Profound influence on athletics at UBC. Responsible for the development of athletic opportunities for women both at UBC and across the nation. Responsible for instituting national university championships for women, thus achieving higher profile for women's sports. Coached UBC women's volleyball 11 seasons which included two CIAU national titles.
Marilyn Pomfret (nee Russell) entered UBC as a Physical Education student in 1951, having attended high school in her native Winnipeg. As an athlete on campus, volleyball and basketball were Marilyn's forte, earning her an Intramural Block award during her second year. This was also a time of flourishing administrative talents for Marilyn as in 1952/53 she was elected to the Phys. Ed. Undergraduate Society executive in addition to serving as a member of the UBC Women's Undergraduate Society.
As a third year student in 1953/54, Marilyn was elected president of the Women's Athletic Directorate where she took on the responsibility of creating and organizing women's sporting events. She was also a member of the 1953/54 UBC student council, an assembly that included Peter Lusztig and Alan Fotheringham.
After graduating from UBC in 1954 with a B.P.E., Marilyn subsequently taught at Winnipeg and West Vancouver high schools, returning to UBC in 1963 to become a teacher, coach and ultimately Women's Athletic Director.
In 1963/64, while teaching in the Department of Physical Education, Marilyn took over as UBC's volleyball coach, coaching the team eleven seasons. She guided her teams to three Western Canada university championships and two CIAU national titles. Her hard working and committed nature manifested itself into a superb volleyball coaching record at UBC.
Off campus, starting in 1958, Marilyn organized and established the BC High School Girls Volleyball Tournament, the Vancouver Women's Volleyball League and the BC Volleyball Association.
While teaching and coaching, Pomfret assumed the responsibilities of Director of Women's Athletics for UBC. Her dedication to the principles of equality and co-operation led to improvements, both at UBC and later nationally, in the athletic opportunities available to university women athletes. It was during her directorship that additional women's participation sports were introduced on campus, including women's ice hockey, soccer and rowing. She was instrumental in establishing a more equal funding allocation between men's and women's sports at UBC. It was during her regime that many of the coaches who would later bring Canadian championships to UBC were hired, such as Ron Thorsen and Norm Vickery in basketball, Gail Wilson in field hockey and Alena Branda in gymnastics. UBC women athletes and teams flourished in both performance and recognition during the 1970s - volleyball, gymnastics, track & field, basketball, field hockey - this strong program due largely to Pomfret's leadership. UBC athlete and Hall of Famer Sandra Hartley states, "I am now convinced that few of us will ever know the lobbying that Marilyn must have pursued on the other side of the Memorial Gym walls in order to create and preserve the kind of respect the women's programs deserved."
Pomfret also played a major role at the national level in advancing athletic opportunities for university women. As founder and president (1969-71) and later a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Women's Intercollegiate Athletic Union, she was responsible for the establishment of national university championships for women, which commenced in 1970/71. She was also instrumental in amalgamating the Canadian Women's Athletic Union with the men's equivalent to form in 1978, one governance for university sport.
From 1975 until 1986, Pomfret served on the Board of Directors of the Canada West University Athletic Association and was its president from 1983 until her retirement in 1986. She was also, for four years, on the Board of Directors of the CIAU and in 1984/85 chaired the committee on the role and status of women in the CIAU.
Pomfret's profound influence on the status of women's athletics at the national level complimented her work at UBC as women's athletic director, where for more than 20 years, she directed, guided and trained many of BC's women who today are in positions of athletic leadership in schools, colleges and universities.
According to one admirer, "Marilyn was a role model, she did everything with class. She knew how to recognize people for their efforts. She was always there for her students and had the knack of being able to make them feel important." She has also been described as having a strong sense of fairness and ethics with a very principled nature who would not back down from an issue she believed in.
Pomfret was a builder of campus scholarships and facilities as well, as she and her husband Jack were "the sole initiative behind the fund raising for UBC Physical Education scholarships," according to Human Kinetics' Justin Marples. She and Jack were also the forces behind the funding necessary to build the UBC Aquatic Centre.
In 1986 Marilyn was awarded the CIAU Austin-Matthews Award for outstanding contribution to the development of university sport in Canada and that same year received the YWCA Woman of Distinction Award. In 1988, both Jack and Marilyn Pomfret were awarded the Faculty Citation by the UBC Alumni Association. UBC's most prestigious female athletic award, given to the year's outstanding athlete, was in 1985, re-named in Marilyn Pomfret's honour. According to UBC Professor Emeritus Thelma Sharp Cook, "When the history of women's athletics at UBC is written, most of that document will be about the development and accomplishments of the program under the stewardship of Marilyn Pomfret."
This Inductee is also in the BC Sports Hall of Fame.
Researched and written by Fred Hume, UBC Athletics Historian
