From Santa Clara Law Magazine by Susan Vogel
By the time they apply to law school, most people have given up hope of a pro football career. Not Heather Gibson. On the eve of starting classes at SCU School of Law, she was still considering whether to pursue a position as a wide receiver for the Sacramento Sirens, a women’s professional tackle football team. Gibson had made the first cut and had been asked back.
At the last minute, she chose law school, though she knew it would propel her deep into debt.
Though Gibson has worked during law school, at the end of her second year she was $92,000 in debt (a typical amount for an SCU law student taking out loans of $30,000 annually for tuition and $15,000 for living expenses). She began reviewing scholarship announcements, looking for one that might be a good match. She hadn’t expected to find a football scholarship, much less one commemorating a women’s law school football team. When Gibson read the announcement of the Eleven Easy Pieces Scholarship, she thought: “That’s me!” “I felt an immediate connection with the women who put it together,” she says, “both on an athletic level and in terms of their sense of humor.”
The scholarship is the legacy of a law school women’s flag intramural football team. Their name was a play on the movie Five Easy Pieces (which actually referred to piano pieces).
The Pieces of History
Between 1979 and 1983, more than 25 female law school students and professors played on the team and many male law professors and law students served as battering rams, water boys (Professor Dennis Lilly was both), and as coaches. Though many of the Pieces had substantial athletic experience, it was not required.
Professor Kandis “Mad Dog” Scott, for example, was “not the most gifted athlete,” according to player Jill “Hands” Hanau ’81, but she was “a little tiger on the line.”
| Jill “Hands” Hanau ’81 believes that team sports teach valuable work skills. “You learn to work together, to take second positions sometimes. This is invaluable for the work place.You also learn humility.” |
It was Mad Dog Scott who came up with the idea of an Easy Pieces scholarship in 1998. The donations poured in from former team members, coaches, and fans, and by last fall the scholarship’s principal had soared to $75,000. In the fall of 2004, the interest on this amount provided $6,500 in scholarship funds for three recipients.
The scholarship is an easy sell to the former Pieces, some of whom have made individual gifts as large as $20,000.
Though few former Pieces remember their own moments of glory on the field, they all remember the great team spirit that lead the undefeated team to the SCU intramural championship game in the fall of 1979. The game was played under the lights at Buck Shaw Stadium and covered by the 11 o’clock news. The team’s fans, who included steadfast faculty supporters George Strong, Herman Levy, and Robert (Bob) Peterson, came out in record numbers, filling one whole side of the stadium.
The fact that they lost the Big Game (during overtime in a California tiebreaker to an opponent no one remembers) does not tarnish the women’s memories of the team.
Lessons of the Game
Through the scholarship fund, the Pieces seek to keep this spirit alive not to honor their own good times, but to perpetuate the values of community and team involvement, which they have carried through to their professional lives as well as to their family and community lives.
Mary Beth “Molly” Long B.A. ’79, J.D. ’82, MBA ’85, who holds the record of scoring the most touchdowns, found that the skills she learned as a Piece served her well in her work as a real estate attorney. “You learn from team sports the discipline of working out,” she says. “You learn the discipline of being there on time and supporting your team.” Long uses this training in her position as vice president and general counsel for Dividend Homes, Inc., a residential real estate development company in Santa Clara that she co-founded in 1994.
Hanau also believes that team sports teach valuable work skills. “You learn to work together, to take second positions sometimes. This is invaluable for the work place. You also learn humility.” (Bob Peterson recalls one instance when Hanau taught humility: on a law school-sponsored river trip, she “took down” a river rat—a boatman—in an arm wrestling match.)
Through the scholarship fund, the Pieces seek to perpetuate the values of community and team involvement.
Applying for the Pieces scholarship requires no tryouts. The awards are based on need, contribution to school and academics. In addition, “a sense of humor is a plus,” says Peterson, who along with Professor Mary Emery and several former Pieces, helps choose the recipients.
Indeed, it might be a sense of humor that distinguished the original Pieces. Without a sense of humor, no woman law student in the late 70s and early 80s would have called herself an “Easy Piece.” “I think this is why we had so many male fans,” says Hanau. “They liked having women around who were good sports and could poke fun at themselves.”
Coaching the Future
Now in her third year of law school, Heather Gibson helps other young women learn the value of combining team sports with academics. The Eleven Easy Pieces scholarship has allowed her to continue with two activities that are very important to her: an unpaid internship in the environmental crime unit at the district attorney’s office, and coaching track to girls at Presentation High School. “Without the scholarship I probably would have had to give up both of these things to wait tables,” she says. “Thanks to the donors, I was able to finish my internship, continue my coaching, and focus more on school. I only hope that someday I will be successful enough to do the same for someone else!”
For more information on the scholarship or to make a donation, please contact Bob Peterson: 408-554-4141 or rpeterson@scu.edu.
