2014 Marian Archer Award

Ilene Bailey, Morristown High School Retired

The Marian Archer Award is an award established by the Archer Family in 1979 to honor Marian Archer for outstanding work in promoting girls’ athletics. Marian Archer was the owner of Sports Togs in Carmel – a sporting goods business that dealt exclusively with uniforms for female athletes, and was one of our earliest exhibitors at our ICGSA spring conference. The recipient of this award should have been or is actively and positively involved in the promotion of girls’ athletics, and they may be in any field where he or she may promote girls’ athletics in Indiana.

Our Marian Archer winner’s contributions to girls’ athletics in the state of Indiana has been as an educator, coach, athletic administrator, a past ICGSA Board Member and President, Mother of a Past ICGSA President, and now an ICGSA exhibitor. She is only the fourth individual to be honored with both the ICGSA Service Award and today our Marian Archer Award.

The daughter of two educators she was born the era when girls couldn’t play sports, and she always thought that was not fair. When she began her teaching career in Martinsville she started the GAA program for girls and two years later when she moved to Morristown she also organized the GAA program there. In 1972 when the IHSAA began to sanction girls’ sports she began her coaching career in volleyball. She is a Charter member of ICGSA and served two terms on the IHSAA Girls Advisory committee that was established by Pat Roy to guide and provide leadership for girls’ sports in the state of Indiana during those early years.

She served as our President in 1985-86 when ICGSA and girls’ sports in Indiana was growing by leaps and bounds and we were entering the pre-Title IX era. Her trademark was to always carry a box around to all the meetings with her files in it – so one day her daughter ask “Mom if you want to be a coach, do you have to carry a box with you?” That must have been the secret as her daughter, Lynn, went on to become a coach and also served as our President in 1998-99. While serving as the Assistant Athletic Director for 18 years she had the opportunity to develop a strong girls’ sports program at Morristown and had several of her players to return to Morristown to become coaches of their girls’ sports, and now one of those coaches is their current athletic director.

In addition to her leadership in girls’ athletics in the state of Indiana she was very active in Hoosier Girls State and just retired from that organization after 45 years as well as 12 years on the National Girls State Staff. She has been honored by Morristown Chamber Commerce as their “Citizen of the Year” in 1992. When she retired from education in 1994, she just couldn’t stay away from girls’ sports and started working part time for her friend, Phillip Morris, owner of Morris, Inc. now known as Team Image just to give her an “excuse” to attend our conference as an exhibitor.

The Executive Board has honored her with the Twenty and Thirty Year Awards as well as our Service Award in 1988, and today we want to recognizes her many contributions to girl’s athletics in the state of Indiana via many avenues with our Marian Archer Award. Please join us as Jualina Musselman, our president, presents Ilene Bailey, retired from Morristown High School, with our 2014 Marian Archer Award plaque.