Lynne Winbigler Anderson
A Career in the Earliest Days of Title IX
by Mark Cullen
(First published on 6/30/2024, the final day of the US Olympic Trials.)
It’s the spring of 1976. I was in my first year in the job market and, a year after graduating from the University of Oregon, did not yet have a job my parents could tell their friends about.
I made contact with the publisher of the ‘76 US Olympic Trials Program and got a job writing features and event previews. I also covered these same events in the daily supplement to the Program throughout the Trials.
My interest was piqued by a recent University of Oregon graduate who was making a name for herself in the discus.
I went to South Eugene High School one evening early that June to watch Lynne Winbigler - now Anderson - being coached by “Multiple Mac” Wilkins, also a recent graduate.
Looking back on it now, each was on the cusp of a dramatically new and different life. For Wilkins, it was winning gold in the men’s discus in Montreal, and for Anderson, it was winning the only women’s discus spot available on the ’76 US Olympic team.
For each, before and after began at Eugene’s second Olympic Trials.
