The Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table will induct seven new members into its Hall of Fame on Monday, September 16. The inductee class of 2024 includes five athletes, one coach and one special achievement award recipient.
This is the first in a series of stories about this year’s new additions.
Click here to purchase tickets to the Hall of Fame event at Cabrillo Pavilion.
Without pioneers like Sari Small, girls and women in the Santa Barbara area would not have the same athletic opportunities they have today.
Although Small grew up in an era when girls and women only had access to physical education classes, she left her mark at Carpinteria High and in the athletic community.
This did not stop Small, however, as during her time as a Carpinteria Warrior from 1956 to 1960, she participated in extracurricular game days at select public and private high schools.
This enabled her to participate in basketball, volleyball and softball in addition to physical education classes.
In her senior year in the spring of 1960, Carpinteria High’s Russell Cup Track & Field Meet featured two girls’ events for the first time.
It consisted of a 75-yard run, which Small won, and a 440-yard relay race, in which Small took second place alongside Dolly Sanchez, Irene Reveles and Susanne Clawson.
That same year, Carpinteria High hosted the CIF-SS Track and Field Championships, where Small and other girls competed in the 50-, 75- and 100-yard dashes, as well as the long jump and high jump.
Following her success in high school, Small was awarded the Girls Athletic Association’s Outstanding Girl Athlete Award.
Her experiences in track and field at the end of her senior year of high school opened the door for her to compete in the AAU national track and field championships, which she did while at Santa Barbara City College from 1960 to 1963.
She has competed in four AAU outdoor national championships and has also competed in the LA Times Indoor and Sunkist Indoor Invitational meets.
Although there were no affiliated women’s sports teams at SBCC, Small played on an outside volleyball mixed doubles team that competed in tournaments.
She continued to participate in extracurricular sports when she attended Cal State Northridge from 1965 to 1968, where she played on the women’s basketball and field hockey teams.
She also competed in her first cross country meet at UCLA, where she placed third among 18 women.
Although she may not have known it at the time, her actions and those of many other influential women made possible today’s sporting world, where men and women are equally celebrated and given equal opportunities.
“I’m pleased and a little jealous that sports for girls and women have come so far,” Small said. “Imagine having a uniform tailored to a girl’s or woman’s figure, the expansion of high school sports programs, opportunities for college scholarships and, depending on the ambitions, becoming a professional athlete.”
“Yes, there are still some big problems that need to be addressed, but at least there are opportunities. I am humbled to think that what I and the girls and women before me have done and are doing has helped show the world that girls and women can be elite athletes or whatever they want to be.”
Small is now retired after working for CSU Northridge for 45 years, including 40 years at the Tseng College of Extended Learning.
