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Alston Coburn 0:00
So, hello, my name is Alston Coburn, and I'm the university archivist at East Carolina University. I'm here today with an alumnus Debra Newby and we are going to conduct an oral history interview over the WebEx platform. Today is February 10 2023. And it is around 3:30pm. Eastern Time. And could you please start off by telling us your full name and when and where you're born?

Debra Newby 0:34
Sure. My name is Debra Ann newbie. Some call me Deb, Debbie, Newbie, Newbster have been called at all over the 65 years here and I was actually born in Columbus, Ohio. But I was a military brat part gypsy and we moved all around the country before we settled in Fayetteville, North Carolina, at the tender age of nine.

Alston Coburn 0:59
So that answers my second question a little bit. So yeah, what did your family do for a living? So someone in your family was in the military?

Debra Newby 1:09
Yes, actually, both my parents were in the military and my mother Louis Newby was a nurse and the Air Force. And my father James Newby was a navigator. They met in the Air Force. And back in those days, as soon as a female became pregnant, which my mother did shortly after marriage, they booted them out. Times have sure changed now. So my mother went on to birth five children. She used to call them in orders because she get us confused. Sandra, Debra, Doug, Mark, Scott, so I was the second oldest of five, with three younger brothers. And that's where they met in the Air Force. And then they were divorced was about nine. And that's when we moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina, where in essence was the five of us were raised by single mother. We were ages three to 11. And you'll probably hear me talk a lot about my mother during this interview because she was certainly a grounding force in our lives. Sheltering us with a lot of love and bracing us with love rather shelter, see more embraced, taught us to be independent, and more importantly taught us really the difference between right and wrong. And I think that lesson was molded early on and all five of our childhoods beginnings and to this day, it's carried me through my legal practice and everything I do.

Alston Coburn 2:33
So What years were you a student here at East Carolina?

Debra Newby 2:37
Sure. Well, I went to the see gonna have to have me rewind here Miss Alston? Think in terms of years I graduated from high school in 1975. Just a little rewind. That was actually the first year 1975 That my high school, Terry Sanford High School in Fayetteville, North Carolina, even had women's basketball. I tried out and made that team I got very little court time, because I was a senior and our coach at that time. Well, she wanted to grow and prune the team. So she played a lot of freshmen and sophomores and juniors instead. Anyway, so after that little toggle with basketball in high school, I went off to ECU Greenville, North Carolina, as we all know, brought my cup go pirates from 75 to 79. Watching my mother nurse for all those years and seeing the compassion that she had, what she brought to the hospital, she worked at Cape Verde Valley Hospital there in Fayetteville. I went to ECU, which at then was known as a Teacher's College, a lot of the women at that time would go for teaching degree. I knew what I didn't want to do. I didn't want to be a teacher. So I entered in 1975 thinking I wanted to be a pediatrician because I wanted to study medicine, not too far from my mother's career of nursing. And more importantly, I wanted to be pediatrician, because I just love love children. So I entered there, you know 18, wide eyed with all kinds of dreams with my copy of Thoreau's Walden Pond and Vandana. And that's how I entered college pretty much poor and broke, coming from a single parent with five kids. My mother tried the best she could. I entered on an Air Force Aid Society scholarship. So that Air Force background came in handy. And I entered there and never looked back. It was probably one of the best four years of my life from 1975 to 1979.

Alston Coburn 4:35
When you were here, well, I guess I should say what made you decide to enroll in East Carolina as opposed to a different college? Sure,

Debra Newby 4:48
sure. Back at that time, because I knew I wanted to be a doctor. ECU was just beginning their medical program, their MD medical school program. And so I think even at 18, I had sort of this plan ahead strategic brain, which has served me well, well in law when I switch majors, not to brag or anything, but that was really the main incentive. I really knew nothing about ECU, I'd never even been to Greenville, North Carolina, I just had my eye on the target, which was okay girl up be a pediatrician. I thought the odds of getting into a med school which was still very competitive for women, then there weren't a lot of women entering medical school in the late 70s. And so I thought, Well, my chances would be a little better if I came through with an undergrad in pre med at ECU and would just be a natural segue transitioned into med school. But all that changed my junior year when I started playing sports.

Alston Coburn 5:49
so what student organizations or activities were you involved in while you were here?

Debra Newby 5:54
Oh, well, um, well, I first started off as a freshman back then they didn't encourage freshmen to do a lot except for maybe government. I don't even think they opened someone's sports teams to freshmen, because they wanted that first year entering freshmen to really focus on their studies and their education. So most of the involvement I had for those four years from 1975 to 79, came through my junior and senior years. I started off in a freshman dorm. And then I believe my sophomore junior year, when I moved to Tyler dorm, I don't know if it's still called Tyler. It's that big dorm up the hill on the right. And that was an all female dorm, then, I don't know how they got elected president of the dorm. And that was fun, because I was able to travel with other presidents of their dorms, and learn, you know, governance and strategy and communication skills. And that was fun. And there were a lot of good mentors on that program. So mainly, that was the only outside of extracurricular I had, other than sports. Sports kept me very active. I, my junior year, I tried out for the JV basketball team, there were 60 was tried out and only 15 were chosen, I felt so lucky to have been chosen for that team. And so I played JV basketball, and then also ran track the ad in the hurdles, those last two years. And so other than that little bit of governance, and those two sports, I was really a dedicated student. And as you know, Miss Alston, you got to hit the books. And I wanted to make good grades because at that point in my career, I still looking at being a doctor and I wanted the highest GPA possible to make me a competitive applicant for med school.

Alston Coburn 7:44
So what made you decide to challenge the administration on its failure to comply to the title nine guidelines.

Debra Newby 7:53
Now that's a good story. And that's the story that shaped me. And hopefully it will shape women athletes today and in the past as well. I got to give a shout out to Donna Penley and Jill Vaughn, Donna and Jill were gymnasts and as I mentioned, we were there in Tyler dorm. I remember my dorm room as you walk in, it was the very first one on the right in the corner. And right next to me, I was in the dorm with a Gene Millison then Gene Evans Gene and I played basketball together. And right next door to us was Jill and Donna. I was sort of really shy and introverted back then. But even then I had sort of like this amazing aww for Jill and Donna. Even though they were the same age as Jean, and I they had this sort of Bohemian progressive airiness about them, where they really understood what should be done. And and, and they actually were the two in my opinion from my memory that spearheaded the title nine complaint as gymnast because they were working under very unfavorable conditions. I think Jill told me they didn't even really have a balance beam they would like practice on. I'm not a gymnast, but whatever that width is a two by four. You know, they'd have very small facilities. And so Jill and Donna and myself and I believe another basketball player, April Ross. And then Jill and Donna are the one that brought in a fella by the name of Mike Healy to file because because they had that progressive bohemian outlook on the way the world works. They wanted a male students also beyond the complaint, so we wouldn't be accused of being, you know, some type of, you know, crazy 20 year old feminist, you know, we wanted also men to understand the demise that some of the women athletes were on. So we filed the complaint. And, you know, we were 20 21 we didn't know what we were doing, and we just sort of dabbled with it and talked to a couple of administrators and all and we didn't really get too far until we had the foresight to go out and we knew then we needed an attorney. because it's really complicated, we didn't really even really know what title nine was other than it was a law that was passed five years earlier that said, Hey, if you receive federal funds, you need to give equality of treatment in certain areas. And we'd go into that later, we found out what those seven areas were in research that till till till the evening sunset. Anyway, so we went out and we found an attorney, Charles McLawhorn but of course, as we know, everyone has a nickname in the south. And he went by Sunny McLawhorn horn, he was sort of green, I don't think he was in law school, but maybe a year or two. And I believe he usually took cases he was like the university attorney, which would take you know, cases like heaven forbid DUIs or, you know, petty theft, whatever 18 to 22 year olds find themselves in trouble with. And so we went into his office Jill, Donna, and I, my mind memory and asked if he would take on our case. And he said, Sure. And that took a whole nother level, because then we were prepared. And that's when the real work began. And even though Don and Jill spearheaded it, I just sort of intuitively naturally took the ball and ran with it, and spent I'm gonna say about a year a little over a year, helping son a prepare the evidence we needed to actually prove that there was a big discrepancy between the men's and women's athletic program program there at ECU in the mid 70s.

Alston Coburn 11:29
Yeah, I'm sure I'm sure that was a lot. A lot of work. Right. So you and your classmates spent? You said, around a year gathering research? Is there. Go ahead.

Debra Newby 11:48
I was gonna say, we were at it very methodically, Miss Alston. So there were like, I don't remember all seven categories, but one was like scholarships. So I remember going to talk to Bill Kane. And our head coach at the time was Katherine Boltan. And she was amazing. By the way, Katherine Boltan and I want to give a shout out to her amazing coach, she brought the varsity women's team to a lot of NCAA championships. So she was totally supportive from us from the very beginning. So we needed to develop economic data of okay, how many women's scholarships are there? How much are scholarships was one category, coaches salaries. The administration was very reluctant to give us any economic figures. I don't know if they were embarrassed by it, or wanted to hide it. But I remember having to fight and keep asking for how much did the coaches pay, or the women coaches paid versus the men. The facilities was another category. The media or publications was another category. And travel, those were some of the top five that I remember. So what we did, and I think it might even been on your title nine display, we took one of these seven areas at a time and very methodically, I remember, I think it was April Ross and I or maybe Don and I, and we went in. And let me back up and say we're all at Tyler dorm. And when we would go to practice, that's where the basketball court was. That's where the two high four champions training session was. That's where the swimming pool was. We walked across a little two lane road. And then we walked across a big empty field. And then we came to the sports complex, and the basketball court was sort of mid center. And I think the swimming pool was somewhere in there too. And then my memory, it's been quite some time. There was like this big square around it. And that's where all the offices and locker rooms and all that were. So we went to the sports facility, and we started off with locker rooms. And we discovered that we didn't really we already knew this, but to actually put it down in paper and pen it was like eye opening. I think I might be off but I think there was only one one women's locker room and that whole sports facility. Now that one's women locker room was not only being used by basketball players to track players or gymnast or swimming, but it was also used by any other ECU female student who wanted to swim. And back then they had a requirement as you enter is your freshman year year you had to swim. They literally as you entered as a freshman line all the girls up and all the boys up and the boys were doing the cat calls on the girls that bikini and they have you jumped into the deep end of the pool and swim to the other pool. And if you couldn't swim, you have automatically take swimming, right? And if you could swim, you're automatically passed to come on to take whatever PE element you want and maybe it's the same now I think everyone should know how to swim. I hope it's the same now. But anyway, my point is we are not really competing but we were sharing that one locker room with just any female lady pirate who wanted to go through the gym complex. So we did that. And, um, the other area that we did a lot of work on was the media, the publications and keep in mind, this is 1978 Somewhere in there. We didn't have Google, we didn't have smartphones. We didn't have Wikipedia, we didn't have word counts. And that's where I remember I took the lead on that one and I spent literally an entire summer and you would appreciate this as an MS or whatever your degree is, in librarian very, very highly skill set. And thank you for protecting the Benjamin Franklin heritage of libraries and recording all of this because knowledge is power, as Einstein says, but but we I would go to the library, and I would pull you know, this term microfiche? Right here we are 2023 I bet that you might not do so has microfiche. Yay. But and I also pull hard copies from the student paper and the local paper. And I would just go through this topic, he said it took my whole summer and I weren't counted. I didn't have to record it. And the results weren't that surprising. But again, when you put it on paper, and we present the evidence to this title nine three member committee, it was like an upside down pyramid. Okay, because it was like, men's football, you know, I don't remember the figures make them up. 2,483,000 words, whatever, you know, men's basketball is here. Yeah. Men's wrestling even, you know, men's baseball, everything meant and then we had, it was getting narrower now that we have like women's basketball, maybe just a little even though Katherine Bolton took so many teams, and then we'd have like, a women's JV basketball even less than would have women's tennis, and you get the, you get the idea. And you get down to the very, very coin. And you might have like, 10 words on women's tennis. I mean, it was just, it was just like, it's not so much the disparity of the locker rooms. And, um, you know, the publicity. It was also I remember when I played basketball there for two full years. It was it was just we were like last, we would like to step children on the athletic department. I remember we would often have to practice after all the men's teams practice. You know, I was a busy, you know, junior senior, I was trying to get a college degree and sometimes would show up at that gym, walked through that field at 7, 8, 9 o'clock at night. And at first the differences were real subtle Miss Alston, like we'd show up for practice, maybe the men's had just finished. And we would notice how their coach and their team, they had, they have warm up uniforms. They had practice uniforms. They were and they were the really nice was that flow they had like that sort of silky feel. And they had I think they might even had matching shoes, I might even dreaming that but they certainly had I remember them having practice uniforms. And we would show up there as the women's basketball team and we look like you know something from the other side of the tracks from rag muffin deal or something. I mean, we would just pull it over sweats. We had our laundry or white t shirt. Most of us wore the the cloth white Converse sneakers, never Carolina blue because they were our our our obviously we didn't want to shop in Carolina blue. Most of us had the white Converse. And as the men's team would leave the court, they'd have those little you know, carts for all the basketballs on as they roll them off, you know, and we'd get on their court with our rag muffin, whatever gear we had. And our coach, Laurie IRS was her name, the JV coach would come out with this laundry van fishnet laundry bag and dump the balls out on the court and we'd start practicing. And, you know, looking back on those times, all those little things just sort of added up, like, wait a minute, are you guys getting the best time? And how come you have practice uniforms. And then when we would travel, the disparity was even more vast because, you know, we would travel it on NCAA campuses. I remember a couple of times coach Aaron's just packed us in the back of her station wagon. And she had a friend of hers drive on another second car, and we'd all just go that way. Or she would rent some. I have a vague memory of like a white van when we went up to Delaware for trackmate. So but the boys, you know, they had these big, long luxury buses that said ECU pirates on it. And looking back, it's like, we just wanted to be we worked just as hard Miss Alston. We were very hard working athletes. I mean, we didn't have a gym weight room like the boys did. But we would spend a lot of time running the bleacher stairs at the football stadium to get in shape. Our coach would have us do this drill for basketball. She called it suicides. It's probably not a politically appropriate term now, especially with the sad statistics of something like 25 to 30% of young women today are thinking that there's any young women listening to this oral history, know that there's a beautiful world that is waiting out there for you. But what we used to do as part of this drill, she lined us all up, I remember this so closely in our little sweats and all in our little high top commerce is, I think the basketball courts about 94, 95 feet, something like that. And you got about 15 feet, from the foul line to the goal, we'd all line up to bow whistle, we'd have to run to the first foul line, go down, run back, run all the way to have come back, run away, three quarters down, back, run all the way through court, get back down and run back. And that sound is still present to me to this day, because we were this one united team, this Thunderbird of young women athletes running together as a team, screeching our converse when we bent down, coming back, and if we didn't make that in 30 seconds, guess what the coach had us do miss Alston. What? Start over.

Alston Coburn 21:03
Yeah, that's why I thought you're gonna say do it again.

Debra Newby 21:06
She gave us maybe 10, 15 second break, and we'd start over. But my point of that is that we work just as hard. We love the game just as much. We drilled and practiced and represented our university with as much skill and dedication and pride. And we just felt like, wow, we need a little. We just, we don't we don't even want to be equal, I don't really want to, I don't even think we want to be equal to looking back on it. We just wanted to be visible and recognized. We just wanted to be known as something that was important of creating this history of representing. And we were under the leadership varsity team at lace under a really decorated coach, Katherine Bolton, and we wanted her recognized. And that's, I think, part of the fodder or the or the seed, if you will, of what motivated us, these five students to follow that timeline, complaint. And we won. It took us a year and a half. But we won the we got the university's attention. And Sonny was he told us that we were really on the courthouse steps. And I would like to talk a little bit about that administrative hearing. Let me take a sip of water every day for about,

Alston Coburn 22:33
I remember seeing that, that there were y'all did drawings of the locker rooms, you know, and really looked at, like the square footage and everything. Right? I remember those diagrams. And then I think also, when you were talking about the publicity. I think I remember reading that, like press releases was something you were looking at, you looked at to you know, do they do press releases for XY and Z sports and that kind of?

Debra Newby 23:04
Exactly, exactly. And then, um, the rest, we just tried to document and charts and it wasn't fancy. We didn't have PowerPoint. I remember making just handmade drawings and handmade things. And then we had to present this, I guess I don't remember a great detail. But I remember it was almost like an administrative hearing. I remember we went into it. It was like a three judge panel. It was three university professors. I don't remember their names. They should be given some recognition. I'm sure there's somewhere in the archives.

Alston Coburn 23:38
Yeah, remember, probably in the final like those reports probably have.

Debra Newby 23:42
Yeah, but I remember the chair. She was a very, um, she had very kind eyes because keep in mind, I'm only like 20, 21 I was scared out of my Jesus. Because they set up a like a conference room. It was set up almost like a courtroom. They had the three professors. I didn't have any of them as my professors. But they were, I guess, part of the university's Title Nine committee, hearing all the evidence and they have one table where Sonny and athletes sat. And then on the other side was the university's attorney. I want to say Dave Stevens or something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Alston Coburn 24:18
Even for us that Stevens was the last name.

Debra Newby 24:21
Yeah, I remember how he looked. And oh my god, it was even more intimidated because, you know, I grew up on Perry Mason and that kind of thing. And he was this tall, you know, elegant, debonair, silver haired silver tongue, you know, sharp dresser matching handkerchief that I remember walking into that title line hearing, thinking, Oh my God, he's gonna kill me on the stand. I don't know what to say. Because he, you know, it's just natural intimidation. But, um, we showed up and because I knew a lot of the women athletes, most of them who would live their entire dorm I did, Sonny sort of put me in charge and lining up all the witnesses. So I would line up, like many she ran track, and maybe we'd get up there and testify about the track conditions. And I believed on and Jill testified. And I remember I found one of our I believe we had a women's softball team. And I remember, the softball player had testified that they actually had a fence in between the infield and the outfield. That's the kind of field they practice on. Can you imagine playing softball with the fence between infield and out? Yeah, that seems challenging. All right. So we presented all that evidence. In a very methodical it was like I'm going to say to maybe two or three days, it was a long hearing, where we had to present all that. And one of one of the things I learned early on, because there was a lot of involvement of researching those seven areas and gathering evidence and gathering witnesses early on. In my junior year, I carried around this little beat up blue folder, you know, the time with the little three prongs, where you put the eight and a half by 11. And I'd written down everything that I did, who I talked to, you know, what research we're doing that day that was sort of like my Bible, for lack of a better word, not to offend anyone, but it was like my organizing book of everything we were doing to prepare a case and everything we needed to do. And I'll never forget. And that hearing, the Silla times attorney came up, and he had this sort of Sly look on his face. And he goes something to the effect about Miss Newby. Did you ever see to Dean blah, blah, blah, I forgot the name about all these complaints that you had. And in fact, either I or Sonny had determined early on that we had to sort of sort of like an exhaustive administrative and exhaustion of administrative remedies concept. Before we could actually get the university's attention for them to do anything. You had to go through a sort of stepping stone of talking to other higher ups in the university, Bill Kane was one than this dean of students was the other. And in fact, I had talked to him. But the Silver tongue attorney didn't know that I talked to him. So I'm on the stand. And he asked me, Did you ever talk to Dean, whatever. And I so clearly, remember that I wrote down in this journal of mine, the day I went, I remember to this day.

Alston Coburn 27:35
So Debra, why don't we start again, by you, picking up where we left off. So when you had the hearing, you're the attorney for the university right was asking you if you had spoken to a particular Dean.

Debra Newby 27:54
Yes. And I had, I remember going to that dean's office, I believe it was at the beginning of the summer. And it was such an elegant office it had like the leather chairs and the bookshelves. And I was a little intimidated because it smelled like cigars and leather and everything old and smart and bigger than what I was with my 20 year old sense of self. And then I went in with my little notebook and I introduced myself and I told him about women's athletics, how I played basketball and ran track and I was here representing other athletes, you know, gymnast and swimmers and all the women and we really wanted you know, the university to treat us a little better and give us some better facilities and practice uniforms maybe and you know, we weren't that demanding, you know, maybe real cart put our balls on decent court times so we don't have to walk across that field with a flashlight. Going back to Tyler dorm. We didn't want a whole lot and I will I remember so clearly Miss Alston and this is why I wrote down in my book. He looked me straight in the eyes and he goes and I don't want to make any dis Miss characterizations. But he was a sort of a Pillsbury Dough kind of guy. You know balding, white male big belly. And he looks me straight in the eye and he goes why aren't you just spending your this summer going to the beach like the a lot of the other little girls. Oh, my God, and I didn't have my voice then I was still very introverted and shy. I think I just smiled and said, Thank you went out, but I wrote that down. So going back to that administrative hearing. When Mr. Stevens the university attorney thought that I had not made that step so they could just slammed up and say, Okay, let's close this hearing down right now. The students haven't exhausted their administrative remedies. I looked up in my little book, and I told them exactly where I was. And when I said and I told that hearing off Those three hearing officers and Mr. Stevens exactly what that Dean said. And that's when I knew I had connected with the chair. Because at that point, I felt a little more comfortable when I said that the silver tongue attorney just won't like, you know, he was like, Ooh, shouldn't ask that question that wasn't expecting that answer. And of course, then I looked over at the three judge panel, and that's when I realized I had I remember the chair, she has such kind eyes. And I think that was a turning point in the administrative hearing, where I felt like, we really have a good story to tell here. We did nothing wrong. We're not going to get tripped. You know, here at the last minute by some little technicality, because we've already done all that right to say, let's just move on through it. And let's just get through what I know. I was exhausted after those two or three days of the hearings. And we won. What happened was, is Sonny Maclaurin and the university apparently sat down behind closed doors. We weren't part of that. But that's okay. I guess that's maybe the way it was done back then. And they infused a bucketload of money into the women's athletic program, because of what you know, Jill, and Donna and myself and the other two students had done to just make the university aware that we're here. And, you know, we weren't expecting the publicity of the men's football team. You know, we weren't expecting that. All we wanted was decent court time and decent uniforms and a way to travel to our games and some respect. And we got it because I think that that infusion of money, they were able to hire more coaches. Well, that's another thing back in those days. The coaches cross trained the bat my basketball coach was also let's see, she coached basketball, track, field hockey, and softball, I believe, the gymnast coach, I think her name was check off or something or tall, skinny one with dark hair that was chilling Donna's coach, she coached swimming, Bennett Luellen, one of my dorm mates swam and gymnastics. And so I don't know if that infusion of money was allowing to get them more coaches. But you know, some of these coach cuts some of the seasons crossover, right. So I think it's really unfair to have a female coach coach four sports when there's some crossover. So anyway, I don't know what the university did with that money. I just know there was an infusion of money. And I know that there was a shift in the university and how they were treating us because by then, guess what that upside down pyramid that I talked about earlier men's basketball and all it flipped for just about a month or so. Because every headline, every headline in North Carolina, it was a statewide publicity was directed toward five students sued or filed Title Nine complaint and win and it was huge, and I didn't realize how huge it was because I was only 20, 21 or whatever. 22 and I was just sort of trying to help Sonny and the other athletes get some, you know, equal decent treatment. But looking back I now know Miss Alston that was huge because I remember getting a phone call I didn't have a smartphone or anything. I don't know how she tracked me down she probably call Tyler dorm and asked to speak to the what do they call that the head dorm mother right right. I don't know if they have that now at ECU probably Tyler is coed for all I know. Back then it was all women and the men had to literally wait in the lobby and check in and only the women can only visit in the lobby, they couldn't even go back in the rooms. Anyway, I suspect she called our dorm mother and it was the head coach of the UNC Tar Heels team down UNC Tar Heels. They were nothing to sneeze at. They were also NCAA champions along with us and I've sent her I'm like the torn mom says Louis the phone sport I'm like what religion so I guess the head coach at UNC Charles got a good ballplayer I'm no she's not trying to convert me or pick up the phone. And she's wanting to know how we did it. She introduces herself and said this is Coach I forget her name and we just read in, you know, the Raleigh Durham times and how did you do it? And I told her, I'm like, let's move it up another notch statewide. Let's just have the female athletes know that there were a female athletes Miss Alston. I mean, we work just as hard and just as hard. And that's all we wanted was to be recognized as you know, devoted students to our discipline and to our sport representing, you know, the pirates the best we could and Home and Away games. And that's when I knew that we were onto something big. And then of course all the local media outlets got ahold of it. Back then I was the same height about five eight now. As a skinny little thing, I was always getting creamed on the boards. I was probably 115 pounds, blow away in the wind, I remember one day, I was getting interviewed on the TV camera. And it was a windy day, the guy was literally scared, I was gonna blow away because I was this tall, skinny, you know, Cohen. And I remember eyes and flip flops that had been in the summer and he put his tube on the edge of my flip flops. He says, I'm going to step on your flip flop. So the wind up blow you away. And also there's a tendency when you're getting interviewed by sports casters or newscasters to drift away from the camera. So they were coming from all over the state to interview and Sunny and I and coach Bolton as the head coach, find out how we did it, and what we did. And then Helen Turner, she was our little point guard on the team. I love Helen, she's now a flight attendant, we still stay in touch, as I also stay in touch with Jeanne Evans afford on our team, but Helen Turner then started calling me newbie star, because every time you turn on the local TV, there was Deb newbie, talking to the press about this title nine complaint. And anyway, I just found that it was one of the most decisive moments in my life. And dark telling you that I hope I'm not talking too much, but in terms of not influenced my life.

Alston Coburn 36:22
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.

Debra Newby 36:24
Oh, sorry. No, go ahead. Oh, as I mentioned, I was pre med. And I remember about halfway through this timeline complaint, Sonny, I've already done a lot of the work. And I remember Sunday saying, Deb, why do you want to be a doctor? Why don't you go to law school? And I remember looking at him say, Well, lots of lawyers do. I didn't have any lawyers in my background, and my family. And I really didn't know what lawyers did. And I remember Sunday looked at me and said, What do you know, we've been working on together for the last year of trying to, you know, right a wrong. That's how I explained it. That's what lawyers do. And you know, I thought about that. And I thought, You know what, I think I have a knack for this. And I think I do want to do that. I think I do want to make the world a better place. Because if you I know us lawyers have a bad rap, Miss Alston. But if you ask most attorneys, why they went to law school, I think the majority will say, to make the world a better place. So my senior year, I switched from pre med, to English with a concentration in writing. Because Sonny told us that told me that you have to write a lot and think a lot and have inductive and deductive reasoning skills to be a good lawyer. So I wanted to prepare that, you know, undergrad for a possible admission to a law school. And I applied to to UNC to tar hills, and Oklahoma City University where Sonny went, and I elected to go to his university, they accepted me. And I elected to go to his university for the simple fact that I knew no one there. And I was 22, I spilling a little bit of bolding. I'm still very quiet and shy, believe it or not. But I went there and that began my career in law. And I haven't looked back. And I can say 110% certain that it was that title nine complaint that shifted my view of the world that taught me as a young woman moving through the world, what do you want to be when you grow up? I just found it fortunately. And luckily, by doing it, and working, and through that title nine complaint and trying to make the world at least the lady athletics world a better place. And that has shifted and had an influence on me for my entire life. I've just retired last year after practicing law for 40 years. And there's no doubt in my mind that I chose the right career. I've I've had a successful legal career. And I I credit that title nine complaint has given me the confidence and the experience and, and and feeling that you get of making a difference. And I tried to carry that through and my hope and my practice of trying to make a difference in my clients might.

Alston Coburn 39:17
Yeah, that's wonderful. That was able to be, you know, to help you find all that clarity and know what you want to do. Do you a couple of things about the grievance in that period. So do you remember anything specific from your meeting, when you met with Leo Jenkins, Chancellor Jenkins, to let him know that your group had filed a grievance?

Debra Newby 39:49
You know, I'll be honest with you, Miss Alston, I don't remember that meeting. But I think we might have not have gotten very far with him because what I do I remember it shortly after that meeting. This is a little disrespectful. But again, we're only 20 or 21. And our frontal lobe isn't yet developed sort of judgments aren't as good, right. But I do remember shortly after that meeting myself and Jill and Donna had been at Luellen, a swimmer, Paula, she wasn't an athlete. But there were a lot of non athlete women who knew what we were doing. And were supporting what we were doing, because they understood the value of being just seen. And anyway, I remember right outside my first year, dorm room, their entire dorm, we made a little paper mache cut out of Leo Jenkins. And this is horrible when I and we sort of were hanging him from the rafters, just a paper cut off. And then there's this picture of seven of us females. I think I sent that to Steve Tuttle. And, you know, we were just sort of mocking Him because we felt like he was mocking us because he wasn't listening. And I felt many times. The few meetings we have either there, Leo Jenkins, or Bill Kane or the Dean I described earlier, that told me just to go spend the summer at the beach. I felt like they really weren't hearing us. I don't think they really took us that seriously. Yeah, I mean, that's just my gut. But I think what happened as we got more and more statewide publicity, and as we had the evidence that we had gathered over the last year and a half, presented in a very professional format through Mr. McLawhorn. I think they find a maybe they had their little closed door meeting and said, Hey, we better take care of these girls. They're not going to go away. And we didn't, and we weren't. And, you know, sadly, I still follow. I still follow women's sports and I still love sports and I have two grandsons now ages three and five. And, you know, I'm you know, why not? I love their handball still, even now at 65 I love this game. I just do. And, and I think sports are so important, so important for any young child, and you don't have to be Michael Jordan, you know, our Steph Curry or, you know, the Philly quarterback that's going to play this weekend in the Super Bowl, you don't have to be that sports give such character to young children. It teaches them structure teaches them rules. It teaches them empathy, as they learn how to deal with other teams. It teaches them how to win and how to lose one of my favorite commercials. If you Google, Michael Jordan failure, he talks about, you know, he talks about all the shots he missed. You know, everyone always wants him to get that. That little Swiss shot, right. All the shots he missed in the last minute. I don't want to spoil that spoil it. But Sports teaches you how to fail. It teaches you how to be a good sportsman. When you do fail. It teaches you how to honor your body. And I would just encourage whoever listens to this, whether it's for archived reasons or ever, if you have children or grandchildren or even yourself. It's never too late. I mean, not Pickleball is a huge thing for women my age go out there if you don't want to play tennis playing pickleball. You know, I'm sorry, I got off track. What was your question?

Alston Coburn 43:22
Oh, that's that's that's good to know. Well, so one other thing about related to the that time period and with the grievance. I know the university they came up with a plan to strengthen women's athletics comply with Title Nine. And if I'm memory serves me correctly. I think y'all weren't quite satisfied with that. Do you? What what could you say about that? portion of the story?

Debra Newby 43:52
I don't remember a lot of the details. I remember we had the Women's Athletic luncheon Bill Klein was there coach Bolton, all the coaches, they asked me to be a guest speaker. So the first time I actually spoke at something like that, and I was so scared and nauseous that I couldn't eat. And I remember Bill Payne was very kind because I'm like, 2122 and he goes, that's okay. You don't need to eat. And he says, just remember to breathe. And you know, be be there. And for some reason, I remember the figure, and I might be wrong on this, like $750,000 I might be wrong on that. But I remember there was a big bucket of money that they infused. And you know, I was 21, 22 raised by single mother. I was so poor, I ate like pop tarts and tuna fish and cereal. I mean, I rarely could go out for a pizza. So I hadn't really no big deal to me. $100 was a lot of money what I'm saying Miss Alston so when when I heard that it was like 750,000 I thought that the Women's Athletic program maybe won the lotto or something. I don't know what the figure was. is, but I know that it was a substantial amount to show that the university was finally listening to us. And I think all in all, the female athletes were happy about that. It's not about it's not about the money. By then I was graduating and off to law school, I think an interesting thing to look at. And maybe for those who are wanting to research, that title nine complaint and all is how did the university do after that? You know, were we just a little hiccup that temporarily got the administration's attention, and they infuse this money, and then went back to ways things are now? Or did they actually take it seriously, because I know, there's still a few issues and women's sports, you know, even as tall as the even as recently as I'm thinking the 2020 Olympics, there was some publicity about how the women's soccer weight room was like this little, you know, microcosm of a workout. And then they took pictures and posted on the social media, which you can't get away with what you're used to, nowadays, because of social media. And then they had a picture of the men's soccer room, which was like this, you know, 24/7 gym, you know, expansive, you know, and so, I think it for those who are wanting to research, sports and Title Nine, and all that, I think the important question is how are women athletes being treated now. And I think there's still some disparity in that. I know, you know, Brandy chest stain and the other female soccer players, great athletes who took our women's soccer team to the Olympics. They've talked about that in the press. You know, there's still a disparity of treatment on the LPGA Tour and the PGA Tour. I'm noticing here in the background, I have a couple of golf trophies. Those belonged to my mother, my mother played golf. None of them have the little golf club in it, though, because we took them out to play with our Barbie dolls. And so they're all this pose a woman in the swing like this at the end. But that's a little nod to my mother, who's now my guardian angel. She's been gone for about 12 years now. But there's still some disparity. And I don't know how we bridge that gap. But, again, I don't think it's about the money. That'll mean the money is one indicator. But I think what most women athletes want is to just be known as women as as a fellow athlete. Because we're doing a suicide drills, we're running the stadium stairs, we're doing the weightlifting now, we're, we're putting down our books to go out and sweat and work and we're twisting our ankles. You know, I spent a whole summer doing nothing but jumping up and down on my carport in hope Mills, North Carolina, to increase my jump height, so that I can block a shot. That's what athletes do. Miss Alston, we love our game, whether it's swimming or golf, or, you know, basketball or track. And we just want to hang out with other women who enjoy the game. And we want to be mentor we want mentor coaches are going to guide us through not only the sport, but some of the trials and tribulations that a typical 21, 22 year old might have. And we have great mentors like that even today in the women's basketball era. You know, Pat Sageuk is on her name. Who retired, who had that great, I mean, her relationship with her players like Katherine Bolton with her players, where it's a special relationship where you're helping that young co-ed move through, you know, all the confusions, because let's face it, it's the world is confusing, and there's a little simpler back from 75 to 79. I was at ECU like, I can't imagine the choices now that a young lady pirate might have at ECU in 2023. And sports gives that sort of umbrella of mentoring and insecurity and you're hanging out with other people who have like minded goals. I don't know how I got off on that. But it's such an important part of one's life and you don't have to you know, like I said, Being Michael Jordan, ECU, at least when I was there also had a very active intramural program. I suspect they still have that and I would hope that they would encourage that and that's even going into the intramural arena, I think is good and healthy for any Co-ed. Yeah.

Alston Coburn 49:46
Is there anything else about the title nine portion of your of your life that you want to share? That you haven't already touched on?

Debra Newby 50:01
I think I hit the highlights. I think I want to give a nod out to sunny Charles McLawhorn, who took our case free and clear without making a dime. He recognized the beauty of it. I've stayed in touch with Sunny over the last 40 years. And he's told me more than once, that it was the proudest time in his life. I back then I used to cross stitch, my eyes aren't as good anymore. Cross Stitching takes very precise things. I remember, I presented it to Sonny across is it was a Don Quixote saying, and I crossed his ship for him. And it said, Did it say all that evil needs to prevail, is for good men to do nothing. And I think that title nine complaint embodied by little wide eyed, naive, yet integrity driven students, knowing what was right, and an attorney who took the time to listen to them and help us present and package our case, so that we would prevail in that scary, you know, three judge administrative hearing, and get the results that we did. And that's really what it comes down to is doing the right thing, right. And I would encourage, I don't know who your last athletic director is now and 2023 at ECU. I don't know who your head coaches. But I just would hope that ECU will continue to do right. And continue to recognize the woman athletes at the university. Because we do work just as hard and try as hard. As we can still do this as we close. I'm trying to spin the ball for you. Okay, I'm trying to I love I love being a mighty pirate. And that's always part of me. And I appreciate the time. Miss Alston? Wait, wait, I got it. Appreciate the time interviewing me. I used to do this about 30 seconds, as long as it took me around a court.

Alston Coburn 52:06
We appreciate you talking to us. Were there. I also wanted to ask you, if while you were at East Carolina, there were any other sort of significant campus events or visitors to campus, anything like that, that, you know, really stands out to you that that you know, you remember,

Debra Newby 52:27
I'm sure there were but being raised by single mom with very limited funds. I had a very sort of blinded experience not blinded. But my four years there, I couldn't afford to go to concert. Maybe someone like I don't know, who was popular back then maybe Jefferson Airplane or whatever came through, but I never saw them. I'm sure we might have had, you know, maybe civil rights speaker come through because that was happening. Right?

Alston Coburn 52:57
Yeah, that exactly. Like was there sort of, or even just like a festival on campus like there. I don't know if I'm waiting, but just wondering if there was any other things from your time that are, that you wanted to talk about?

Debra Newby 53:11
Yeah, I was. I was pretty booked driven, especially changing majors, I needed again, pull that high GPA. So I was a little bit of a nerdy athlete, I spent a lot of time and, and the library one of your favorite sources as a master archive is to ECU. And, again, thank you for recording these stories and having that beautiful 50 year display for Title Nine. So I hung out where you love Miss Alston, I hang out in the library a lot to dorm room, or the track field or the gym court. And then you know, every now and then we'd go downtown to dance. You know, the Bee Gees were big. I remember that. We always danced to the Beegees. And, you know, that's about all I did those four years, and I don't remember anything off. Other than that.

Alston Coburn 54:03
Um, is there anything else that you would like to share about anything? You talked a little bit about your life afterwards, you know your career a little where you went to law school and stuff. But if you want to add anything else about that, you know about that portion of your life, please do?

Debra Newby 54:22
Well, I guess I want to give another shout out to my mother who taught me the integrity and pursue your dreams and all that. And the title nine complaint, as we talked about at length certainly formed my career choice as an attorney. And I remember about 10 years ago at one of your colleagues, Steve Tuttle, had reached out and looked out that we were celebrating the 40th anniversary of Title Nine. And I had just come back that afternoon and I had lost a trial and I was very sad and my staff was sad and we're all just bummed out because no one likes to lose. And I remember, it was like that call from the head coach from UNC asking me how I did it. The call came in at that moment from Steve Tuttle wanting to talk to me about Title mine. And at first, I wasn't going to take his call, because I was so sad from losing the trial. But I thought, well, what the heck. And by the end of that day, he interviewed me like, maybe 30 minutes for the article he was doing on the fourth anniversary, I was back in my office. And by the end of that 30 minute interview, I recognized my body posture changed. I was now on on my chair, I had my feet up on the desk, I was talking freely about the women athletes and Title Nine and what we did, and I felt so empowered by what we did. And so I don't know why I told that story. Other than I know that life is full of ups and downs, and we all have failures. And if we can all just move through and choose one or two things that really make a difference. And that really helped the world a better place. As that title nine did complete, in my mind did for me, when you're in those moments of failure like I was when I lost that trial, you can come right back to that. And then you get reminded about what really matters, and how we're all going to have the trials and tribulations. But at the end of the day, are you trying to live life kindly? Are you trying to live life with integrity, and you're trying to do the right thing? And that's what I think would be the takeaway for all of us, as we, you know, co inhabit, you know, the third rock from the sun and trying to all get along together in this beautiful planet.

Alston Coburn 56:41
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I think those are all the questions that I had for you. So thank you for your time. And oh, I guess I should also add for the record, the article you were talking about, was in East magazine that they right did when it was the 40th anniversary. Title Nine Grievance and Implementation.

Debra Newby 57:11
Yeah, well, I'm glad Steve called me on the day I lost that trial, because I went home that night feeling a lot better than I did earlier.

Alston Coburn 57:19
Well, thank you so much. And if you think of anything else you want to add later, just let me know. And I will be in touch.

Debra Newby 57:31
Thank you. Miss Alston. Thank you for interviewing me and go lady pirates. I know.

Alston Coburn 57:40
Thank you.

Debra Newby 57:41
All right.