Ruth M. Berkey, Occidental’s director of athletics from 1977 to 1980 and a pioneering advocate for women’s sports, died May 18, 2025, in Grants Pass, Ore. She was 89.
A native of Beverly, Mass., Ruth Margaret Anderson received her B.S. in physical education and kinesiology from Pepperdine College in 1957 and completed a master’s in physical education at USC in 1959. Ruth married Bruce E. Berkey in 1960 and the couple settled in Sierra Madre.
After teaching at John Marshall Junior High School in Pasadena, Ruth joined Occidental as an instructor in physical education in 1960. At the time, women’s athletics at Occidental consisted of intramural competition in basketball, swimming, tennis, and volleyball. “That wasn’t a program—that was a joke,” she recalled in a 1978 interview in The Occidental newspaper.
Ruth coached numerous women’s sports at Oxy, including tennis, water polo, archery, badminton, and field hockey. Her true passion was in coaching basketball and volleyball, and she led those teams to several conference championships. She coached the women’s volleyball team to consecutive appearances in the AIAW National Small College Volleyball tournament in 1977 and 1978, finishing sixth in 1977. (She also recruited much of the 1981 women’s volleyball team coached by Lesley Alward ’75 to a third-place finish in the NCAA Division III championships.)
In addition to teaching and coaching, Ruth served as dean of women from 1965 to 1968 and succeeded Roy Dennis ’33 as Occidental’s director of athletics in 1977—one of the first women in the country to oversee both men’s and women’s sports at the collegiate level.
Following the passage of Title IX in 1972, Ruth seized the opportunity to fight for equal standing for women in college sports. Her skilled advocacy and leadership did not go unnoticed. In 1980, she left Occidental to establish the NCAA’s first women’s championship program for Divisions I, II, and III—an ambitious and historic task. By 1982, all three divisions offered national championship events for women’s athletics.
“Women have always had a problem in athletics,” Berkey told The New York Times in January 1981. “Women athletes are not accepted as women because they are athletes and thought to be unfeminine. They are not accepted as athletes because they are women. The NCAA is accepting them as both.”
Working out of NCAA’s then-headquarters in Mission, Kan., Ruth eventually became the assistant executive director of the NCAA, where she remained until 1992. Her contribution to women’s athletics was recognized when she received the 2002 Honda Award for Outstanding Achievement in Women’s Collegiate Athletics.
In 2008, Ruth moved to Grants Pass to be close to her family. She was an avid (and competitive) tennis player throughout her life and in her retirement served as the girls tennis coach at Hidden Valley High School and president of the Grants Pass Community Tennis Association for several years.
Ruth is survived by sons Bruce R. Berkey '84 and James F. Berkey; seven grandchildren; one great grandchild; and her brother, Bob Anderson.
Top photo: From left, women's volleyball players Yela Luzar ’79, Sue Bethanis ’82, Coach Ruth Berkey, Ann Easley ’81, and Camille Hamner ’79 in 1978.
