The Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table will be inducting seven new members into its Hall of Fame on Monday, Sept. 16. The Induction Class of 2024 includes five athletes, a coach and a special achievement honoree.
This is the first in a series of stories about this year’s inductees.
To purchase tickets to the Hall of Fame event at the Cabrillo Pavillion, click here.
If it weren’t for trailblazers like Sari Small, girls and women in the Santa Barbara area would not have the same opportunities in sports that they have today.
Small left her imprint on Carpinteria High and the athletic community despite growing up in a time when girls and women were limited to physical education classes.
That didn’t stop Small, as during her time as a Carpinteria Warrior from 1956 to 1960, she competed in extramural playdays involving select public and private high schools.
This allowed her to participate in basketball, volleyball and softball along with her physical education classes.
In her senior year in the spring of 1960, Carpinteria High’s Russell Cup Track & Field Meet added two girls events for the first time ever.
It featured a 75-yard dash, which Small won, and a 440-yard relay race, in which Small took second in alongside Dolly Sanchez, Irene Reveles and Susanne Clawson.
That same year, Carpinteria High hosted the CIF-SS Track & Field Championships, where Small and other girls ran the 50, 75, and 100-yard dashes along with the long jump and high jump.
Following her high school success, Small was given the Girls Athletic Association’s Outstanding Girl Athlete Award.
Her track & field experience at the end of her senior year opened the door for an opportunity to compete in the National AAU Track & Field Championships, which she did during her time at Santa Barbara City College from 1960 to 1963.
She went to four AAU Outdoor National Championships while also participating in the LA Times Indoor and Sunkist Indoor Invitational meets.
While SBCC did not have any sports teams affiliated with the school for women, Small did play on an extramural mixed doubles volleyball team that competed in tournaments.
She continued playing extramural sports when she attended Cal State Northridge from 1965 to 1968. There, she played on women’s basketball and field hockey teams.
She also competed in an inaugural cross country meet at UCLA, where she finished third out of 18 women.
While she may not have known it at the time, her actions along with the actions of many other impactful women allowed for the sports world that we have today where men and women are celebrated equally and receive the same opportunities.
“I am pleased and a little envious that sports for girls and women have developed to the degree they have,” Small said. “Imagine having a uniform made to fit a girl’s or woman’s physique, the expansion of high school sports programs providing opportunities for college scholarships and depending upon aspirations becoming a professional.
“Yes, there are still some major issues that need to be addressed but at least the opportunities are there. I am humbled thinking that what I and those the girls and women who preceded me did and have done has helped to show the world that girls and women can become elite athletes or whatever they want to be.”
Small is now retired after working for CSU Northridge for 45 years, 40 of which were spent with the Tseng College of Extended Learning.
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