A trailblazer who changed the game for generations

“One can get to know one’s self through competition,” Helen Briwa ’66 PhD told a reporter in 1974.

Briwa made it her mission to help women get to know themselves as a multisport coach, athletic director, mentor and pioneer in the creation and growth of women’s intercollegiate sports at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh. She died on April 1 at the 
age of 93.

“Dr. Briwa paved the way for so many women to play sports,” says Marty Petersen, who played for Briwa at UW-Oshkosh and coached the school’s volleyball teams from 1983 to 2004. “The first people through the wall always get beat up and bloodied, and Dr. Briwa went through the wall for so many of us. She fought for us—it was an uphill battle—but she stuck by us.”

Briwa grew up in Hudson, New York. She attended Skidmore College and participated in several club sports at a time when there were few women’s intercollegiate teams. Her best sport was field hockey, and Briwa played in regional and national tournaments. She earned a master’s degree from Smith College in Massachusetts in 1956 and her PhD in physical education from Ohio State in 1966. Her dissertation was titled, “A Study of the Comparative Effectiveness of Five-Foot Skis and Skis of Regular Length in Teaching Beginning Skiers.”

She came to UW-Oshkosh in 1968 as a professor in the school’s Physical Education Department. This was four years before Congress passed the Title IX legislation that paved the way for the eventual—but slow—growth of women’s intercollegiate sports. Briwa was part of a committee that in 1970 drafted the constitution for what became the Wisconsin Women’s Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WWIAC) and is now the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC). She served as WWIAC president in 1982 and was appointed women’s athletic director of UW-Oshkosh in 1971, a position she held until 1988 when the men’s and women’s athletic departments merged.

“Helen led the movement of women’s college sports in Wisconsin,” says Kennan Timm, the school’s sports information director from 1985 until his retirement in 2022. “She was very easy to work with; she was very warm and interested in people’s lives and cared so much for others. But most of all, she was a strong advocate for women’s sports.”

Briwa coached UW-Oshkosh’s women’s field hockey (1968–92), badminton (1974, 1977–79), softball (1971–72, 1976), track and field (1969, 1974–77), and volleyball (1968–73). During her tenure as women’s athletic director, the school’s seven women’s teams won three national championships and 18 conference titles. She was named conference field hockey coach of the year in 1981.

“She wore so many hats, and she’d take off one and put on another,” Petersen says of Briwa’s ability to coach multiple sports, often two at the same time. “She had to be very organized. For example, field hockey practice was at 3:15 and then volleyball practice was at 6. And she also taught a full load.”

As a coach, Briwa was a calm presence on the sidelines. “I don’t recall her ever yelling, and we probably deserved it,” says Petersen, who played field hockey, volleyball and competed in track and field for her mentor. “She believed we should be intrinsically motivated rather than externally motivated by the coach yelling at you.”

In her years as a field hockey coach, Briwa could still show her players a few things on the field. “She could outrun and out stick any of us,” Petersen says.

As women’s athletic director, Briwa hired Petersen and several other women. “She believed that women’s teams should be coached by women,” Timm says. “Helen was a true trailblazer; she wanted women to have a complete college experience, and a big part of that was participation in sports. Her leadership built our women’s athletic programs.”

Briwa retired from teaching in 1994. She was inducted into the UW-Oshkosh Hall of Fame in 2006 and the WIAC Hall of Fame in 2022. After she retired, Briwa continued to serve on the UW-Oshkosh Hall of Fame selection committee. She raised dachshunds and was an award-winning member of the Badger Dachshund Club and Dachshund Club of America.