From the Newsstands: This article appeared in The Eagle’s December 2025 print edition which can be viewed here.
In the first issue of The Eagle, published on Nov. 20, 1925, sits a story entitled “Women form athletic association.” The brief article describes the creation of the Women’s Athletic Association on campus, led by Mary Florence Morscher, Ruthie Rinkel, Dot Mehring and Vera Stafford. Morscher is also listed as the women’s sports editor in the masthead on page two.
The Eagle is celebrating 100 years of publication this fall, and all organized women’s sports on campus can be traced back to this same time period. The Eagle, in turn, has witnessed the careers of women athletes and reporters alike. Shannon Scovel falls into both categories: Scovel was managing editor of The Eagle’s sports section from 2014-15 and then editor-in-chief in 2015-16, all while competing on the Division I swim team.
“My experience as a woman in sports — that being something different than male athletes in sports — was an awakening that I had at AU,” Scovel said.
Scovel said that this awakening came in part from sports journalism classes taught by journalism professor Don Markus, who would host female reporters as guest speakers. It’s this experience and education that gave her the confidence to enter male-dominated spaces, such as the college wrestling beat she now covers for as a reporter for NCAA.com.
Her time at AU coincided with one of the most successful periods for AU women’s sports. The volleyball team won the Patriot League tournament each year from 2013-2017, reaching the NCAA Sweet Sixteen in 2013 and the Second Round in 2015. Field hockey won the league in 2013 and 2016, winning NCAA Play-In games both years. Women’s basketball won the 2014-15 league tournament, the first in school history.
That team featured Jen Dumiak, who won Corvias Patriot League Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year and was admired by Scovel, and others on campus.
The field hockey program also became one of American’s most accomplished and storied programs. It’s second only to volleyball in Patriot League tournament titles and has the third-earliest first-reported intercollegiate game, behind the now-defunct football team and men’s basketball. The Eagle reported in the Nov. 1, 1927 issue that, “A.U.’s feminine cohorts will battle the Girl’s hockey team of George Washington University today at the Elipse. The girls promise to uphold A.U. honor to the best of their ability and hope to avenge the defeat of the football team earlier this year.”
