Rivera: My athletic success goes unrecognized until SU retires a woman’s jersey

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The walls of Sanford Rowing Center — the indoor training facility that houses Syracuse men’s and women’s rowing — are lined with names of former SU rowers who competed in the Olympics. Engraved in silver plaques, the names date back to the early 1900s.

But the accomplishments of those athletes, who won gold medals and performed on the world’s biggest stage, are confined to the basement of the Barnes Center at The Arch.

Syracuse has retired 21 jerseys in its athletics history, 15 from men’s basketball and six from football. But beyond the two big-name sports, Syracuse has done little to honor its other legendary athletes beyond their time at SU. More specifically, it’s done little to immortalize female athletes.

Eleven out of Syracuse’s 18 collegiate sports are women’s teams, yet Syracuse has never retired a jersey from any of these teams. There’s no doubt the talent is there, but it’s 2021. Syracuse’s reluctance to retire a female athletes’ jersey is proof that it doesn’t view them in the same light as male counterparts.

In 2019, Syracuse.com writer Brent Axe acknowledged Syracuse’s failure to retire female athlete’s jerseys. Axe questioned Syracuse Director of Athletics John Wildhack on the issue, and Wildhack expressed support in retiring female jerseys, stating it’s “the right thing to do.”

Fifteen months later, with International Women’s Day on Monday, Wildhack and SU Athletics have yet to retire a woman’s jersey. SU’s also yet to publicly announce a plan or acknowledge the matter since.

As a coxswain on the women’s rowing team, it’s degrading. Syracuse Athletics continues to remind us that no matter how great a female athlete plays, no matter how great I play, we still haven’t been recognized like male athletes.

On paper, there’s a facade of equality. Each NCAA sport is allotted equal practice time during competition season — 20 hours for men, 20 hours for women. Title IX requires men’s and women’s programs to receive the same “level of service, facilities, supplies.” Yet when it comes to equality in honoring accomplishments, Syracuse has turned a blind eye.

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The Orange are one out of five Atlantic Coast Conference schools without a single retired female jersey number — the others are Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, Louisville and Notre Dame.

In 1967, Syracuse student Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to officially participate and complete the Boston Marathon. Under the alias K.V. Switzer, she registered after noticing the rule book never mentioned gender, receiving bib No. 261. Despite assault by the race manager when he realized she was a woman, Switzer finished the marathon in four hours and 20 minutes. Switzer did not participate in athletics, but she was a student at Syracuse University.

Switzer set an example for female athletes, like myself, everywhere. It doesn’t matter that she wasn’t an SU athlete — she broke barriers and received verbal and physical assault just for being a woman, and her strength and courage deserves to be immortalized.

Alexis Peterson ranks second in Syracuse women’s basketball history with 1,978 career points, second in all-time free throws made (440) and third in program history for career steals (278). She was drafted 15th overall in the 2017 WNBA draft, Syracuse’s fifth alum to play in the WNBA.

Peterson’s aunt, Carla Norris, began teaching her niece how to play basketball at 6 years old to help craft her into the professional player she became. As a former collegiate athlete, Norris understands that while Title IX forced academic institutions to create equal opportunity for women’s sports, women have never been treated the same.

Syracuse’s failure to retire her niece’s jersey means it’s like every free throw Peterson made was erased, only noted in the record books. Every hour of practice she dedicated will only be remembered as a season statistic.

“They’ve put in the work, and they’ve earned that recognition,” Norris said. “And their jerseys should be retired as well.”

In 2014, Alyssa Murray completed her collegiate lacrosse career second on the university’s all-time scoring list (362 goals) and became the first Syracuse lacrosse player — men’s or women’s — to record more than 100 points in three seasons.

She was a two-time Tewaaraton Award finalist, and US Lacrosse Magazine named her a finalist for the greatest lacrosse player of all time. Murray also sits at 14th on the NCAA’s all-time points list.

“(Retiring women’s jerseys) is a small step in just recognizing that women athletes are putting in time and putting their bodies on the line to bring something to the university,” Murray said.

As a coxswain, there is a weight minimum for NCAA competition. Prior to each race, the four other coxswains and I step on a scale as an NCAA official notes our weight. If we are under 110 pounds, we are required to carry a bag of sand to make up for the lost pounds. It’s an unspoken rule that coaches require coxswains to be as close to that mark so they don’t add excess weight to the boat.

I’m 5-foot-1 with an athletic build sculpted by years of gymnastics, karate and functional fitness. My freshman year, I weighed in heavier than coaches would prefer. After a race at Cornell, I was asked what I ate for dinner the night before.

Three years later and 15 pounds lighter, I’ve sacrificed hours of my time in the gym and obsessed over my nutrition to make myself the best I could be for Syracuse rowing. I’ve sacrificed sleep, waking up for 5 a.m. workouts three times a week. The least Syracuse could do is honor that the same way they would a man.

It’s not an issue of who, but when. The list of women qualified for jersey retirement spans decades in every sport. It’s time for Syracuse to step up and create an environment where future Syracuse female athletes can look up in the rafters for the name of someone like them — a woman who’s walked the same path and transcended the ceiling of success.

Until then, in the eyes of SU, everything a female athlete accomplishes won’t measure up to that of a male athlete.

Skyler Rivera is an asst. sports editor at The Daily Orange, where her column appears occasionally. She can be reached at skrivera@syr.edu or on Twitter @skylerriveraa.