Carole A. Oglesby

Carole A. Oglesby is an American physical educator, sport psychologist, coach, and advocate recognized for foundational contributions to women’s athletics. She is known for leadership in organizations promoting gender equity in sports and for research exploring the intersections of feminism, sexuality, and race in athletic contexts. She earned an A.B. and M.S. in physical education from the University of California, Los Angeles (1961, 1964), a Ph.D. from Purdue University (1969), and a second Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Temple University, along with certification in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). Oglesby taught for nearly four decades at institutions including Purdue University, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Temple University, and California State University, Northridge, where she chaired the Department of Kinesiology and later became professor emeritus. Her administrative roles include serving as the first president of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), the first president of Women Sport International, and president of the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport. She also served as a long-term trustee and international policy advisor for the Women’s Sports Foundation. Oglesby authored influential works such as Women in Sport: From Myth to Reality and edited the Encyclopedia of Women in Sport in America. Her scholarship has addressed topics including homophobia, Title IX implementation, and stalled progress in women’s sports equity, including works such as “Stepping Through the Looking Glass: The Future for Women in Sport” (2016) and contributions to No Slam Dunk: Gender, Sport and the Unevenness of Social Change (2018). She organized initiatives like the Women’s Sports Foundation’s “The New Agenda” conference in the early 1980s, which helped shape research priorities on women in sport, and opposed the 1982 AIAW NCAA merger to preserve women-led governance structures. As one of the earliest openly lesbian figures in U.S. athletics, her advocacy extended globally through consulting on women’s sports and rights, alongside mentoring in sport psychology and cultural competency.