ANDY BAGGOT Insider

BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider

MADISON, Wis. — Tamara J. Flarup was 24 when she was hired as the first woman to work in the Wisconsin athletic communications office. She arrived from Kansas in July of 1977 after making two requests of her new employer.

"I accepted the position, but I needed a week's vacation," she said with a laugh. "We'd already planned a family reunion in Colorado."

Shortly after accepting the job of women's sports information director, the first to occupy that role full-time in department history, Flarup received a hand-written letter from assistant athletic director Kit Saunders-Nordeen asking if there was anything Flarup needed.

"I said I wanted an electric typewriter, an IBM Selectric 2 with dual pitch and a carbon ribbon," she replied. "And she got it for me."

At the time, it might have been the only instance where women's sports at UW — they were formally organized in 1974 — had something cool that men's sports didn't have.

"I introduced the electric typewriter to men's sports information," Flarup said. "They were all very jealous."

It wouldn't be the last time that Flarup would help modernize the world of college sports information at Wisconsin and beyond. Her innovative instincts, gregarious presence and enthusiastic willingness to navigate the winds of change are among the many reasons why Flarup is being inducted in the UW Athletic Hall of Fame.

Few, if any, have witnessed and impacted the growth of women's sports at Wisconsin more so than Flarup. Over the course of nearly four decades, she chronicled thousands of highlights, enlightened millions of fans and launched countless ideas to benefit UW student-athletes and coaches.

With the addition of 12 honorees to the hall of fame in 2021, there are now 276 individuals with plaques adorning the southern exterior wall of the Camp Randall Memorial Sports Center going back to charter class in 1991. Of that group, 49 are women. To some degree, almost all are indebted to Flarup for her determined work on their behalf. It only seems reasonable that she joins their ranks.

One of those beneficiaries was Barb (Franke) Lorenzen, a 2005 inductee who starred for the women's basketball team during a career that spanned 1991 to '96. She said Flarup helped her deal with all the media attention brought on by her becoming the all-time leading scorer in program history.

"As a person that's more of an introvert, she kind of brought me out of my shell," Lorenzen said of Flarup, who worked primarily with basketball. "I really thank her for that because it's a good attribute to have later in life."

Flarup, a physical education and journalism major at Iowa State, once thought about a career as a school teacher. That changed after a student teaching assignment at a K-12 school.

"I knew after three months of that, that was not the job for me," she said. "It was just always going to be the same. The students might change, but the curriculum didn't and the routine didn't. That just didn't interest me at all."

Flarup spent a year in the SID office at Kansas before taking over at UW. Her first day was July 15, 1977. It was, and still is, the best day of her life.

Elroy Hirsch, the UW athletic director, was her boss.

Saunders-Nordeen, the director of women's athletics, was her supervisor.

Jim Mott, the men's sports information director, was her administrative peer.

There were 12 women's sports at the time with six — basketball, golf, swimming, indoor and outdoor track and volleyball — sanctioned by the Big Ten Conference. The women's operating budget was $118,000.

The best part of the job for Flarup?

"Just always having the ability to be creative and innovative," she said, lauding Saunders-Nordeen for "letting me go off a little bit and do different things that way."

Flarup pioneered the use of computers — she read the handbook for a Radio Shack laptop during one Christmas break — and developed programs to forward UW game summaries and box scores — for men's and women's sports — to the newspapers in the state. She was on the cutting edge of desktop publishing and also helped the Big Ten get up to speed in these areas.

Flarup was a major reason Wisconsin was one of the first athletic departments to have its own website. She was named director of website services in 2001 when the men's and women's SID offices merged.

Flarup helped install an executive director for the College Sports Information Directors of America, which led to upgrades for women and minorities and earned her a place in the CoSIDA Hall of Fame in 2007. She retired from UW in 2016 and was granted Emerita status for distinguished service to the school.

Asked for the most unforgettable personality she encountered during her time at Wisconsin, Flarup tabbed the late Saunders-Nordeen.

"A really impressive woman," Flarup said. "Articulate. Smart. A strategic thinker. Didn't rock the boat; just tried to find a way that would convince them that they needed to think her way."

Of course, there were the student-athletes. Flarup can still rattle off the uniform numbers of many of them going back to the 1970s when women's sports were trying to find a foothold. Some of those veteran rowers, runners, point guards and middle blockers are her friends on Facebook. Asked if any of them have thanked her for her efforts, Flarup smiled.

"I feel loved," she said.

Flarup grew up Eagle Grove, Iowa, where she cultivated a passion for golf and softball. She was good enough to play on the golf team in college and currently plays in four leagues with a 17-handicap.

Fun fact: Flarup took rifle at Iowa State and described herself as a "pretty good" shot.

"It's because I employed the photography lessons I learned," she explained. "Which is, when you're taking a shot that needs absolute stillness, you let half your breath out and then you shoot."

Diane Nordstrom has known Flarup since Nordstrom was a track athlete for the Badgers in the early 1980s. She came to work full-time at her alma mater in 1990 and holds Flarup in high regard.

To know Flarup is to know she has a trademark laugh, an uproarious force that comes to life at the slightest provocation. Nordstrom said her friend is also "driven, hard-working, willing to fight the battles she needed to for women's sports and someone who really wanted to improve the lives of student-athletes at Wisconsin."

Nordstrom, a CoSIDA Hall of Famer as well, said Flarup routinely implored her to get involved "so you can change what needs to be changed" and not to be afraid "to go out and meet people to get new ideas."

Lorenzen, a center who led the Badgers in scoring three straight seasons, also mentioned Flarup's "infectious" laugh, adding that she was "always positive, always got the job done and always seemed to enjoy her job and enjoy the people she was around."

Lorenzen marveled at the number of people Flarup affected with her initiatives.

"The amount of impact she had on people was incredible," Lorenzen said. "I don't know that there are too many people who would say a bad thing about her."

Flarup said the biggest challenge of her career was the "constant battle over money and recognition" as well as "sexism and respect."

She recalled a meeting with the late Otto Breitenbach, an assistant AD in the 1970s and '80s, who said Flarup "doesn't need to make as much money as a man because she doesn't have family."

Flarup said that mindset still exists.

"It's still around," she said. "The truth is the truth. It just bothers me that it still happens."

But it doesn't happen to the degree it once did.

"Absolutely conditions have totally improved," Flarup said.

No doubt thanks to the work of people like Flarup, who credits her drive, spirit and accomplishments to a quote her mother shared with her when she was young.

"Tact is knowing how far to go too far," Flarup said.

Words to live by if you're going to live a hall of fame life.