Athletic opportunities for women were nonexistent when Dr. Marjory Beck went to college. She used her passion to create opportunities for women at BSC (now Bemidji State University), and in the states of Minnesota and North Dakota, nearly a decade before Title IX was passed.

As the Department Chair of Women’s Physical Education at Bemidji State College in 1963, she started extramural activities for women thanks to a $300 grant from the Student Activities Committee. In her first seven years, BSC added field hockey, volleyball, swimming, gymnastics, basketball, tennis and track and field teams for women, and continued to grow.

Beck carefully managed growth because resources were limited.  It took time before Physical Education faculty members accepted coaching as part of their assignments. She managed a meager budget and stretched it to buy warmups and basic equipment for all sports, including a single set of jerseys shared by volleyball, basketball and track teams. Once the program started to grow, she was able to secure additional funding for specific sport needs such as scorecards for gymnastics and track, and warm-ups for gymnastics and swimming.

As Bemidji’s athletic offerings for women continued to grow, so did the need for organizational  structure. Beck, who was the first women’s athletics coordinator at BSU, played a key role in the formation of the Minn-Kota Conference, one of the first women’s athletics conferences in the country. The conference included colleges from Minnesota and North Dakota and she served as their first president. In addition, she was also the first president of the Minnesota Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (MAIAW). As women’s intercollegiate athletics grew in Minnesota, so did the demand to align the conference with institutions within the state. The Minn-Kota Conference was dissolved, and Beck served as the first president of the Northern Sun Conference in 1979-80.

Thanks to Beck’s leadership, women’s athletics in Minnesota made significant gains during the  60’s and 70’s. Her vision helped shape the landscape for women competing in the pre-Title IX era, a landscape that continues to grow and evolve today.