Cabrini University Athletics

In the summer of 1961, the new chair of Cabrini’s Physical Education Department set about taking inventory.

"We had some hockey sticks, some bows and arrows, some badminton nets," Helen Goodwin recalled. "Funny, I don’t remember any balls. For years kids would ask me, ‘Can I play with the basketball?’ Actually, I think we had four.

"I put a sign up in the gym the first day of school: HOCKEY PRACTICE, 4 P.M. Not a single solitary soul showed up. I asked where everybody was. They said, ‘They’re all student-teaching.’"

Somehow Goodwin, a 1952 Penn State graduate, kept the existing programs alive while adding other sports. And, of course, coaching every one. Her budget: $650.

"Equipment, uniforms – I bought half the stuff with my own money," she remembered. "I used to go around the lunchroom on game day saying ‘I need a goalie.’ Eventually someone would go, ‘Oh, I’ll do it.’ Or I’d go around telling kids, ‘Rosemont needs a tennis match. Who wants to play?’"

Meanwhile she had three small children (5, 4 and 2) eager to play when she got home. Her husband urged her to turn down the job, but she’d fallen in love with the campus at first sight. "Hank," she said, "I don’t care what you say. I’m taking it."

Goodwin, who’s lived in the same West Chester house for 47 years, stayed on at Cabrini as either head of the physical education department, athletic director or women’s AD until her retirement in 1993. The campus lured her to Cabrini, and her warm relationships with the students kept her here.

"I loved every minute of it," she declared. "The best thing about Cabrini was the students, and I’m proudest of having known 10,000 of them.

One time I lost my temper at halftime, and they said, ‘Finally! We’ve been waiting four years for you to get mad at us.’"

Over time, her teams became more than respectable, going 11-1 in volleyball one year. But there’s a special place in her heart for the informal, play-it-by-ear years.

"In 1969 another school invited us over for a JV volleyball tournament," she recalled. "I rounded up the most athletic girls in my phys ed class and we won the thing playing ping-pong volleyball, just getting it over the net.

"The tournament director hated having to hand us the trophy. He said, ‘You didn’t set, you didn’t spike….’ And I said, ‘Yeah. And we won!’"