Betts Champion of Women’s Cause (NACWAA Lifetime Achiever)
By Bob Duffy, Globe Staff, October 3, 2006

"In the 1940s and '50s, Greenwood, Ind., wasn’t exactly rural, definitely not urban. It stood in the shadow of Indianapolis, but you didn’t have to go far outside the city limits," says Jane Betts, "to be in the cornfields." Situated at the crossroads, Greenwood was a microcosm of US women’s athletics at the time. There were none. Oh, the gals could sell corn along the roadside. They could bake apple pies. And if they wanted exercise, there was always quilting. Basketball? Lacrosse? Swimming? Track? Men’s stuff. If women wanted to join a team, that’s what the PTA was for.

Such was the enlightened place and era of Jane Betts’s childhood. She could play hoops in her backyard with the neighbors -- preferably not hard enough to work up a sweat -- but when she went looking for games that included uniforms and scoreboards, she was dribbling to nowhere. "No organized sports," says Betts, "no opportunities for women to play."

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