Joan Selma Hult, a professor emerita of kinesiology and a staunch advocate of women in college sports, died on August 16 from an infection at the University of Maryland Laurel Medical Center. She was 89 years old.
A native of Gary, Indiana, she earned a bachelor’s degree at Indiana University Bloomington. She went on to earn a master’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a Ph.D. in sports history from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
As a faculty member at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, Dr. Hult founded the women’s intercollegiate athletic program, and she coached every sport except gymnastics. She then joined the faculty at the University of Maryland and worked behind the scenes in Washington, D.C., to lobby for the enactment of Title IX.
Dr. Hult was the co-editor of the 1991 book. A Century of Women’s Basketball: From Frailty to Final Four. She was a member of the executive board of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women and she served on the U.S. Olympic Committee.