California University of Pennsylvania Athletics

California means different things to the different people who encounter it. For some, it stands for a place where they were born and raised. It is also a place where students spend their college years. Yet for others, it is a place where they settle down to work and live. For Margaret (Wilkinson) Neill, California represents all of these things and much more.
Neill, a pioneer in the growth of women’s athletics, has spent most of her years living, studying, playing sports and teaching in the town of California. In fact, she spent a lot of time on and around Cal’s campus. “I practically grew up there,” she said.

“I can remember as a child, our house was right across form where the president lived. I was born there, and lived there until 1970 when the school took it to make a parking lot,” Neill reminisced. ‘I can also remember as a kid sliding down the banisters in Old Main during the summer when there wasn’t anybody in the school.

“I went to kindergarten in the old science building (Watkins), and I went all the way through the eighth grade there,” she continued. “I have spent practically all my life around those halls.”

After the eight grade, Neill went to California High School where she excelled in anything that involved physical activity, with basketball being her strong suit.

“All they needed to do was put a sign up of something that was physical activity, and I would go,” Neill said. “I think that is what has helped me to be as active as I am at my age.”

When Neill graduated from high school in 1928, she didn’t have full intentions of coming to Cal, but financial circumstances brought her here.

“I was set on going to Ohio State, but we didn’t have the money at that time to go out there,” Neill explained. “So, my dad said, ‘You have a college right across the street,’ and I came here.”

Neill still went to all of the school dances and functions even though she didn’t live in the dormitories.

“I had a great time in college. I really enjoyed all of my college life because I participated in most anything like literary societies and anything else,” Neill said.

Although most all of the aspects of college life suited Neill, there was one factor that didn’t: the rule that women weren’t allowed to participate in most interscholastic activities that men were allowed to play.

“When I was a senior in high school, we had excellent girls basketball teams. We had two high schools then, East Pike Run ad California. We were actually enemies, yet were all friends,” Neill said. “Everyone of these girls were going to the college (Cal) because nobody had money to go someplace else at the time.

“When we went to college, they said the girls could not play any interscholastic basketball. All we could play was intramurals, and we were just sick about it. They didn’t think that girls were physically able to participate in that kind oaf a sport,” she continued.

The fact that the women weren’t allowed to take part in most interscholastic athletics didn’t stop them from playing, though. The girls formed an independent team with the businessmen in town backing them. This team couldn’t have any ties with the college, which was strictly enforced.

“We had a game at California High School, and one of the girls that was playing guard got into a fight with another girl. This is how strict they were: The Pittsburgh Press came out the next morning and said ‘California State Teachers College girls in fight with Goldenson Vanity,’’ Neill explained. ‘Well, we weren’t in school long that morning when we were summoned to Dr. Steele’s office. He said that we had to have it retracted from the paper by the next day saying that it wasn’t eh California State Teachers College girls.

“Then, someone made a noise which angered Dr. Steele, and he turned around to us and said, ‘and, if you don’t do that, we can do without certain people around this college,’” Neill continued. “I could just see my mother and dad if I had to go home and say that I was without a college.”

In the end, the team did have the story retracted, but that didn’t change the fact that the women still were not allowed to play interscholastic basketball.

The only sport that women were allowed to participate in on an interscholastic level was tennis, the sport that gave Neill the opportunity to be a member of the second class of Cal’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

Neil said that she started playing tennis when she could hold a racket, and since then, she has earned herself many honors for her playing abilities.

One of the more impressive matches that Neil won was the doubles championship for the Pittsburgh Press Spalding Tournament, which was independent of California. “It wasn’t connected with the college, but we (Neill and Dorothy Reichard, her partner) won it while we were students there,” Neill said.

Neill also was presented a cup for winning first place in the California Teachers College Tennis Tournament along with an all sports medal and a tennis medal from the Women’s Athletic Association.

Neill still has strong feelings when she stops to think about how she wasn’t permitted to play in most interscholastic sports.
“I think it would have been great to be able to play interscholastics. I know we would have had a good team, but we weren’t allowed,” Neill said. “Before that, they played when there were normal schools. They just decided it was too hard on girls to do that. We were all very disappointed with the decision.”

Before Neill graduated from Cal in 1932, she got a teaching job in Marianna, which she stayed at for 2 years. She also coached basketball there for grade school girls. Because she got the job when she did, Neill didn’t get to spend her last semester on campus, which in the long run, she regrets.

“I took my credits as fast as I could. That was during the depression and you were lucky if you could even get a job at that time,” Neill recalled. “I was lucky enough to get the teaching job in Marianna, but I was sorry that I did in the end because I missed out on quite a bit that last semester.”

From Marianna, Neill moved on to become an English teacher at California High School. She worked there for 30 years and retired in 1972. In fact, she is being inducted into the hall of fame along side of two of her former students, Mitch Bailey and Roger Hot.

“I think it is nice that I am being inducted with them,” Neill said. “I was surprised because it was so many years back. They never did anything like that (hall of fame), and I feel honored to have them think that far back. I have a lot of ties to California, and it means a lot to me.”

Margaret Wilkinson-Neill was one of the pioneers of California's growth in women's athletics and was a multi-sport star in the late 1920's and early 1930's. Tennis was the only women's sport that was allowed to compete on an intercollegiate level, and in 1930 Wilkinson-Neill won the Pittsburgh Press Spalding Novice Doubles Tournament title along with her partner, the late Dorothy Reichard. Wilkinson-Neill was also presented with an All-Sports Medal, a tennis Tournament in 1930 from the Women's Athletic Association (W.A.A.) which was the school's first governing body for women's athletics.
Wilkinson-Neill also starred in basketball, field hockey and archery. An individual with a true zest for life who would not let the gender inequity of that time era dampen her spirits, Wilkinson-Neill was extremely active in numerous university activities and clubs ranging from literary societies to school dances. Wilkinson-Neill was the leading player on the 1928 women's basketball "travel team" which won the Inter-Class championship.

Originally from California, Pa, and a graduate of California Area High School, Wilkinson-Neill was an English teacher at Cal high for over 30 years before retiring in 1972. Married to the late Robert Neill, Wilkinson-Neill still resides in California.