News and Events
Tennis Player Was Just One Of The Guys
By Justine Hendricks '07
Jean Harshaw Lesko '37, who played two years of varsity tennis, was the only woman in Washington College history to hold a spot on a traditionally all-male team. 
The young coed on the boy's tennis team gained some notoriety in the press.This spring, the 12 players on the women's tennis team hope to better their 2008 record of 12-6 en route to winning the Centennial Conference championship. It might surprise them to know that the young woman who pioneered the sport more than 70 years ago routinely trounced her male competitors.
Women's tennis has been a varsity sport at Washington College since 1975, three years after Congress passed Title IX, a groundbreaking law prohibiting educational programs—including athletics—from discriminating against participants on the basis of their sex.
Today, Washington College fields ten varsity athletic teams for women, compared with just seven for men.
For years, however, intramural basketball, hockey and archery were the only sports offered to women at Washington College. In 1936, Jean Harshaw Lesko '37 broke ranks and joined the varsity men's tennis team. Playing with the boys, she became the first woman to represent the College in intercollegiate competition.
"There was no girl's tennis team at that time," Lesko explains simply. "That's why I played on the men's team."
Harshaw, who grew up outside Philadelphia, took up the sport of tennis as a young girl; she excelled. Harshaw competed in doubles tournaments with her sister, winning the Delaware State tournament and the Philadelphia district tournament senior championship in 1936. She fondly recalls spending summer mornings on the courts.
When she arrived at Washington College, the men's tennis team was still getting started.
"Tennis wasn't a big thing at Washington College," she remembers. "I was accustomed to playing tennis tournaments, so it was a bit of a let-down at first."
Though some accounts in The Elm from those years suggest Jean had to fight to join the team, she remembers it differently.
"It really wasn't difficult because I'd beaten some of the people on the team before," she says. "The coach, Dr. Davis, was my German teacher and he knew I played and I beat the boys and won."
While she agrees it was a novelty for a girl to play for the men's team, Jean says, "I never felt out of place at all. The men were just as nice as they could be."
In her first match against St. John's in May 1936, the team posted a loss, but Jean and her doubles partner Elwood Claggett earned one of the College's two wins. The following week, she was "the best performer for Washington" in the team's brutal loss to the University of Delaware.
Her on-court success continued during her senior year. A few months after she finished the season as the leading scorer in women's intramural basketball, The Elm reported Harshaw had "the best record of any member of the squad for the current year," adding, "Most tennis fans agree that she is tops among the racket wielders on the Hill."
Despite the accolades, Jean never sought to stand out.
"We were all in it together, and we had a good time," she recalls.
She is similarly modest about being the only girl on a men's varsity squad, pointing out that she was not the only female tennis player to join a men's team out of necessity. For those athletes, the goal was not to set a precedent or revolutionize women's sports, but simply to continue playing the game they loved.
"I wasn't a pusher. I was just glad there was a team I could play on," Jean said.
Justine Hendricks '07, the web content provider for Washington College, has conducted extensive research on the school's sports history.