Dr. Frances B. Koenig received her Ph.D. from Michigan
State University in 1969. She received her A.B. from Brown University in
1950 and her M.S. from Smith College in 1952. She unexpectedly passed
away on October 13, 2000.
Throughout her professional career, Frances was a
consummate advocate of physical education and women's sports. Her
teaching and coaching career spanned 37 years starting at Morrisville
Central School in Morrisville, NY (1952-1959) where she taught and
coached all the girls' sports. She was an assistant professor and coach
at Concordia Teachers College in River Forest, IL (1959-1964). While
completing her doctoral studies at MSU (1964-1968), she also coached
field hockey at MSU. At Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, MI
(1969-1989) she was an associate professor in physical education and the
women's basketball coach (1969-1974). She later became an Associate
Athletic Director and Director of Women's Athletics at CMU.
A few items from her extensive list of professional
accolades include being one of the first women to officiate at a
national women's basketball championship (1964), recipient of the MAHPER
Distinguished Service Award (1973), Woman Professor of the Year at
Central Michigan University (1973), listed in Who's Who of American
Women (1979-1980), and recipient of the National Association for Girls
and Women in Sport Honor Fellow Award (1980). She was inducted into the
Brown University Athletic Hall of Fame (1982), Central Michigan
University Athletic Hall of Fame (1995), and the Concordia University
Athletic Hall of Fame (2002).
