have made. With this celebration, the Ivy League will honor those strides."

A LEADER IN WOMEN'S COLLEGIATE ATHLETICS

From a smattering of club teams to its first formal championship in 1974, for crew, to today's panoply of 16 sports (not all 16 are played at each school), the Ivy League has not simply kept up, but set the pace during the past quarter-century's explosive growth in women's collegiate athletics. "[The Ivy League has] more sports by far, played by more athletes, than in any other collegiate conference," Jeff Orleans, League executive director, said.

"I am very excited that the Ivy League has seen fit to commemorate that progress with this year-long celebration of women's athletics," Ormsby said. "Twenty-five years is not that long, and for us to have made the strides we have, both in terms of skill levels and national prominence, is a major accomplishment."

The celebration culminates in a League-wide symposium on the "past, present and future of Ivy women's athletics" held in New York City on April 23-24. Besides the all-star teams, the League will honor its women athletes with an exhibit that travels to the eight Ivy campuses during the academic year '98-'99. The exhibit will show historical photographs, a timeline of the evolution of women's sports in the Ivy League and list the names of those women who have participated on some of the Ivy teams during the past 25 years.

Also, the Ivy League universities will in turn recognize the Silver Anniversary during a sporting event at each of the schools throughout this academic year. In April the Columbia-Barnard Athletic Consortium will mark softball's debut at the schools with the dedication of a softball field during a game with Harvard. With the addition of softball, the number of sports for women on Morningside Heights will come to 14.

BISSINGER AND CHEUNG NAMED TO SILVER SOCCER TEAM

Kristin Friedholm Bissinger was for seven years Columbia's career-goal recordholder with 23 until '97 when Tosh Forde, this year's co-captain of the women's soccer team, surpassed her.

Bissinger, a Walpole, Mass. native, started at forward all four years at Columbia, beginning with the soccer team's founding in '86. She received All-Ivy honors three times and an honorable mention once. In her first three years, Bissinger led the Lion squad in scoring.

"I'm very flattered to have been chosen [to represent Columbia-Barnard soccer on the Silver Anniversary team]," Bissinger said. "I guess what stands out most is the fact that soccer brought me close to a group of women I otherwise might not have gotten to know; in fact, one of my teammates, Lynn Murphy, was Maid of Honor at my wedding."

Bissinger is married to Michael Bissinger, the '87 captain of Columbia's football team. She practices law in New Jersey where she lives.

Liz Cheung, a 1998 graduate of Columbia College, was only the second player in the team's brief history to be named first team All-Ivy. She was twice picked for the All-Northeast Region squad, and was second team All-Ivy as a sophomore and an honorable mention as a junior.

Cheung, a native of New Hyde Park, New York, started every game at sweeper in her four years at Columbia. Last spring she received the Connie S. Maniatty Outstanding Senior Student-Athlete Award.

"My initial reaction was that I was psyched I could make All-Ivy even when I don't play anymore," Cheung said. "After all, I worked to make [first team] All-Ivy forever and it took me awhile-but now I just retire my cleats and they choose me!

"I am pleased that Columbia athletics looks at me and my playing years this way. The company that I am with on this team is terrific, and it makes me really proud to represent Columbia."

Cheung, who earned Academic All-Ivy honors three times at Columbia, is currently a first-year law student at Notre Dame.