Talkin' Tennessee with Yvonnca
Talkin' Tennessee with Yvonnca
Tee to Legacy Ft. Ann Baker Furrow
What does it take to go from a 9-year-old girl excluded from Little League to breaking barriers at every turn? Ann Furrow's story captivates from the moment she recalls picking up a sawed-off golf club and deciding if boys wouldn't let her play their games, she'd excel at her own.
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Check us out to hear the latest on life in the volunteer state. Yvonca and her guests discuss everything from life, love and business with a Tennessee flair. It's a Tennessee thing, always relatable, always relevant and always a good time. This is Talkin' Tennessee, and now your host, yvonca.
Speaker 2:This episode is brought to you by the Landis team, your go-to real estate family in East Tennessee. If you are looking to buy or sell, we are the ones you should call. Give us a call at 865-660-1186 or check out our website at YvoncaSellsRealEstatecom. That's Yvonca Y-V-O-N-N-C-A SellsRealEstatecom.
Speaker 3:Welcome back to Talking Tennessee with Yvonca. I am your host and I'm here with a dear friend, ann Farrow. Welcome to Talking Tennessee, thank you. I'm glad to be here. Thank you so much, so much. Viewers, let me just say I'm fanning out on this one because this person has done so much in her life and she's paved the way for so many women and men that when you agreed to accept the invitation, I'll never forget hanging up and I was like, yes, yes, I really wanted to talk to somebody that has inspired me from afar and that I've always just like what would she be like? What would she say to me? So thank you so much for coming to Talkin' Tennessee. It's my joy, my pleasure. So who is Ann Farrell? Who is that person?
Speaker 4:Well, I have been a very, very fortunate person. Okay, because my life has been so blessed and so bountiful and so wonderful. I can't tell you how blessed I have been. God has been really good to me.
Speaker 3:I know that you are a woman of faith and you pride yourself in philanthropy building up your community, making a difference. Let's start from the beginning. What was it like living and growing up in Maryville?
Speaker 4:That's a little bit of heaven, and it still is a wonderful community.
Speaker 3:I know, you know that, yes, I love.
Speaker 4:Maryville, but everybody because of the plant and alcohol. Everybody was pretty equal. Great school systems because everybody was upwardly, mobile and wanting to get better their lives and the community was so supportive of me in everything that I did. Great teachers it was just an unbelievable place to grow up.
Speaker 3:So you grew up and let's talk about you. Know your mom. What did your mom inspire in you at a very young age of just where you needed to go? What did you need to do?
Speaker 4:Well, my mother was the math teacher, algebra teacher at the high school. Okay, very demanding, okay, high expectations of everyone. Our kids would go to MIT and Duke and Vanderbilt, I mean, that's where they were encouraged to go and she was there to support them. I tell a lot of people when she died well, she died going into my senior year of high school.
Speaker 3:I was about to say how old were you when you lost your mom? Just turned 17. 17. Yeah Well, let me say this, viewers, when I met Ms Ann, we had a conversation. We were just talking, and she told me about losing her mom, and that was one of the things that connected me to her, because I lost my mom at a very young age, not as young as you. But losing your mom, it can either build you strong or you can truly, truly go through some things that hold you back, and it sounds like that you got some things from your mom before she died that helped build you as a woman. Can you talk about those? Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 4:I think I told you this story because I thought it was so wonderful. When she died, a student, anonymous student, wrote a letter to the editor and the letter to the editor was entitled Battling Bell. Her name was Bell Baker, okay, and found out a little bit later who wrote that letter to the editor was Lamar Alexander, oh, wow. Our governor senator and all like that. My mother really was an encourager of him, but just battling Bell and I guess I kind of inherited some of those traits.
Speaker 3:I don't know. So, did she talk about you know? Hey, of course she talked about your education and, you know, having a strong education. Did she talk about community with you? Well, she participated.
Speaker 4:I mean she really was involved and encouraged the kids so much. And I saw it, I just saw it. It was an innate thing for me when Sam and I got married and I was involved is to participate in your community. And again, I have been so blessed that I've had so many doors opened that I could be involved.
Speaker 3:Yes. Well then, your mom taught you well because, viewers, you're about to hear a story that's unbelievable. The next question is who and what inspired you to start playing golf at nine years old?
Speaker 4:Well, I grew up in a neighborhood of boys Okay, and I think this is really important, people know this but I played with boys all the time.
Speaker 1:I did too.
Speaker 4:Everything, Everything. Tennis, basketball, ping pong, croquet, Anything you could compete in. We competed from early morning to late at night. They gave me no advantage. Most of the boys were a little bit older than I was and I really would get offended. There were a couple of boys a year younger than I was. They gave them an advantage, but they would not give me any advantage.
Speaker 3:I think I told you I grew up in Harriman, tennessee, and there was a park the park is named after my grandfather now, but back then it wasn't. And we would go up to the park every day, oh yeah, and my mom and dad would say don't let the streetlight catch you, you better be home before dark. And so we were like you. We played. You know basketball every sport you can think of softball everything in the park. And the boys basketball every sport you can think of softball everything in the park. And the boys yes, I played basketball with boys. I think that's what really conditioned my body Because, if you think about it, you know you're playing, you're trying to beat these boys because you don't want it to say, oh, that's just a girl playing. You know that type thing. But when you were nine years old you decided to be a golfer.
Speaker 4:Well, what happened was the boys went off to play Little League, and guess what?
Speaker 3:You didn't have anything to do. I couldn't play Little League, I was a girl.
Speaker 4:Yes, and if you've talked to Joan Krohn and she said that's when she really got into sports, I mean knowing I'm going to make a difference in women's athletics.
Speaker 3:Yes, most definitely.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and so my dad was a weekend golfer not very good. I pulled his golf cart a few times and then he bought me a sawed-off driver and I started playing and by 10, I'd won the nine-hole women's tournament and by 11, I was playing the Knox area and the state and women's. I played no junior things except the national junior and the western junior. Other than that, everything. So, you just fell in love with golf.
Speaker 3:Well, I was good at it, okay, and I love competition and it gave me something to do and I hear people say you know not to teach your kids competition, and I don't agree with that because there's competition in the world In everything, in everything you do. You know not to teach your kids competition, and I don't agree with that because there's competition in the world In everything, in everything you do. You know. And yes, I do get when people say you know it shouldn't be all about competition, but you have to teach your kids how to compete, because in jobs, in everything we do, there is competition. And so at nine years old you decided okay, you wanted to play golf, you wanted to compete, you wanted to achieve. And you kept achieving year after year.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't know that I wanted to achieve, I just wanted to do well. My goal has always been to do the very best I can do, and so it was never oh gosh, I'm going to go win this or that or whatever. It really wasn't until, let me think, if there were some tournaments.
Speaker 1:I wanted to no there was.
Speaker 4:I could tell you that story later. Go ahead, no, no, it's later on.
Speaker 3:Yes, I'll tell you that I was always taught in school and out of school, especially with my grandfather being an educator and, and you know, he was the very first black principal in Harriman, and so he taught a lot of people and the stakes was high because me being his grandkid, a granddaughter, it was like everybody was looking at me and my brother and sister, you know, and every flaw they pointed out. But the biggest thing my grandfather taught me was do everything in excellence. He said do not worry about accomplishments, do not worry about accolades, don't worry about anything.
Speaker 3:Those things come, he said. Those things will come, he said, but you should never do anything.
Speaker 4:Less than your best.
Speaker 3:Less than your best, and everything that I do. I teach my kids that is. Know that you did your best and you know what, and let the rocks fall you know, that type thing. Can you walk us through the journey of playing local to earning a full scholarship?
Speaker 4:golf scholarship. Well, again, I told you, god has blessed my life. It's unbelievable. I had won at 16,. I won the women's state. I won the national Western Junior at 16. At 16? Yeah, at 17,. I was expected to. I was one of the top juniors in the country, one of the top two or three or something like that Expected to win the national junior and my mother died in July. The tournament in August and it's the first time my dad had ever gone with me to tournaments. I've always had the women in Knoxville were fabulous and Maryville were just fabulous to me and they, you know, shepherded me and took me in and were nice to me. That wasn't always the the case. All my junior friends said, oh, those women are really ugly to me. No, the women were just really nice to me. So my dad and I went up to Buffalo, new York, for the National Junior. I was expected to win. I lost in the first round. I was disappointed. Yeah, I bet you were.
Speaker 3:Was you in shock?
Speaker 4:Well, you know, I don't remember that. I just know I was so mad and so angry that I had let Maryville down. I'd let my friends, I'd let people down, and the next week was the national amateur. Where it was, it was the top woman's amateur tournament in the world. They came from all over. Well, by darn, I said, nobody's going to beat me.
Speaker 3:And after you had that loss you said nobody's going to beat me.
Speaker 4:I did and I had this seat that I had with me, that I can still feel it. It was very slow play, and so I would walk down the fairway with that seat that you know you could stick in the ground, that you'd open up and rest when you were having to wait, and I'd walk down that fairway and say nobody's going to beat me, nobody's going to beat me.
Speaker 3:So you talked yourself through, you spoke affirmations in yourself, nobody was going to beat you.
Speaker 4:Well it kept me focused. And then I was runner-up in the National Amateur to Joanne Karner, big Mama, big Mama, big Mama Won the National Amateur to Joanne Karner, big Mama, big Mama, big Mama won the National Amateur five times in a row, turned pro, was a Hall of Famer, fabulous, fabulous golfer and because of that I was the number one junior in the country and the tenth woman in the country. And the SEC had just passed a rule saying women. In 1962 they passed a rule saying women could play varsity men's sports no contact, but varsity tennis, basketball, tennis, golf, maybe swimming, I don't know, but no contact. Well, I'm from Maryville. The newspapers had been so good to me, I mean they had promoted the heck out of it. They don't promote individuals now much unless you play football or basketball, maybe a little softball, but oh they, you know I was promoted big, well, number one junior golfer in the country, living right here, and UT offered me a full athletic men's scholarship. Four, years.
Speaker 3:Let's talk about that. That was going to be. My next thing is tell me what that was like when you got your letter saying you got a full scholarship.
Speaker 4:Well, I, what happened was Bowden Wyatt, who was from Kingston, tennessee. Actually, it was my neck of the woods. Yeah, yeah, uh, was the acting athletic director. He'd been the head football coach and he's the one that called me up and said Ann, we'd like to meet you at Dean Hill Country Club, and I don't know that. They told me they were going to give me a full scholarship. Maybe they did, but we they we'd like to talk to you. Okay, and because my mother had just died, that gave me a wonderful opportunity to stay home near my father. Okay, and you did not have being the number one junior in the country. You had no opportunity. Girls, I know I say this all the time. Girls now have no idea what it was like back in my day.
Speaker 4:Yes, I agree, I would have a full ride to every school in the country now if I was the number one junior.
Speaker 3:And I do agree with you when it comes to a lot of girls of today do not realize how hard that was back then.
Speaker 4:Well, girls weren't given the opportunity. I agree, there were no women's athletics departments, there was no Title IX, there was nothing. But you know, I got this little bone that said, well, I could play on the men's golf team if I wanted to, you know, on scholarship. Well, anyway, that only lasted two years. The SEC passed a rule saying women could not play varsity men's sports. Those of us already on scholarship or already involved could finish out our eligibility. So you got to finish it. I represented UT in other things, but not in competition, after my sophomore year and I made the freshman team. I was third person Varsity team, I was like seventh or eighth person and you know, I don't know what I would have been. But you know what God is so, so good. He gave me the opportunity to be involved in the time, to be involved in the campus at UT and I was heavily involved in things at UT and sorority and government, student government and all. So I had it both ways.
Speaker 3:Most definitely, you lost your mom at a young age, but the community, your dad and different people rallied around you to get you through it. So let's bring marriage in it.
Speaker 1:Marriage marriage, marriage, okay. So when did you and Sam.
Speaker 3:tell us how Well Y'all met. Tell us how you got married.
Speaker 4:Tell us it all I told you I was very active very involved. I was sweetheart of Phi Delta Theta fraternity at UT. Okay Sam started Phi Delta Theta fraternity at UT. Okay Sam started Phi Delta Theta fraternity. He's three and a half years older than I am. He's bond number one. He started Phi Delta at UT. I had class every morning at 8 o'clock, advanced calculus, five days a week with Andy Holt Jr, or Andy Holt.
Speaker 3:And I go in his building a lot. Well, this is his dad's building, yes, his dad's building, yeah.
Speaker 4:And so Andy and I got to know each other well and he, when I was a sophomore, said would you be sweetheart? He was a Fidel. Okay, he pledged Fidel. And he said would you be sweetheart of Fidel? And I said, well, yeah, that sounds nice.
Speaker 1:I'll do that and I loved it.
Speaker 4:I had a great time. I loved it. Sam was in the service, came back, was working with his father in Sweetwater, sweetwater.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's where his father lived. That's where my dad was from.
Speaker 4:Oh, really yes.
Speaker 3:Okay, see, I told you we got a lot of connections. Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 4:Anyway, he was advisor to the fraternity, so on Monday nights or whatever, he would come and advise the fraternity. One day I had lunch with him at the house and about a month later one of the guys said you know, it was time for me to give up being sweetheart. And he said well, who would you like to take you to the formal? And I said, well, Sammy Joe Furrow would be nice, and his legal name was Sammy Joe Furrow would be nice and his legal name was Sammy Joe Furrow. Okay, and it's another story I'll tell you. But so he called me up.
Speaker 3:So you got to pick the person that would take you. That would take me, Did you like? What made you pick?
Speaker 4:Well, I'd had lunch with him. I'd only had lunch with him. I missed that little part.
Speaker 4:I'd had lunch with him one day, okay, and so I thought he'd be good. And I knew him. He was very well respected on campus. He was cadet colonel, you know, spare being. He just was a leader on campus and a good guy At a very young age. And so he called and said would you go out to dinner? Before with the former, I said, sure, that'd be great, went out to dinner and he bought the couple next to us. I kind of knew the couple, it was their anniversary. He bought their dinner for them. I thought, well, that's a generous guy, that's a nice guy. And I went back in the dorm that night, told my roommate I'd lived with her for three years, she'd gone through everything with me, and I said that's who I'm going to marry Really. And we went out every night from then until we got married.
Speaker 3:So y'all went on two dates.
Speaker 4:Well, we had one quick little lunch and then went out to dinner With the couple. No, no, they just had to be sitting next to us.
Speaker 3:Oh, they were sitting next to us. We were at Riga's. He didn't even know them.
Speaker 4:They were my friends Guy Ray Henderson from Maryland Tennessee. And you knew that that was going to be your husband, I said immediately to my roommate. I said that's who I'm going to marry. He must have felt the same way because we went out every night until and I graduated early. I graduated in March and we got married the next April, so I got married at 21. I was 21.
Speaker 3:At 21 years old, you had went through playing golf, you know, graduating from University of Tennessee, and now you're married. Yeah, what was it like starting out at that young age?
Speaker 4:Well, Sam was in law school he is when we met. Two weeks after we met he said I'm going to go to law school and he happened to know the dean of the law school and he got in the law school.
Speaker 4:He got in. Yeah, he played basketball with the Dean's son and so he got in law school. So he was in law school and I was going to go to work, and when I was a senior I think you'll appreciate this when I was okay, we'd met and he said you know what am I going to do? I was a math major until my. Once I met him, I.
Speaker 2:He said you know, what am I going to do?
Speaker 4:I was a math major. Once I met him, I dropped advanced something, something I couldn't. I was going to fail it.
Speaker 3:He said let me drop it real quick.
Speaker 4:Yeah, drop it real quick so I don't fail it. Anyway, just one day Sam said, well, have you thought about real estate, would you? And I thought, well, that'd be something I could do using my contacts, people I knew in the area. Gives me freedom to do what I want to do. I don't have to sit behind a desk and all like that, right. So I got my license before I graduated from high school, I mean from college, before I graduated.
Speaker 3:So you got your real estate license coming out of college, yeah.
Speaker 4:Okay, I already had it and went with the firm Wallace. Wallace Great, I already had it and went with the firm Wallace.
Speaker 3:Wallace, great firm Still is, still is.
Speaker 4:But they dealt locally in kind of Squaw Hills, westmoreland that area. Until about two years later and Sam was in law school. But Sam was still working, he was still doing lots of auctions everywhere.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's where Farrell auctioned later on, but he was doing auctions before, even in college.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, wow, in college he was doing auctions In law school. He was doing auctions Really a lot of the country over the country.
Speaker 3:That was smart for you to go into real estate knowing that you're already doing auctions. Yeah, and I thought I could help too.
Speaker 4:It just gave me freedom to do what I wanted to do. It just gave me freedom to do what I wanted to do, and so we started our lives doing that. And then one day I knew Chester Massey and he called me up and said I want to develop a residential area around a new golf course out in West Knoxville out in West Knoxville.
Speaker 3:Before you tell that story everybody, this is a big throwback to what truly happened in this subdivision, because a lot of people don't know. Oh, a lot of people have no idea how it was done, so I want people to know listen closely, go ahead.
Speaker 4:Well, we went around, Chester said would you be the broker? And I got my broker's license and I said yeah, that would be good. And we went around, traveled around with his daughter and all, and maybe his wife didn't come, but looking at, like Quail Hollow in Charlotte, I think, or just places where you have a residential area around a golf course, hired a guy named Willard Bird. I walked to the Fox Den when it was a farm. Did y'all hear it?
Speaker 3:It was Fox Den. He called her to help develop it and be the broker of this development. So Fox Den, for the viewers that don't know, is one of the most established subdivision in Knoxville's history. Fox Den is so well loved to this day and what I love about Fox Den is that none of the houses look the same. No, none of the houses look the same and there's character in those houses and there's so many different amazing stories that come out of those houses.
Speaker 4:Now keep going. Well, so I did. I think I told you driving, because I was driving down here today I thought God, foxden was a long way down there, because nobody went to Foxden.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 4:And so we developed it, sold lots, sold memberships Anyway, and I stayed there probably for three years until I had children and three or four years.
Speaker 3:So she was brokering and developing Fox Den and everything else, and then children came. Children came.
Speaker 4:How many children do you have? We just have two. We have a daughter, Leanne Tolsman, who runs the car dealerships.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 4:They've been great kids, both of them, and she's amazing. Yeah, great kids. Well, they're not kids now gosh.
Speaker 3:I think our kids will always be kids, because I still call my kids Adrienne's 31, and she's still my kid.
Speaker 4:I think it's just that way with moms Leanne is 54, and Jay's 52, so I don't think they're kids anymore, but both of them were wonderful. Growing up. I really never had any issues, problems or whatever Heavily involved in everything they did, as you I'm sure were. They were athletes, they played sports and government, Something that you don't know.
Speaker 3:my husband and Jay played against each other. Yes, way back when Really yes. So David was like. You've got to make sure you tell her that I used to play against her son. Yeah, he was a bearded man and he always because David was at Farragut.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, but they definitely played each other.
Speaker 3:So he was like be sure to tell her that. So being a mom and finding your way, as I mean, when you're a broker, you're an entrepreneur. You are self-employed, You're an entrepreneur. What was that like back then?
Speaker 4:Well, when I got my license, there were very few women.
Speaker 3:Very few.
Speaker 4:It was Laverne Pryor, bea Corbett. Yes, and maybebett yes. And I may be about it. Yes, laverne had her own office. Bea worked for, I think, volunteer Realty. She did, yeah, and there just weren't many women at all.
Speaker 3:No, and now they're. You know it's a majority. There's a lot of women in real estate now, but I'll tell you, even when I came in at 25 years ago, it was a man's industry. It really was, and it wasn't the easiest to come into. I'll never forget one of the first deals because I'm a hard negotiator and so I'll never forget trying to negotiate a deal with a guy and the gentleman literally said to me you really think that you're going to beat me at negotiations? He laughs to this day Because every time we sit he goes you beat me at negotiations. Yeah so, but what was it like trying to build a family and find your? I mean, you already had an identity in golf and in all the different sports, and then now you're in real estate there's an identity. What was it like trying to bring all that together and balance?
Speaker 4:it. I've always said if you're a good athlete and if you play golf well, men really treat you quite well.
Speaker 3:That's true, they think that you're their equal, almost yes.
Speaker 4:Well, maybe don't, but at least they make me think that. But you know I never had any issues with that. And then at one point Sam said he really wanted me to stay home and not work.
Speaker 3:So what was that like when he said okay, I want you to stay home and just be a mom?
Speaker 4:Well, I didn't resent it, which is amazing. And see, Sam, I quit golf after we got married. I won the state a couple of times. I wanted to win for him and then I quit golf. So I was not playing golf. That's so sweet to say.
Speaker 3:I wanted to win for him and then I quit golf, so I was not playing golf. That's so sweet to say. I wanted to win for him. I did. I know that feeling because there's things that I have accomplished. It was more to make my husband proud, yeah, and I don't think people would admit that, but it's okay. You want your husband to be proud of you.
Speaker 4:Go ahead Anyway. So I had been appointed to the Board of Trustees when I was 26.
Speaker 3:26. University of. Tennessee, 26 years old. How did that?
Speaker 4:happen. That's an unbelievable story. Okay, we've always been. I was always well, we both were involved in politics, and Lamar Alexander is one of our very best friends. He was in our wedding. His mother was my kindergarten teacher and nursery school teacher. Oh wow.
Speaker 3:And as I'd already told you mom taught him. I was about to say your mom really liked him.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and our families were close and we just were always kind of involved in politics. When Winfield Dunn ran for governor first, anyway, lamar had already gone to Washington Washington I think he was with Bryce Harlow, he in the Nixon administration, okay, and he then said I'm going to come back and run Winfield Dunn's campaign. And he asked Sam had just graduated from law school and he said would you come over and work for me? Well, you've got some time now. Would you come over and work for me? You've got some time now. Would you come over and help run the campaign? So Sam did that. Winfield won, first Republican to win, since in 100 years, 150 years, democrats always ran the campaign.
Speaker 4:So y'all was in shock, probably, Well sort of but anyway, Winfield won, and maybe a year went by I don't know exactly what and one day Sam came in with a newspaper. I was still in bed, this morning newspaper, when you had morning papers on Anyway he came in and he says look, you're not going to believe this. And there on the front page it said Ann Becker-Furrow to be appointed to the UT board.
Speaker 3:What so you didn't?
Speaker 4:know. No, I didn't Never asked. Never A lot of people lobbied for that job.
Speaker 3:So it ran in the paper and that's how you found out, mm-hmm oh wow.
Speaker 4:And that afternoon Winfield called and said would I like to be a University of Tennessee trustee? And I said I would be honored.
Speaker 3:That's amazing. Yeah, that's a big deal.
Speaker 4:Well, I'll tell you that you won't win anyway.
Speaker 1:Go ahead.
Speaker 4:Well, I found out a few years, oh, five years ago, I guess. Winfield just died, I think in the last year or two. But great guy, great guy. And there was somebody else that wanted the position. That was a very prominent person and he drove across the state to see this person and say I'm not going to appoint you, I'm going to appoint Ann.
Speaker 3:And that's why he didn't call me until that afternoon, until he had died and it already ran because he wanted to tell the other person that he was going to pick you.
Speaker 4:I guess I don't know, but it was in the paper They'd let it go to the paper so. I went on the board at 26.
Speaker 3:And I bet you, sam, was so proud. Well, I don't know. I don't know Because it probably took you out of the house.
Speaker 4:No, it really wasn't. So how long did you serve? I served for 18 years. 18 years. Then, lamar, when he became governor, he reappointed me, but I was the first woman and the youngest person ever appointed. So everybody laughed and said you're going to be in there with all those cigars smoking old men. Well, guess what? You're right.
Speaker 1:I sat next to cigars smoking old men.
Speaker 4:Yes, but again, they were very nice to me and I never felt again. I think it goes back to that I could beat them in golf.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So what was it like? You know, because nowadays you hear people talk about, you know a seat at the table. I want to be at the table and this is me I had. I heard a gentleman say I want to own the table and I was like, own the table.
Speaker 2:I never heard anyone say that.
Speaker 3:And I said I just feel like if you have a seat at the table, it's a duty to bring substance to a table that can help, you know, make whatever successful, and it's not about what seat you have or whatever, it's just doing your part. What do you think about that?
Speaker 4:well, I think you just do what. I think I got appointed when I was a woman, when I was young, when I was an athlete, so I represented those areas. I did chair the academic and academic affairs committee for nine years, so that all came through my committee so being a woman.
Speaker 3:She's saying she knew that certain things, that her being a woman, that is a plus. So to women out there I would say you know it's okay, it doesn't matter. You know I'll say in my position that I'm like, okay if the whole room is men. Okay, that doesn't mean I can't be in that room. And you showed that you can hang with that same crew with the cigars and still get something done. So what was that? Like you know, being on that board and making decisions. Did they ever give you a hard time on your opinion? No, they didn't.
Speaker 4:No, never, you know, I'm not a, I don't stir the pot a whole lot.
Speaker 3:Right, right, I go through the correct, correct channels, channels, and you pick your battles Right.
Speaker 4:And now the women's athletics. Title IX came in in 72. Ut had the Board of Trustees had a committee to study women's athletics. Where did we want that to be housed? That was a big decision, a huge decision. Should we be separate from the men or should we be part of the men decision? Should we be separate from the men or should we be part of the men? And Dr Bowling did not want the women to take any money away from the men, so we ended up being separate. Well, that was a blessing, Unbelievable. We were one of five Division I schools that ran their own show. We had our own athletic director, as you know, Ms Cronin and Gloria Ray Fabulous, yes. And we had Pat Summitt, which helped a whole lot.
Speaker 2:And Terry.
Speaker 4:Hull, who also won a national track title. But there was so much pride in the Lady Vols, so much, and I will say this, and I always say this Dr Bowling became one of the biggest supporters of the women's athletics department.
Speaker 3:So they wanted it separated because they didn't want money to be taken away from the men. But they didn't realize they basically started women's athletics and starting it on a bigger platform.
Speaker 4:Giving us control of our own destiny. Now the men still reported to the president of the system, we reported to the chancellor of the system, the women reported to the chancellor of the system. Howard Allman was our go-to and I can't remember who the chancellor was.
Speaker 3:But anyway, just so much support for the women, so viewers do you hear how, over time working and sweat equity too, sweat equity and just being in the room and trying to build up, and opportunities came, opportunities came, even when it was meaning for the bad to not let women have a portion of the money, but it really opened up so many bigger things. So that's why I always say I will always say God always has a plan and no matter what man thinks it's supposed to be, god will always rise up. So tune in to part two of Talking Tennessee with Yvonca, next Friday with Ms Ann Farrow, my friend. Bye, guys.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Talkin' Tennessee with Yvonca. Watch out for our weekly episodes from the First Family of Real Estate and check us out on the web wwwyvoncasalesrealestatecom. See our videos on Yvonca's YouTube channel or find us on Facebook under Yavonca Landis and Twitter at Yavonca Landis, and don't forget to tell a friend about us. Until next time. Yavonca signing off.