Longtime Hofstra athletics administrator Cindy Lewis proud to see growth of women's sports since her playing days

 Courtesy Hofstra Athletic Communications
In the mid to late 1970’s when Hofstra’s Senior Associate Director of Athletics Cindy Lewis played field hockey and lacrosse at Berner High School in Massapequa, N.Y. and then for Hofstra, the climate of female sports was a very different story from where it is today. Lewis’s playing career came in the midst of America’s groundbreaking Title IX legislation being implemented, to ensure that female athletes had the same opportunities as their male counterparts, and the longtime Hofstra athletics administrator recalls how slow a process this was.

Today Lewis is happy to see that female athletics is thriving at Hofstra and throughout the country, and that the early days of Title IX’s implementation are becoming more and more distant. On Sept. 20 Lewis was honored at the 22nd annual Hofstra Pride Golf Classic and Auction for her 30 years of dedicated service to Hofstra’s athletics program, which has included helping to position the  women’s sports programs to be able to compete at the highest level. The golf classic is Hofstra’s signature fundraising event for the university’s athletics department, and this year in honor of Lewis the proceeds were used to benefit the school’s Women’s Athletic Fund. 

“Our whole society has evolved for women sports,” said Lewis, who was one of the first recipients of a field hockey athletic grant at Hofstra. “Our female athletes today don’t even know that Title IX is and that is a good thing.”

After graduating from Hofstra in 1979 Lewis earned a master’s in physical education from the University of New Hampshire the next year before returning to her alma mater in 1981 to serve as head coach of the field hockey and women’s lacrosse programs for five and three seasons, respectively. The Massapequa native then began her long administrative career at Hofstra and in that time has been a major catalyst in the growth and advancement of the university’s women’s athletics programs.

“Cindy Lewis’ tenure at Hofstra has always been marked by a concern for student-athletes,” said Hofstra's Director of Athletics Jack Hayes. “She is a competitor and has always worked to do what’s in the best interest of the athletics program. Her experiences at Hofstra - as a student-athlete, coach, and administrator – have been invaluable to our department.”

To be able to work for many years at a place she played and coached two sports has meant a great deal to Lewis, who is proud of the great strides Hofstra has made since she was a student athlete both athletically and academically. “It has been a love affair with Hofstra,” said Lewis. “Hofstra has always been good to me.”