In 1996, the UT-Martin softball program received a new on-campus softball facility. The stadium was dedicated in April of ’96 as Bettye Giles Field.
Just who is Bettye Giles, the woman whose name the Skyhawks’ home park bears?
Giles played a pivotal role in the development of women’s athletics at UT-Martin and in the state of Tennessee. A native of Clarksville, Tennessee and a 1950 graduate of Austin Peay, Giles later also earned her Master’s degree from the University of Tennessee in 1952. In the fall of ’52, she began her tenure as a physical education professor at UT-Martin.
During the 1952-53 school year, Giles began the women’s tennis program at UTM. She served as the head coach of the team for eight seasons and led the program to become the first Skyhawks women’s sport to achieve varsity status, a feat accomplished in 1956.
In 1969, Giles became the school’s director of women’s athletics, a role she exclusively held and a position that continued until 1994. She was the first president of the Tennessee College Women’s Sports Federation after the organization was established in 1970.
She oversaw the first awarding of scholarships to female athletes at UTM, was the school’s cheerleading sponsor for 21 years, and was the first sponsor for UTM’s rifle and dance programs. Outside of UTM, Giles also directed the local Special Olympics for over 20 years.
Following her retirement in 1995, Giles has remained a part of and a supporter to UT-Martin’s athletic and academic programs.
A list of Giles’ honors and awards would fill pages itself, but how’s this for a sampler: She has been inducted into the UT-Martin Athletics Hall of Fame and the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame; was recognized as a Title IX pioneer by the Ohio Valley Conference; has an award named after her that is presented to the top female student-athlete at UT-Martin every year; and is represented in statue form outside the school’s Elam Center.
Legendary Tennessee basketball coach and former UT-Martin student-athlete Pat Summitt established a scholarship at UTM in 2003 that bears the names of both and former Skyhawks’ basketball coach Nadine Gearin, paying tribute to two women who paved the way before Summitt’s own legendary career on the hardwood.
