Vanderbilt Women’s Basketball Team

In 1897, Stella Vaughn led Vanderbilt’s first women’s basketball team to victory in bloomers and blouses, shielded from the eyes of men by blocked windows. A male Hustler reporter wrote that he anticipated “scratching and hair-pulling and… a half-dozen screams.” The accolades and respect earned by Vanderbilt’s nine official women’s sports teams have proven this author greatly underestimated female athletes.