It is well known that OCC fielded Men's Football, Basketball, Wrestling, Baseball, Track, Tennis, and Golf teams in our first academic year, 1948/49. Tumbleweeds to Roses has an excellent chapter on the first ten years of Men's Athletics, and the "Roses" reference in the book title is related to OCC winning the Junior Rose Bowl in 1963.
BUT… do you know the history of Women's athletics at OCC? The book Tumbleweed to Roses does not mention Women's athletics, and there is a reason. In the first ten years of OCC, Women's sports were primarily intramural.
Excerpts from OCC catalogs 1948 & 1949:
Men's Athletics Association — Orange Coast College is a member of the Eastern Division of the Southern California Junior College Association and participates in all major and minor sports as set up by this division. Athletic awards are granted by the Athletics Board of Control to all men who qualify at the end of a season.
Women's Athletics Association — This group provides opportunites for all women students to participate in an intra-mural program of athletics. Recognition is given to groups and individuals who meets certain requirements in participation.
In the article below from September 1957 (Barnacle), the first recruitment for competitive intercollegiate athletics was slated for Women's basketball later that year (winter sport). By 1957/58, the women at OCC fielded Basketball, Softball, Volleyball, Synchronized Swimming, and Field Hockey. Ten years later, the women had Basketball, Softball, Volleyball, Swimming, Tennis, and Field Hockey.
It wouldn't be until OCC's 30th year, in 1978, that OCC and other colleges became compliant with Title IX (a law signed by Nixon in 1972 with mandatory compliance required by 1978). OCC recognized its 1st OCC Women's Athlete of the Year in 1976/77 – Julie Feenstra for Softball and Basketball. By 1978, OCC won its first State Championship in Women's Volleyball. In recent years, OCC women's athletics has become dominant in the region. Coast has won the Orange Empire Conference Sports Supremacy Award 30 times over the past 34 years. That trophy symbolizes the conference's top overall men's and women's athletic combined program.
You can be proud that OCC Women's Athletics dominated the 2022/23 academic year by winning State in Basketball. OCC qualified for the State Championships in Beach Volleyball and finished third. Women's Tennis finished second in the state on the team side and won the Ojai Team Points Award. Our Women's Water Polo team took second in the State in the fall last year. Women's swimming and diving took 3rd overall at State. OCC Pirate swimming individual outstanding performance at State was from distance specialist Giselle Quinonez, who not only successfully defended her state meet title in the 1,650-yard freestyle, she shaved off a full 20 seconds from her 2022 state title time with a winning time of 17 minutes, 45.01 seconds.
Go Lady Pirates!
