Interview recorded March 13, 2024
This the story of Faye Perkins, a multi-sport athlete (basketball, track and softball) at Iowa State in the 1970s. Perkins was enshrined into the Iowa State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2004.
These days, Perkins resides in the Equality State.
“(I’m in) Teton Village, Wyoming, which is just 12 miles away from Jackson, Wyoming, and just two miles south of Grand Teton National Park,” Perkins said. “Way up in the northwestern corner of Wyoming.”
Perkins is enjoying the thrills
of retirement in the picturesque landscape she lives in.
“I retired from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls in January of 2019 after 31 1/2 years of employment there,” Perkins said. Iowa State women’s basketball celebrated their 50th anniversary throughout the 2023-2024 season, and had a reunion of all eras on Feb. 10, 2024. Perkins, a four year letterwinner for the Cyclone women’s basketball team from 1975 to 1978, was in attendance.
“It was absolutely fantastic. I saw some teammates that I basically hadn’t seen since 1979. when I graduated from Iowa State,” Perkins said. “We kind of all dispersed. I stayed in touch with many of them, you know, but some of them, maybe it was just Christmas letters, but I haven’t seen them for years. What a wonderful celebration. We got to mingle with the team. We got to go to the game. I was playing when we had our first game in Hilton Coliseum (a 71-67 win over Drake) and somebody said there were 2000 people there. I don’t think there were 2,000 people there but to see it now, it just really a sense of pride that I was a part of that.”
Perkins’ athletic career starts
Perkins came to Iowa State University from Crestwood High School in Cresco, located in Howard County up in northeast Iowa. In addition to being a Division I cornet player at the 1972 State Music Contest held in Waverly, Perkins won the 100 yard dash at state, played high school golf, was named an honorary mayor of Cresco with her softball teammates and played on the first girls basketball team.
“I was right on the cusp of Title IX, thank God,” Perkins said. “I graduated from high school in 1974. So when I was in middle school or junior high, we called it back then, there were no sports for girls at all. One of my older sisters in the 1960s went to the school board and said that there were girls that wanted to start a basketball team and they basically laughed her out of the room. But because of Title IX, all of a sudden they realize, ‘Oh my God if we’re providing boy sports, we need to provide equitable opportunities for the girls.’
“So when I was a freshman, they had a golf team for the girls. That was only because the head golf coach had three daughters and he went to the school board said I will coach the girls for free if you let us start a team. So, I actually did play one year of golf because that was the only sport that was available. My sophomore year, they started fall softball. There was a fall softball season and a summer softball season. There was no volleyball at that time. That spring, they started track and field my sophomore year. So, that was the end of my golf career and that was the start of my track and field career.”
The start of Perkins’ track and field career started about three hours south of her high school, at the (U.S. Federation) State Indoor Track Meet in 1972.
“The story I’d like to tell was that, they have an indoor state championship at Drake University, that coordinates with the girls basketball tournament,” Perkins said. “Our coach, first year program, first year coach wanted to take some of us down thought we could compete, but you had to have qualifying times from the season before. In order to qualify for the indoor state championships. Of course, we didn’t have any qualifying times because we hadn’t had a program. So our coach, bless her heart, went to the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union and petitioned that, six or seven of us, to get us in. That was my first track meet.”
“We didn’t even have uniforms at the time, we wore our PE uniforms, white shirts and blue polyester shorts,” Perkins added. “I did have a pair of spikes, that I absolutely love. I won the 50 yard dash indoor state championship (:06.3, second place ran a :06.5). To bookend it I won the 100 yard dash my senior year outdoor championship and, many other things in between. To think about had we not had a coach that advocated for us, I never would have had that opportunity. My junior year, a group of us petitioned to start basketball. We went around the school district, and got over 1500 signatures of people that supported starting girls basketball.”
“We went to the school board and they said, ‘Well, OK, we’ll start with the JV program. We’ll start with ninth graders and then work into a varsity program.’ Well, we were like, ‘No, no, we wanna play.’ Right? They did start a girls basketball program my senior year. we practiced out at the fairgrounds in a pole shed on a cement floor, with portable baskets and portable heaters. The boys had to practice in the gym. It didn’t matter to us because at least we had the opportunity to, to compete and we won over 50% of our games. It was a great experience but, you know, Title IX had it not been for those 37 words, I never would have had those opportunities and my older sisters never had those opportunities.”
Cresco to Ames
If not for a phone call from then Iowa State head cross country / track and field coach Chris Murray – a seventh place finisher in the steeplechase for Canada in the 1964 Olympics, and an Iowa State Hall of Fame member representing the Class of 2000 – Perkins may have taken her multi-sport talents to Polk County, and her Cyclone story may never have been written.
“I was recruited, by the smaller colleges and universities weren’t giving athletic scholarships. Iowa State hadn’t started giving athletic scholarships to women yet. So I went to John F. Kennedy College in Wahoo, Nebraska, which doesn’t exist anymore and had a visit there,” Perkins said. “I went to Grand View, and had q visit there. I went to Iowa State applied and was accepted but never talked to any coaches or anything when I was there. Luther College recruited me, which was only 20 miles away. My pitcher, I was the catcher in high school, she was going to Luther, they really wanted me to come to Luther.”
“I decided to go to Grand View because Grand View recruited me for basketball. I had only had one year of basketball, so I thought, OK, I’ve had, you know, three years of softball and three years of track,” Perkins added. I want to play basketball. So, I decided to go to Grand View two weeks before school started at Iowa State. Chris Murray, the head track coach called me up and said, ‘Faye, why aren’t you registered for classes?’ And I said, ‘Well, I decided to go to Grand View College’ and he said, ‘No, you can’t.’ He goes, ‘I have you on my 4×100. You’re gonna lead off. He had this all figured out we’re gonna go to Nationals, you have to come to Iowa State. I’m counting on you.’ So I changed my mind and I went to Iowa State. I had no classes. All the dorm rooms were full. I was in temporary housing. However, I did have two brothers that were attending Iowa State at the time. My father graduated from Vet Med at Iowa State in 1951. I mean, I knew Iowa State. I had been down there several times and stuff for different things with my family. I just said, ‘Oh, OK, coach Murray, you know, I’ll come to Iowa State.’ So that one phone call, I would say just absolutely changed the trajectory of my life for the good. I mean, it was absolutely the best decision I think I ever made.”
Reflections of teammates
“Well, there’s several stories I can’t share. Patty (Hodgson) (of Glenwood), Gleeson now, Julie Goodrich Blake, Michelle Coady, Kathy Strew Brown. They had one year (of women’s basketball) before I started in 1974,” Perkins said. I think of Carol Kozlik (Van Horne), Karen Gerard (Sigourney) and Sandy Yarger (Massena). When I came in as a freshman, they had a year under their belt and they had probably played club in high school and everything. I really looked up to those three, particularly Karen, Carol and Sandy because they had that year of experience and we were the young kids coming in and I had only had one year of high school basketball.”
“Basically we were all walk ons, there were no scholarships at that time. So I just was like, I want to play more basketball,” Perkins added. I only had one year to play in high school. I learned a lot. Patty Hodgson (Glenwood) just got inducted into the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union Basketball Hall of Fame in March. Julie Goodrich (Adel) was inducted last year. They were some phenomenal players, just great fun to play with. Riding in 15 passenger vans and sleeping four to a room. You get to know your teammates fairly well.”
Hodgson pictured above with Perkins, was a standout player for the Glenwood Ramettes, averaged 49 points per game her senior year of high school in Mills County. Against the Lewis Central Titanettes, on Dec. 10, 1973, she poured in 62 points.
“That was when there was no three point shot,” Perkins said. “We were playing with the larger ball. I look at Patty’s accomplishments at Iowa State, first woman to score over 1000 points. She went on and had a professional career. I really think that her number should be retired, but that’s another story.”
Additional anecdotes
In addition to basketball, Perkins represented the cardinal and gold on the track and on the softball field. In 1975, she earned All-America honors as a member of the 880 yard medley relay.
On the diamond, she was a stellar shortstop with a .353 average and five home runs in 1976, and she led the 1976 and 1978 Cyclones to the Big Eight title in softball.
“With track and field, we had incredible athletes. Pat Hodgson was one of my teammates. Our freshman year, we played basketball and ran track together. 1975 is when I ran track, but I’m a team sport player. I love basketball and softball. The next three years, I played basketball in the winter, softball in the spring. My fifth year, I student taught in the fall, my basketball eligibility was done, but I had a year of softball eligibility because I didn’t play my freshman year. So my fifth spring, I got to play softball. None of this was by design, it just kind of happened that way, but it ended up being perfect so I could play softball my fifth spring.”
“But, you know, some of the memories, you know aren’t about specific games per se but it’s about all the friendships I made, the fun things we did. You know, we normally crammed into 15 passenger vans. For basketball, being able to play in Hilton Coliseum. We were all given tickets and told that we have to sell tickets. We’d have some people at Hilton Coliseum.”
“I think for softball one year we sold popcorn so we could have enough money to take a charter bus to the Big Eight Tournament,” Perkins added. “I think athletes today would just shutter if they were told that they had to do those things. We were just like, ‘Oh my God, if we sell popcorn, we can take a chartered bus!’ Those are, some of the things I remember. The fun times we had on the buses and in the vans are the things that I really remember. We won the Big Eight Championship (softball) I in 1976 and repeated in 1978. I had an offer to play professional softball in 1976 with the Michigan Travelers. I went and tried out that spring but I would have had to have given up three years of amateur eligibility. I wasn’t ready to do that. We had just won the Big Eight Conference Championship and I wanted to come back and play for the Cyclones. So turned that down. I never regret that decision because I had three more great years at Iowa State playing softball.”
Coaching career begins
Softball coaching became Perkins’ raison d’être.
“Coaching softball was absolutely my passion,” Perkins said. “My first teaching job was in Wyoming. I’ve always wanted to come to the mountains and I coached volleyball in the fall, basketball in the winter and track and field in the spring.”
“I came back to Iowa and in the summers and coached at Collins-Maxwell. I coached there for six summers,” Perkins added. “It was kind of nice because Iowa season was in the summer. I taught at Tarkio College during the school year would come back and coach in the summer at Maxwell or I was doing graduate work at Iowa State and in the summers to coach at Maxwell. Took a team that hardly won any games at all and we won two conference championships. The year after I left, they went to the state tournament and Leslie Greer, who was my primary pitcher at Maxwell, then came to Iowa State and pitched four years for Iowa State. That was really fun to have Leslie follow my footprints or my shoes at Iowa State. Then coached volleyball and softball at Tarkio College for a couple of years, went to Utah, didn’t coach for three years.”
Following the conferring of a Doctorate in Health Education from the University of Utah, Faye had to make a career decision that found her in the 30th state admitted to the Union.
“I got a position at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls as an assistant professor in health and human performance and coaching softball for 22 seasons. We went to the NCAA tournament three times ( won the WIAC multiple times). I retired from coaching softball in 2015. One of the reasons why I decided to retire is I wanted to do more international teaching. UW-River Falls was the perfect fit for me. It allowed me to combine my love of coaching with my love of teaching. With my teaching international experiences and opportunities for our students is a huge goal of the university. They have a program in Scotland where I’ve taught, I think six times. In 2014 and 2016, I taught in an international program in Hangzhou, China. So some incredible experiences both for me and my family with our two sons and my husband going along with some of those trips, most of the trips to Scotland.”
“It was kind of trying to balance everything, you know, teaching and coaching. Then I got into administration. I was a department chair while I was teaching and coaching for seven years,” Perkins added Then, I was the interim dean of the College of Education and Professional Studies for four years, and then went back to teaching and coaching. Then they dragged me back into administration and I finished up my last two years as the interim Provost and a vice chancellor for academic Affairs. River Falls just gave me so many opportunities that I’m just very, very thankful for.”
On April 13, 2019, UWRF officially dedicated the ballpark as Faye Perkins Softball Stadium.
Closing thoughts
Perkins’ athletic adventure has introduced her to several people who she is thankful for to this day, coaches, professors and athletic administrators alike.
“Lynn Wheeler was my coach in basketball, Mike Anthony was my softball coach for the first two years, Lucille Gecewicz, my second two years, and Chris Murray for track and field,” Perkins said. “I’m just thankful that they were there and provided that opportunity for us. Iowa State did start giving athletic scholarships. I was one of the first to receive an athletic scholarship for softball it was a couple hundred dollars a quarter probably. Every little penny helped. All the work that’s been done since then, I think of Elaine Hieber who was just instrumental and really advocating for women’s athletics. Barbara Forker was a health and human professor in the physical education side. Elaine Hieber really on the athletic side was such an advocate and I really love getting back to Iowa State.”
