When Jessie Godfrey took a job as an athletics administrator at Binghamton University in 1958, she entered a world of college sports completely void of women. The school was called Harpur College then, the athletics program was Division III and Title IX had not yet surfaced to usher in new opportunities that would forever change the lives of women across the nation.

Godfrey was part of the movement that brought women’s sports to Binghamton University and extended opportunities to female athletes across America. A native of Washington, D.C., Godfrey served as the University’s primary administrator for women’s physical education and athletics for 32 years, watching intercollegiate sports programs for females spring up and thrive under the guidelines of Title IX. Outside of BU, Godfrey served as president of the Eastern Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women and the New York State Women’s Collegiate Athletic Association. In 1984, she became the first female president of the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC).

But Godfrey can remember a time when none of it seemed possible — her own distinguished list of accomplishments as unfeasible as the widespread success women’s athletics has since achieved. She can remember back to a time when women simply did not play sports.

“We played ‘games’,” Godfrey said. “We would get together with another college and maybe we’d play a friendly contest … and after the game we’d go into the dance studio and have tea and cookies and that was all we were expected to do by society and by the institution.”

The teams would be composed of volunteer athletes, Godfrey said, who had no other options for participation in the sports they were interested in playing. There would be “easy, friendly” practices and games would come about by reaching out to another institution to see if they had a group of women interested in competing.

Options for women were limited and lacked any real structure.

“The American culture thought sports was basically for men, and women just kind of played games,” Godfrey said.

In 1958, Godfrey left her job at Brown University to accept a position at Binghamton working in athletics. For the first decade or so, circumstances for women looking to get involved in sports remained largely unchanged and Godfrey described her work as relatively uneventful. But in 1972, that all changed.

“Not too much happened [at first] because everything was just kind of friendly and relaxed,” Godfrey said. “There was … no enormous interest in events … until around 1969 or ’70 when the Title IX thing erupted, and then suddenly it became necessary for Binghamton University … to offer opportunities for women in sports where women were interested.”

The creation of Binghamton’s first intercollegiate women’s sports team, swimming and diving, came about in 1969, prior to Title IX’s passing. Volleyball and women’s tennis joined soon after, and in 1973, women’s basketball became the first addition following the law’s passage.

Godfrey and her co-workers set about leveling the playing field for male and female athletes at BU, developing fuller schedules for women’s teams and providing teams with comparable modes of transportation, food, clothing and housing.

The process was a lengthy one, according to Godfrey — and not without resistance.

“At our institution [the resistance] was relatively discreet,” Godfrey said. “The men faculty didn’t think that the women knew what they were doing, us women getting into this business, we didn’t know anything about sports programs and development and they were trained from birth practically so they kind of laughed at us. The thing was that we kept going on and being successful without their help, fortunately. Then when they found out that we were becoming successful, then they were concerned about the financial situation because Binghamton, well most of the institutions, had to find out how to separate the money so that the men had to give up something for the women and of course they didn’t like that.”

While figuring out where the money would come from and exactly how to divide it wasn’t always easy, Godfrey did notice that even early on, the budget committee was generally interested in giving more money to women’s teams instead of men’s.

“[It] kind of pleased me because I thought, already the young men at the college level have decided that the women are doing something and they’re doing it very well … and they should be given money so they can continue,” Godfrey said.

Today, Binghamton University boasts nine women’s sports programs, which have combined to generate three America East Championships, four America East players of the year and one All-American in the school’s Division I era alone.

Godfrey said the new tradition of success starts at the youth levels that now have countless more opportunities for girls thanks to Title IX. From there, the success seeps into collegiate and even professional athletics. She pointed to women’s basketball in the Olympics as an example.

“They would never have been there before Title IX because they are the product of the development of more opportunity at the elementary on up level for girls, they’re the results of that success,” Godfrey said. “You find American women at the 20-year-old level who are very successful in doing something that, had they been born [several] years before they were, they wouldn’t have even been able to try.”