How two legendary Carleton coaches fought for women’s athletics.
Women athletes at Carleton in 1970 didn’t have official uniforms. Instead, they wore whatever navy blue shorts and white shirts they had in their closets.
But coach Pat Lamb, who was named women’s athletic director that same year, and coach Ele Hansen, who was chair of the women’s physical education department, wanted the women to be recognized as the athletes they were. And so, they ordered boxes of bright yellow sweats emblazoned with the words “Carleton Women’s Athletics” in big, bold letters.
“We wanted to make a statement,” Lamb said in an interview recorded in 2012. “We wanted the young athletes to be seen.”
The apparel came to be known as “banana sweats,” and Lamb and Hansen used a check-out system, because their budget was too tight to buy a pair for every athlete. When the items started to disappear, Hansen and Lamb secretly celebrated: the banana sweats were a hit!
Still today, every incoming Carleton woman athlete receives a pair of banana sweats—but they no longer need to share them with their teammates. The banana sweats remain a bold proclamation that women belong in sport, which is exactly what Hansen and Lamb spent their careers fighting for.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the landmark 1972 legislation that granted women equal access to athletic and educational opportunities. While Carleton joins in that celebration, the college was a couple decades ahead of the game thanks to Lamb and Hansen, who didn’t wait for a federal mandate to push for equity in sport. Their efforts left a powerful legacy at Carleton—and beyond.
Bold as Banana Sweats
Ele Hansen took her first stand for women at Carleton before she was officially on the payroll. A native Minnesotan, Hansen honed her leadership skills in the U.S. Navy and then earned a master’s degree in physical education at the University of Minnesota. She never expected to find herself on either path—she joined the Navy on a dare and decided to attend college after her military mentors insisted, because she was such a natural leader.
Carleton president Larry Gould offered Hansen a job in 1952 as chair of the women’s department of physical education. Gould, who had served as chief scientist on Richard Byrd’s first expedition in Antarctica and was a formidable man by many accounts, did not intimidate Hansen. When he offered her a relatively meager salary, she counteroffered, reportedly telling Gould that she planned to do big things for women’s athletics on campus. She got her desired salary, marking the first of many battles she would fight successfully on behalf of women at Carleton.
Hansen and Lamb were relentless advocates for girls and women in sport. From Hansen’s arrival at Carleton to when Lamb joined her in 1962 to well past their retirements in 1986 and 1994, respectively, they never stopped fighting for greater access to physical activities and sports.
Hansen died in 2013 and Lamb followed her in 2018, yet they’ve continued to make a difference at Carleton and in Minnesota through a $2.5 million trust that supports grants and endowments for girls and women in sports, which included a $1 million gift to Carleton for the Pat Lamb Endowed Tennis Fund, annual grants to nine local nonprofits, and the establishment of the Pat Lamb and Ele Hansen empowHER Fund, which introduces young women to sport and adventure through things like multiday treks around Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area.
In addition to their strong professional alliance, Hansen and Lamb were also life partners and the Carleton community embraced their relationship. They were fairly private about their personal lives but it was well known and accepted that they were together. Friends and colleagues remember that no one made much of a fuss about the fact that they were lesbian women, even though it was a time when the gay liberation movement was still a whisper. They were just “Pat and Ele.” And, the pair was so inextricably linked in conversations that one campus newcomer assumed that “PatandEle” was a professor in the Italian department.
Sports brought Lamb and Hansen to Carleton—and, eventually, to each other. Lamb first visited campus while she was playing tennis on a scrappy University of Minnesota team, and she fell in love with the school. Lamb and Hansen formed a friendship at that tennis tournament. Lamb graduated from the university with a degree in physical education, and then taught in California for several years, before returning to Minnesota to get a master’s degree (also at the University of Minnesota). When a job opened up at Carleton, Hansen recruited Lamb for the position and she jumped at the opportunity.
“My department will grow and glow with you as a distinguished member,” Hansen wrote to Lamb in her offer letter in 1962.
Hansen and Lamb coached at Carleton in a time when societal norms still held that women were too fragile, sports were too masculine, and girls shouldn’t be allowed to sweat or get too excited.
—Martha Verbrugge ’71
“The prevailing attitude at the time was that girls and women belonged on the sidelines,” says Dorothy McIntyre, an early collaborator with Hansen and Lamb and associate director of the Minnesota State High School League for 32 years.
“We always believed that girls and women could do more and that they could benefit in all of the same ways that boys and men could,” Lamb said in the same interview. Both Lamb and Hansen were self-described tomboys who grew up playing sports in Minnesota. Hansen had mean pitching skills and Lamb would take on any boy in a hockey match.
“Pat and Ele never tried to take things away from the men,” says Heidi Jaynes, associate athletic director at Carleton. “They helped people understand that we just needed to give women the same opportunities and support.”
The pair didn’t back down when they believed women deserved something. They were known for being fun and full of joy, but fierce and feisty when they needed to be.
“I used to refer to getting a ‘Pat on the back,’” says Leon Lunder, athletic director at Carleton from 1992 to 2010. “You could get a ‘Pat on the back’ when she had positive and supportive things to say,” but she would also deliver a “Pat on the back” when she was unhappy with a decision or policy.
For example, in the 1970s when women’s teams needed more space to practice and compete, Lamb kept pushing for access to the roomier “Men’s Gym.”
Little by little, she secured more time for the women’s teams, but she hated sending contracts to other schools that referenced the “Men’s Gym.” So, she told President Howard Swearer that the facility needed a new name. When he asked her what it should be called instead, she said, “Well, it’s on the west side of campus, how about we call it the West Gym?”
And that’s what it’s still called today.
Empowering All Women
When Hansen arrived on campus in 1952, women’s physical activities were relegated to the basement of Gridley Hall—and there weren’t many activities to speak of. They’d have to dodge the pillars that held up the women’s dormitory to participate in modern dance or fencing.
Meanwhile, men had Sayles-Hill Gymnasium, which had a pool, gym, and courts, and could accommodate all kinds of sports and activities, but no girls or women were allowed.
And so, Hansen spent years advocating for the addition of a women’s facility. As was typical, she was undaunted by the size of the challenge and was known for taking action and aiming for progress over perfection.
Thanks to Hansen’s hard work and dedication, the Cowling Recreation Center opened its doors to women in 1965. Marie Matsen ’69 arrived on campus in 1965, shortly after Cowling opened and she remembers the gym as “heaven on campus.”
Matsen grew up in Oregon playing softball in her grandfather’s field, but organized sports for girls at that time were limited to golf and tennis, and were generally only available to wealthier families, of which hers was not, she says.
Then she got to Carleton and had access to Cowling and all of the activities it hosted. She swam in the pool, played volleyball, and took tennis classes. She joined the basketball and softball teams, as well as the tennis club. And she was coached by both Hansen (softball) and Lamb (tennis). They also coached basketball her first year.
“My whole experience at Carleton was transforming,” says Matsen. She got a master’s degree in physical education from the University of Oregon and later returned to Carleton as a coach herself. She went on to coach volleyball at Washington State University, and she credits the skills she honed working with Hansen and Lamb for allowing her to pursue leadership roles throughout her career.
“Pat and Ele helped me step way outside my comfort zone and develop confidence in myself,” says Matsen.
Lamb and Hansen believed in the transformative power of sports and its ability to change the narrative for women by building confidence, courage, and character.
“They enabled a big mindset shift for women,” says Jaynes. “At that time, women had always been told they couldn’t be athletes. They weren’t allowed to play with the boys. They didn’t get the same kind of funding or opportunities. And then they come to Carleton and Pat and Ele are telling them they can do anything.”
Hansen and Lamb were welcoming and caring people, who are remembered for their warm greetings, constant gestures of kindness, and ability to connect with students. They were friends, mentors, and counselors, too. Martha Verbrugge ’71 still has the handwritten notes that Lamb sent to her through campus mail.
“Ele and Pat taught us life lessons that have stayed with me for 50 years,” says Verbrugge, who played softball, basketball, field hockey, and tennis, and went on to specialize in the history of women’s sports as a historian at Bucknell University. “They were cultivating not only athletes, but people.”
Hansen and Lamb built a foundation for greater equity in sport on campus, in Minnesota, and across the nation. They coached several teams—everything from gymnastics and diving to softball and tennis—regardless of how well they could play the sport themselves. Lamb believed the basic principles of coaching could be applied to any sport and that they could figure out the rest. She spearheaded the development of 12 varsity teams while she was the athletic director—doubling the offerings for women from when she arrived on campus.
When Hansen took over the cross-country team in 1972, she got herself a bright blue motor scooter and would race after her runners, cheering them on from her perch.
“Ele didn’t know anything about coaching a cross-country team, except that you run,” says Matsen with a laugh. “But, when there was a need, Pat and Ele made sure it got filled.”
Matsen remembers one coaching meeting where Hansen asked if anyone had a pair of skis. Unwittingly, Matsen raised her hand, although she had never actually used them. Hansen deemed her the new cross-country ski coach on the spot.
They kept creating new teams, with or without experienced coaches, and letting the student-athletes determine how big the team should be. They veered away from using whistles and didn’t believe in yelling harsh commands to their athletes. They wanted to create a fun and inviting environment and always agreed to let more women compete—the surest way to grow the movement for equity in sports.
“We’d start a new program and three times as many women as we expected would show up for a practice. They didn’t care. They just wanted the door to be open and to see what we could do,” says Dorothy McIntyre.
Hansen’s cross-country team filled two buses. Lamb had 16 women on her tennis team. And, when they hosted summer programs on Carleton’s campus to develop coaches and athletes in Minnesota, they refused to limit participation.
In 1970 Lamb launched summer workshops on Carleton’s campus for coaches to encourage more women to participate at both the high school and collegiate level, and to empower them as leaders and role models. And that, in turn, caused girls’ sports in Minnesota to explode during the ’70s. As a result, schools were well positioned to offer more programming after
Title IX passed. The coaching development program ran for three decades at Carleton and hundreds of women participated.
“It was like a yeast in the state that kept growing,” says McIntyre. “The foundation they started at Carleton helped us to build the competitive programs and high participation numbers that we have today.”
A Legacy at Carleton and Beyond
Lamb held numerous leadership positions in the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport and the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, which paved the way for state, regional, and national championships across many different sports and lay the groundwork for women’s inclusion in the National Collegiate Athletic Association. She was named a Division III Tennis Coach of the Year and inducted into the U.S. Tennis Association Northern Hall of Fame in 1991. When Lamb passed away, tennis legend Billie Jean King joined the legions of people who celebrated her life and legacy, tweeting a tribute that called Lamb “a pioneer and a game-changer for women’s athletics.” They left an indelible mark on women’s sports and on everyone who knew them.
Hansen’s and Lamb’s influence on Carleton athletics remains today. They established a culture of equity and inclusion that continues to be an integral part of Carleton’s identity on and off the field.
“Equity is always top of mind for us,” says Gerald Young, Carleton’s current athletic director. The athletic department is committed to ensuring equal funding for men’s and women’s athletics, including their facilities, uniforms, and resources. An equity committee and a women’s coaching group both meet regularly. And Carleton boasts an impressive roster of female coaches: six head coaches and eight assistant coaches.
Carleton also drafted one of the first transgender athlete policies in Division III, and Lamb was there in 2014 on the day it was announced. Frequent visitors to campus after their retirement, Lamb and Hansen attended many games, meets, and tournaments to cheer on the athletes.
“They would just glow when they would see athletes competing at a high level. It was just everything that they dreamed of,” says Donna Ricks, head coach for track and cross-country. “It didn’t matter what sport they were watching, as long as women were having fun and competing.”
Like their advocacy, Hansen’s and Lamb’s legacy transcends their mark on the institution. Their spirit lives on through the coaches, teams, and athletes who embrace the transformative power of sport and the joy of playing. Athletics at Carleton are still a place for students to develop confidence, courage, and character, and, as confirmed by the bright yellow sweats seen on fields and courts and in gyms, a place where women belong.