By Mike Pearson
FightingIllini.com
When Karol Anne Kahrs joined Fred and Betty Kahrs' young family on Feb. 12, 1940, the world was a much different place for those of the female gender.
World War II dominated the headlines and men were leaving the work force to serve their country in battle. An equally large segment of women was reluctantly exiting their household duties to do their part in the factories. Karol Anne's mom was one of them and that event proved to be a turning point in her life.
"My daddy died when I was 10 and my mother had to go to work full time, so I was on my own and had a lot of free time," Kahrs told an interviewer in a 2014 video produced by the Big Ten Network entitled Title IX: Let 'Em Play. "Because of sport, she knew where I was and what I was doing."
Kahrs became infatuated with any activity that involved a ball, participating in basketball, volleyball, softball, golf, field hockey, tennis and other activities. Her 1950s heroes included female stars like Babe Zaharias, Patty Berg, Maureen Connolly and others.
"Everything about sport I just loved," she said.
From the first day she arrived at North Fulton High School in northern Atlanta, Kahrs emerged as the Lady Bulldogs' No. 1 athlete.
"The state of Georgia had a lot of high school athletics," she said. "I never knew until I got to Illinois that it wasn't the same everywhere. Illinois and the state of Utah were the last two states to have competitive high school sports for girls."
An honors student, Kahrs matriculated to the University of Georgia, earning a degree in education in 1958. She served as a physical education instructor for three years at Atlanta's O'Keefe High School, then decided to change paths and further her education. She made the trek to Columbus, Ohio, eventually leaving Ohio State University with a Master's degree and a Doctor of Philosophy degree.
When Kahrs arrived in Champaign-Urbana in 1966, hired by Dr. Laura Huelster as Director of the University of Illinois' Women's Extramural Sports Association, she was unaware of Huelster's ultimate objective.
"Unbeknownst to me, she really was looking to get a flavor of intercollegiate sport at Illinois," Kahrs said. "She thought that women ought to have that opportunity."
"I remember one of the things I was asked when I was thinking about taking the job was did I make friends easily," she continued. "And I said, 'always have'. Laura said, 'well, that will change here. They may not like you very much because you're going to have opportunities they didn't have and you're also going to have the opportunity to build a program here that you could be really excited about.'"
As Kahrs conversed with groups, high school principals and various other administrators, she was taken aback by some of their attitudes.
"Some of them didn't want females doing sports," she said. "In those days, most women were secretaries, nurses, librarians and teachers … that was it. They thought that sports wasn't healthy, that women wouldn't be able to have children."
Shortly after Title IX legislation passed in 1972, the winds of change began to blow from a different direction and women's athletics was elevated to varsity status two years later.
"When Title IX passed, kids were excited and very appreciative to come and try to be part of that," Kahrs said. "They didn't ask for a lot; didn't want a lot. They just wanted an opportunity to play and compete."
Yet, in June of 1974, when she was named as athletic director Cecil Coleman's assistant, Kahrs wondered just how much of an impact the university really wanted women's athletics to make.
"It was kind of fuzzy for a while as to what level we were going to try to compete," she said. "Finally, one day at a Board (of Trustees) meeting, I asked what the university was expecting. They said 'we want to be reputable and win our fair share, but we really haven't thought about it.' There seemed to be a lot of concern about how much money it was going to take to be in compliance."
Kahrs directed much of her early efforts towards getting out into the Champaign-Urbana community.
"I made it my business to meet as many people as I could," she said. "I went to all the social events I could go to. I had to have a group of 120 volunteers to run a track meet and we wanted to put some people in the stands for our events. We made it a practice not to overemphasize winning. We didn't have any idea whether we were going to be good or not good. But I knew that we could be. I don't like people to tell me 'you can't do this' or 'nobody's going to support this'. But over time, as you would expect, change does occur."
