One of the most important hirings in Rutgers athletics history didn’t get much fanfare in September 1973.
Fourteen months after Congress enacted Title IX, a law the prohibited federally funded institutions from discriminating against students or employees based on sex, Rutgers hired a recently graduated Trenton State track and field standout to teach in its physical education department.
Sandra Petway, just 23 at the time, was hardly content to just teach proper-conditioning techniques to college students. She put up fliers throughout Rutgers’ New Brunswick campus, hoping to attract enough students to start a women’s track and field club — just like she had done four years earlier as a sophomore at the school now called The College of New Jersey.
“It was really hard, starting out as a club sport at Rutgers with no money or resources from the school,” Petway said in an April 2021. “We had to prove ourselves.”
They did just that, earning entry into the national women’s track championships in Rutgers’ first year competing as a club. A year later, then-Rutgers athletics director Fred Gruninger announced the formation of a women’s varsity program, providing funding for the track and field program while tapping Petway to lead it.
Petway’s promotion meant Rutgers would have its first Black head coach in any sport. The Vineland native, who was profiled by NJ Advance Media in July 2021, will be inducted into the school’s athletics Hall of Fame this October.
“I am certain that Rutgers would’ve gotten around to starting a track and field program … eventually,” former Rutgers track and field star Charlotte Walker said. “The way Sandee went about her business, we gave it the boost it needed at the time.”
Rutgers will honor the 50th anniversary with a celebration of its female letter winners on Oct. 7 during halftime of the Scarlet Knights’ Big Ten clash with Nebraska at SHI Stadium.
That same weekend a golf outing has been planned to support Petway, who was involved in a head-on automobile collision in July 2021, suffering C5 and C6 vertebrae fractures and a spinal cord injury. She is paralyzed below the waist, but has maintained an inspirational spirit that is contagious.
“She’s such an amazing woman,” Rutgers athletics director Pat Hobbs told NJ Advance Media after visiting Petway at her Venice, Fla., home last April. “Her strength of spirit is so amazing and admirable, and she’s just diehard Rutgers. She’s an inspiration.”
The profits for the Playing 4 Petway golf outing will supplement Petway’s daily living expenses for her continued care.
The outing is scheduled for the morning of Saturday, Oct. 8 at the Rutgers University Golf Course, which neighbors SHI Stadium in Piscataway. The Scarlet Knights will host Nebraska at 7 p.m.
For more information on the golf outing, contact Karen Loupassakis at kjljs73@aol.com or click HERE on its official page.
Rutgers athletics director Pat Hobbs (left), former track and field coach Sandra Petway (center) and Scarlet Knights men’s basketball coach Steve Pikiell pose for a photo inside Petway’s Venice, Fla., home on Wednesday, April 27, 2022.
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Keith Sargeant may be reached at ksargeant@njadvancemedia.com.