The NCAA News - News and Features

May 12, 1997

Sports Science Newsletter
Yale's pioneer woman athletic trainer "retires"

By Marty Benson
EDITOR

Please take out your NCAA Directory and turn to page 39. Look at the list of members on the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports. Note that seven of the 16 members are women.

The committee did not always have such a feminine touch. Just as with many athletics organizations, the committee was once all-male. That changed in the early 1980s with the addition of Daphne Benas, who, this past fall, retired as head athletic trainer at Yale University. She did not leave the school or its athletics program, but relinquished her considerable administrative duties.

In Benas' committee days, the group was doing groundbreaking work on projects such as the Injury Surveillance System, the Sports Medicine Handbook and drug testing, each of which has developed into a standard component of the committee's current meeting agenda.

"This was probably the best working committee I ever served on," she said.

Before Benas could become a pioneer on the competitive-safeguards committee, she had to break down a gender barrier in the athletic-training field, which she did by becoming Yale's first full-time female athletic trainer in 1975.

She served in that capacity for three years before being put in charge of the school's training room, a promotion that made her the first female head athletic trainer at a school with Division I football. She decided to step down from that position last year.

"When I decided last spring that I no longer wanted to be head athletic trainer, I thought I was going to leave (Yale), but every time I thought of that, I thought I'd better stay," she said. "I didn't want to leave the student body. It's the best patient load any health-care provider could ask for."

Thanks to a flexible administration, Benas was able to ditch the paper-shuffling and get back to what she likes best -- helping student-athletes. Part of the deal was trading her traditional fall pigskin duty for a season of men's soccer.

"It was culture shock for me at first," said the gridiron veteran. "I never understood the game of soccer and now I'm totally drawn to it."

As accustomed to football as she had become, it was that sport that caused the most trouble for her when she was promoted.

"The football alumni questioned my hiring," she said. "At the time, I'd have been lying if I said I knew how to fit shoulder pads or the difference between what a linebacker and a safety did, but I learned.

"I had no problem with the athletes. They just want the best care they can get. It took a while to prove myself to some of the coaches."

A 1973 graduate of the University of Connecticut, Benas got her start in the athletic training field while fulfilling a clinical requirement for her physical therapy undergraduate degree (she has since earned a master's in orthopedic physical therapy) under Carl Krein at Central Connecticut State University. At the time, he was running one of the few coed training rooms in the country.

Her first job out of college was as a physical therapist, but she had developed an interest in athletic training from two college roommates who were physical education majors. Through her physical therapy connections, she heard about and attended sports medicine clinics at Yale. During that time, she filled mailboxes with applications for athletic training jobs.

"Most of them (the prospective employers) just laughed (at the prospect of hiring a woman), she said. "I wish I still had some of those letters."

She was not greeted with open arms by everyone at Yale either, especially when she was promoted.

"There were good times and bad times," she said. "Peter Jokl (the team physician) believed in me and my ability and pushed for me to get the position. If it weren't for him, it wouldn't have been possible. People were starting to look at Title IX then and I think the AD at the time (Frank Ryan) had some foresight in hiring a woman."

Back then she was working with another woman who eventually became a head athletic trainer, Maria Hutsick, who has held that position at Boston University for the past 13 years.

"Daphne was a very big influence on me," Hutsick said. "She is very professional and has great clinical skills.

"We went through some tough times together back then and she always stood in my corner."

Benas' "retirement" does not allow her a lot of extra time, but she has taken on a new duty as a member of the board of directors of the National Athletic Trainers' Association's Research and Education Foundation. As such, she coordinates fund-raising efforts for the northeast states and spreads the word about the benefits of the NATA.

"She is one of the quiet, unheralded professionals who has contributed to the field for so long in so many ways," said Marje Albuhm, president of the board and long-time friend. "She is truly one of the pioneers but people don't know about her because she stays out of the limelight."

Daphne hopes that through her efforts and those of her peers, female athletic trainers will get more opportunities in the field she loves.

"It is very important that people stop looking at women as working with women's sports and men working with men's sports. Everyone who works in the field should be exposed to all kinds of injuries. I think all athletic trainers should be exposed to sports like football because of the number of injuries and the challenge."

In reflecting on how the competive-safeguards committee has evolved through the years, Benas is especially pleased with the current awareness of the group's work, especially in dealing with unpopular but important safety issues.

"Because of the broad scope of people on the committee (coaches, athletic trainers, doctors, administators), the committee gets all sorts of different views on every issue. The conclusions it reaches are very well thought out."