Bettye Wallace (1929–2022)

Bettye Wallace was a long-time coach and athletic administrator who mentored countless women athletes in both tennis and volleyball while also advocating for greater athletic opportunities for women.

Bettye Wallace was born on October 22, 1929, in Malvern (Hot Spring County) to David and Jannie Wallace. She had one sister. She majored in math at Henderson State College—now Henderson State University (HSU)—in Arkadelphia (Clark County), earning her bachelor’s degree in 1950; she also played on the college tennis team. She later earned a master’s from what is now the University of Northern Colorado.

Wallace began her teaching and coaching careers in Murfreesboro (Pike County), where she coached basketball for one season. She then moved on to Rison High School, where she taught math for three years. She taught physical education at Malvern High School for nine years before returning to her college alma mater in 1963 as a teacher in physical education. She initially coached the tennis team and then founded the volleyball team in 1965. She would eventually become the college’s athletic director in charge of women’s athletics—the first woman in the state’s history to serve in that role.

Wallace was a major figure in the creation in 1966 of a statewide athletic conference for women, the Arkansas Women’s Extramural Sports Association (AWESA), which later became the Arkansas Women’s Intercollegiate Sports Association (AWISA). Wallace led the tennis team to the AWESA championships in 1967, 1969, and 1972, while the volleyball team under her tutelage was crowned champion in both 1972 and 1975. She was named AWISA Tennis Coach of the Year in 1980 and 1981, and she received the AWISA Volleyball Coach of the Year award in 1982.

About two years after the founding of what became AWISA, she was a leader in the group of women athletic administrators who founded the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), the inaugural organization overseeing women’s collegiate athletics nationwide. Although the AIAW became part of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) following the adoption of Title IX, Wallace and her peers laid the foundation for a national women’s collegiate athletic organization that would be central to the expansion of women’s sports in the United States and the world.

Wallace retired in 1988 with the title Associate Professor Emeritus for Health Physical Education and Recreation. An avid walker/hiker, she continued to log miles around the Arkadelphia area. Indeed, she once calculated that she had logged enough miles to equal the circumference of the earth. She also helped maintain the Ouachita National Recreation Trail and volunteered for local causes. She continued to attend HSU athletic events, where she could regularly be seen cheering on the latest HSU Reddies.

Wallace was awarded the coveted “H” Award by HSU in 1995, and in 1997 she was selected for the inaugural class of the college’s Athletic Hall of Honor. She was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2018. The tennis courts at Henderson State bear her name.

Wallace died on July 26, 2022, in Creede, Colorado. She is buried at the Oak Ridge Cemetery in Malvern.

For additional information:
“Alumni Profile: Bettye Wallace, Class of 1950.” Henderson State University, October 31, 2019. https://www.hsu.edu/news/2019/oct/31/alumni-profile-bettye-wallace-class-of-1950/ (accessed June 26, 2024).

“Henderson State Athletics Mourns the Passing of Bettye Wallace.” Henderson State University Athletics, July 26, 2022. https://hsusports.com/news/2022/7/26/general-henderson-state-athletics-mourns-the-passing-of-bettye-wallace.aspx (accessed June 26, 2024).

Muck, Jeremy. “Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame: Players Fought for Bettye Wallace.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, April 1, 2018 https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2018/apr/01/players-fought-for-wallace-20180401/ (accessed June 26, 2024).

Obituary of Bettye Wallace.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, July 31, 2022 https://www.arkansasonline.com/obituaries/2022/jul/31/bettye-wallace-2022-07-31/ (accessed June 26, 2024).

William H. Pruden
Ravenscroft School