Debra Newby Narrator Alston Cobourn University Archivist, East Carolina University Interviewer February 10, 2023 Virtually on WebEx platform DN: No, no, I don't. Good for you. AC: Thank you. Okay. All right. We're gonna start. So, hello, my name is AC:, and I'm the university archivist at East Carolina University. I'm here today with an alumnus DN: 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? DN: Sure. My name is Debra Ann Newby. Some call me Deb, Debbie, Newbie, Newbster. I've been called it 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. AC: 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? DN: Yes, actually, both my parents were in the military. My mother, Lois 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. And so my mother went on to birth five children. She used to call 'em 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 when I was about nine. And that's when we moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina, where the five of us were raised by a single mother. We we're 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, embracing us with love rather, she didn't shelter she 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. AC: So what years were you a student here at East Carolina? DN: Sure. Well, I went to, 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 groom 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 that compassion, if you had that what she brought to the hospital, she worked at Cape Fear 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 a 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 a 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 [unintelligible] 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. AC: 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? DN: Sure, 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, grow up, be a pediatrician. I thought the odds of getting into 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 transition into med school. But all that changed my junior year when I started playing sports. AC: Okay, so what student organizations or activities were you involved in while you were here? DN: Oh, wow. 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 some of the 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, we 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 I 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 in 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 and 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. AC: So what made you decide to challenge the administration on its failure to comply to the title nine guidelines? DN: Now, that's a good story. And that's the story that shaped me and hopefully shape women athletes today and in the past as well. I gotta give a shout out to Donna Pendley 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 Jean Millison then Jean Evans. Jean 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 awe 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 gymnasts 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 were 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 student to also beyond the complaint, so we wouldn't be accused of being, you know, some type of, you know, crazy 20 year old feminists, 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 go into that later, we found out what those seven areas were and researched it till till till the evening sunset. Now 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 Sonny McLawhorn. He was sort of green, I don't think he was out of 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 having prevent DUI's 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 Donna 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, little over a year, helping Sonny 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. AC: 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. DN: I was gonna say how 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 Cain. And our head coach at the time was Catherine Bolton. And she was amazing by the way. Catherine Bolton, 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 for 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 paid, or the women coaches paid versus the men. The facilities was another category. The media or publications was another category, um, 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 timeline display, we took one of these seven areas at a time and very methodically, I remember, I think it was April Ross and I are maybe Donn and I, we went in. And let me back up and say we were all at Tyler dorm. And when we would go to practice, that's where the basketball court was. That's where the two by four gymnasts 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-enter. And I think the swimming pool is 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 the 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 on paper and pen it was like eye opening. I think I might be off but I think there's only one one women's locker room in 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 when the girls wore bikinis, and they had you jump into the deep end of the pool and swim to the other pool. And if you couldn't swim, you had to automatically take swimming. AC: Right. DN: And if you could swim, you're automatically passed to go 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're 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 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. AC: We do still have microfiche. DN: Yay. But and I also pull hard copies from the student paper and the local paper. And I would just go through it. So it took my whole summer and I word 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 works on men's basketball is here. Yeah. Men's wrestling even, you know, men's baseball, everything men. And then we had it was getting there on there. And then we had like women's basketball, maybe just a little even though Catherine Bolton took so many teams. And then we'd have like, a women's a JV basketball, even less. Then women's tennis, and you get the, you get the idea. You get down to the very, very coin. And you might have like, 10 words on women's tennis. I mean, there 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 were like to step children of 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 we'd 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 looked like you know something from the other side of the tracks from ragamuffin deal or something. I mean, we would just pull whatever sweats we had out of the laundry or white t shirt. Most of us wore the the cloth white Converse sneakers, never Carolina blue because they were our adversaries, obviously we didn't want to show up 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 Harris was her name, the JV coach would come out with this laundry bag, fishnet laundry bag and dumped the balls out on the court and we start practicing. And, you know, looking back on those times, all those little things just sort of added up like Well, 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 to other NCAA campuses. I remember a couple of times Coach Harris just packed us in the back of her stationwagon, 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 bleachers stairs at the football stadium to get in shape. Our coach would have us do this drill for basketball. She called it suicides. That's probably not a politically, the appropriate term now, especially with the sad statistics of something like 25 to 30% of young women today are thinking that. If 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 converse is, I think, the basketball courts about 94-95 feet, something like that. And you've got about 15 feet, from the foul line to the goal, we'd all line up, she'd 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, run back, run all the way full 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, straighten 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. AC: What? DN: Start over. AC: Yeah, that's why I thought you're gonna say, do it again. DN: She give us maybe 10-15 second break, and we'll start over. But my point of that is that we worked just as hard. We loved 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 wanted to be equal. 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 a history of representing. And we were under the leadership, the varsity team at least, under a really decorated coach, Catherine Bolton, and we wanted her recognized. And that's, I think, part of the, the fodder or the or the seed, if you will, of what motivated us, these five students to follow that timeline and complain. 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. But let me take a sip of water. AC: I think 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 X, Y and Z sports and that kind of thing? DN: 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 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. AC: Yeah, I remember, probably in the final like those reports probably have. DN: 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 Bejesus, because they set up a like a conference room and 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 carrying 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. AC: I remember, Stevens was the last name DN: And yeah, I remember how he looked and oh my god, I 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 nine 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 had lived in Tyler dorm or I did, Sonny sort of put me in charge of 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 believe Dawn 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 to testify 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? AC: Yeah, that seems challenging. DN: All right. So we presented all that evidence in a very methodical, it was like I'm gonna seek 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 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 better word not to offend anyone, but it was like my organizing book of everything we were doing to prepare our case, everything we needed to do. And I'll never forget. And that hearing, the silver tongued attorney came up and he had this sort of sly look on his face, and he goes something to the effect of Miss Newby, Did you ever speak 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 this sort of sort of like an exhaustive administrative, an 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 Cain was one, then 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 [internet connection lost] AC: So Debra, why don't we start again by you picking up where we left off. So when you had the hearing, your, the attorney for the university right was asking you if you had spoken to a particular Dean. DN: 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, you know, 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, gymnasts 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. Now, maybe a real cart to put our balls on and 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. 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 mischaracterizations. 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 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" and 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 dunk 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 on 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 went like, you know, he was like, well 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 gonna get tricked, you know, here at the last minute by some little technicality, because we've already done all that right to so, 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 McLawhorn and the university apparently set 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're 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 Checkhov or something or tall, skinny one with dark hair that was Jill and Donna's coach, she coached swimming. Bennett Llewellyn 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 for sports when there's some crossover. So anyway, I don't know what the university did with that money. I just know there's 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 why? 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 AC: Right, right DN: I don't know if they have that nowadays at ECU probably Tyler's 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 that 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. Now UNC Tar Heels they were nothing to sneeze at. They were also NCAA champions along with us and I'm sitting here I'm like the dorm mom says Newby the the phones ringing, like who is it, I guess the head coach at UNC Tar Heels, I'm not that a good a ball player. I'm no she's not trying to convert me or anything, so I 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 and 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, we were female athletes Miss Alston. Mean we work just as hard, ran 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 at home and away games. And that's when I knew that we were on 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 and I was a skinny little thing. I was always getting creamed under 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, coed. And I remember eyes and flip flops it had been in the summer and he put his shoe on the edge of my flip flops. He says I'm gonna step on your flip flop. So the wind don't 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 Sonny 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 the forward on our team. But Helen Turner then started calling me Newby star. Because every time you turn on the local TV, there was Deb Newby talking to the press about this Title Nine complaint. And anyway, I just found it was one of the most decisive moments in my life. And love telling you that I hope I'm not talking too much. But in terms of how it influenced my life. AC: Yeah I was going to ask you about that. DN: Oh, sorry. AC: No, go ahead. DN: Oh, as I mentioned, I was pre med. And I remember about halfway through this timeline complaint, Sonny had already done a lot of the work. And I remember Sonny saying, Deb, why do you want to be a doctor? What Why don't you go to law school? And I remember looking at him saying, 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 Sonny looked to 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, 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 and 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 UNC, the Tar Heels 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 feeling a little bit of bolding. I was 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 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 forty 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've tried to carry that through, and my hope and my practice of trying to make a difference in my clients lives. AC: Yeah, that's wonderful that 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? DN: You know, I'll be honest with you, Miss Alston, I don't remember that meeting. But I think we might not have gotten very far with him because what I do remember is 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, so our judgments aren't as good, right? But I do remember shortly after that meeting myself and Jill and Donna, and Bennett Llewellyn, 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. 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. And I and we sort of were hanging him from the rafters was 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 had with either the or, Leo Jenkins, or Bill Cain 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. Um, I don't think they really took us that seriously. Yeah, I mean, that's just my God. 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 finally maybe they had their little closed door meeting said, hey, we'd 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 the 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, or Steph Curry or, you know, the Philly quarterback that's going to play this weekend in the Superbowl 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 to 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 little swish shot, right? All 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, that Pickleball is a huge thing for women my age, go out there if you don't want to play tennis play pickleball. You know, I'm sorry, I got off track. What was your question? AC: 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 and 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? DN: I don't remember a lot of the details. I remember we had the Women's Athletic luncheon. And Bill Cain was there, Coach Bolton, all the coaches, they asked me to be a guest speaker. It was the first time I'd actually spoken at something like that. And I was so scared and nauseous that I couldn't eat. And I remember Bill Cain was very kind because I'm like, 21-22. 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, to me $100 was a lot of money, what I'm saying myself. And so when when I heard that it was like $750,000, I thought that the Women's Athletic program, maybe we won the lotto, or something. I don't know what the figure was. 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, but it's not about the money. By then I was graduating out 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 infused 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 in 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 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 of 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, Brandi Chastain 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 a 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. I mean, the money is one indicator, but I think what most women athletes want is to just be known as a woman, as a fellow athlete. Because we're 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 that 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 that her name, who retired, who had that great, I mean, her relationship with her players like Catherine Bolton with her players, where it's a special relationship where you're helping that young coed move through, you know, all the confusions. Because let's face it, it's the world is confusing. And it's a little simpler back from 75 to 79. When 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 security. And you're hanging out with other people who have like-minded goals. I don't know how I got off on that. 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 coed. Yeah. AC: Is there anything else about the Title Nine portion of your of your life that you want to share? They haven't already touched on. DN: I think I hit the highlights. I think I want to give a nod out to Sonny 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 Sonny 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 to Sonny a cross, it was in Don Quixote saying, and I crosstitched it for him. And it said, what did it say, all that evil needs to prevail is for good men to do nothing. And I think that Title Nine complaint embodied five 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 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 in 2023 ECU. I don't know who your head coach is. 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. We still do this as we close, I'm trying to spin the ball for you. AC: Okay. DN: I'm trying to. I love, I love being a lady 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 the court. AC: 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 you know, you remember? DN: 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 concerts. 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? AC: Yeah, that's exactly like was there sort of, or even just like a festival on campus, like there, I don't know, anything. But just wondering if there was any other things at the time? DN: Yeah, I was. I was pretty book, 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 in the library, one of your favorite sources as a master archivist to ECU. And, again, thank you for recording these stories and having that beautiful fity year display for Title Nine. So I hung out where you love Miss Alston, and I hang out in the library a lot, or my 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 Bee Gees. And, you know, that's about all I did those four years. And I don't remember anything off. Other than that. AC: 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? DN: Well, I guess I want to give another nod 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'd 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 Nine. 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 40th 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 my chair, I had my feet up on the desk, I was talking freely about the women athletes and Title Nine on 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 make the world a better place. As that Title Nine complaint did, 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? Are you 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. AC: 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. DN: Oh, great. AC: Title Nine grievance and implementation. DN: 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. AC: 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. DN: Thank you. Miss Alston. Thank you for interviewing me and go lady pirates! I know. AC: Thank you DN: All right.