Wheaton College Athletics

Genelle Samuelson’s athletic career at Wheaton was filled with four sports (softball, basketball, field hockey, and volleyball). She played on Wheaton’s very first softball team, and was part of the generation that began intercollegiate competition for women, witnessing the change from “sportsdays” and the WRA to “extramurals” to full intercollegiate participation.

Since her time at Wheaton, Samuelson had a longtime career in teaching and coaching in the Rockford, Ill. area. Samuelson comments on the impact her Wheaton coaches had on her own career, “Because [Ruth Leedy, Faye Philipp, Martha Baptista, Shirley Knauf and Marilyn Scribner] so positively impacted my life, I spent the next 37 years trying to provide sports opportunities for youngsters. The fire they lit within me still warms and energizes me.”