Hurlbut Blazing a Trail for Women : College athletics: She is first to lead Division I combined men’s and women’s conference.

Constance Hurlbut shattered the glass ceiling in athletic administration last month when she was named executive director of the Patriot League, becoming the first woman to head an NCAA Division I combined men’s and women’s conference.

When Hurlbut steps into the Bethlehem, Pa., office on July 1, she hopes she will be blazing a trail into the upper echelons of athletic administration for other women to follow.

“People might take a second look when they see that a woman is in charge of a football program,” said Thomas Hansen, commissioner of the Pacific 10 Conference, “but I think that we’re moving beyond that in athletics with Barbara Hedges (Washington athletic director) . . . and Judy Sweet (NCAA president). . . . All these people I salute because I think they’ve paved the way, and I think it is going to be easier because of them.”

For the past 6 1/2 years, Hurlbut has worked with the Council of Ivy Group Presidents, the athletic conference for the Ivy League schools. She has been the Ivy Group’s associate director since 1989.

Hurlbut, 31, is described as dynamic and personable.

Charles Harris, athletic director at Arizona State, met Hurlbut when she played lacrosse and field hockey at Pennsylvania between 1980-83. Harris, then the Penn athletic director, recalls spirited conversations.

While they covered a wide range of topics, Harris said that they particularly helped frame his attitudes about women’s athletics.

“(Hurlbut) possesses a style that will make anyone she deals with enlarge their own envelope of thinking,” Harris said.

Said Hurlbut: “I don’t really see being a woman as a major advantage or a disadvantage. I think I’ve been treated more on merit.”

Eve Atkinson of Lafayette, the only female athletic director in the Patriot League, said the challenges facing Hurlbut are “not so much the woman aspect, but just the overall challenges in college athletics. There are cutbacks nationwide with universities.”

Certainly, Hurlbut’s decisions will be scrutinized at first. Some wonder if her agenda will be influenced because she is a woman.

“I’m all in favor of promoting women’s sports, but not at the expense of something else,” said Peter Vaas, Holy Cross football coach. “She didn’t get this position by having favoritism one way or the other. She got this position by being a very strong contributing member in the Ivy League. I would hope that she would try to upgrade the whole (league). I don’t think that she is going to pick out one little area and say, ‘This is my thing.’ ”

When an injury prevented Hurlbut from playing as a senior at Penn, she was a manager for the field hockey team, and Harris offered her an internship in the athletic department.

She also was a member of Penn’s Women’s Athletic Assn., which served as a voice for female athletes at the school. Hurlbut provided student input in an athletic department study regarding its compliance with Title IX.

She was an intern and then assistant commissioner of the Eastern College Athletic Conference before taking a position with the Ivy Group.

Hurlbut’s husband, Steve, is associate commissioner of the Northeast Conference. She said working for different conferences has not caused a conflict in their marriage.

Hurlbut will succeed Carl Ullrich, who will retire after 42 years in athletics.

She is expected to bring innovation to the seven-year-old Patriot League.

“We’re looking for some leadership down the road to see if we can move ahead and implement the programs that I’m quite sure she’ll come up with,” said Rev. John E. Brooks, president of the College of the Holy Cross and chair of the Patriot League search committee.

The Patriot League was established as a football-only league in 1986. Now it sponsors 10 men’s and 11 women’s sports in addition to Division I-AA football. Its members include Army, Navy, Bucknell, Colgate, Fordham, Holy Cross, Lafayette and Lehigh.

The members treat it as something of a club.

“I think anyone who comes from outside the league in some way can be looked at as an outsider,” Hurlbut said. “But because (the Ivy League is) so close, geographically, I’ve worked with some of the athletic administrators in the past, so I won’t be a completely new face to all the people and I’m hoping that will smooth the transition.”

But, in at least one way, hers is a new face. Inevitably, she will provide a new perspective.

“It’s an evolution that has just begun,” Hansen said. “The generation which is now serving (in athletic administration) still pretty much was ahead of the explosion in women’s programs that has occurred, and (because of) the younger people that are coming along in the next generation or two, it will change quite dramatically.”