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Some Stuff I Wrote (2001) H. Morris Williams

Dr. Kate for Hall of Fame

March 15,1994

Dr. Katherine Williams Montgomery (1894-1958) deserves to be a member of the Florida

Sports Hall of Fame. “Dr. Kate” stands alone as the pioneer figure in the progress of health
education, physical education, and recreation - especially for women - in the state of Florida.

If you are a woman who ever participated in physical education classes or competed in
interscholastic sports, you owe some measure of gratitude to Dr. Kate for her genuine conviction that

physical education is an essential and integral part of education for all children and youth, including
females. She personally led the movement to allow women to participate in sports at a time when
her beliefs were unpopular.

Dr. Kate first enrolled at Florida State College for Women (now FSU) in 1914 and
immediately became a first class scholar and athlete. As a student athlete, she was a standout

performer in intramural softball, basketball, track and tennis. She was an uncommonly good athlete
and the school voted her top awards in every sport.

In her senior year, she made excellent grades, played every sport, served as sports editor of
the FSCW school paper, The Florida Flambeau, and worked as a teaching assistant in physical

culture. She was named best all-around athlete at FSCW.
Throughout all this success, she knew that women’s opportunities in sports were extremely
limited, and she felt they ought to be boundless. So she returned to FSCW immediately following

her graduation to teach and to dedicate herself to improving women’s opportunities in sports. Her
strong beliefs about women’s rights to unlimited opportunities were vigorously opposed by some

at FSCW and by her own father who said, “Women should develop their minds. Physical education
is for boys.” But Kate persisted in her beliefs.

Kate knew she needed more training to champion her cause so she took a leave of absence
and studied canoeing, fencing, field hockey, soccer, swimming, boating, volleyball, basketball,

baseball, golf, folk dance, tap dance, gymnastic dance, apparatus, stunts and tumbling, playground
games, tennis and physiotherapy. She did all this and was still just barely 25 years old.

Then she went back to FSCW and in a short time became the first chairman of the brand-new

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