Volleyball

Volleyball was played by a coed team in 1971, which won every game in its first varsity season. Joan Taylor was the first coach of women’s volleyball. Under coach Cathy Fulford, who came in 1978, the teams progressed from a 7-17 first year record in 1978 through five 20-win seasons from 1980 to 1984 to the Ivy League championship in 1988, becoming the first team other than Princeton or Penn to win since volleyball became a League sport in 1977. In the opening round of the ECAC tournament the team lost to Hofstra, the winner of the tournament. In 1990 the team won the Rutgers Invitational and was second at Brown’s invitational and the Drexel Tournament, but finished fifth in the Ivy League tournament. Funding for women’s volleyball as a varsity sport was withdrawn in 1991 as part of the University’s budget reduction. The difficulties connected with this decision did not prevent the volleyball team, now a club sport with a new coach, Dorothy Hert, from reaching the finals of the Ivy League championship tournament, where the team lost to Cornell.