NEW YORK, N.Y. – Debra Weaver '78 was the first captain of the Yale Women's Hockey Team as a senior in 1977-78.
 
Yale went co-educational for undergraduates in 1969, and it took six years for a women's club hockey team to appear at Ingalls Rink. That squad competed for two winters before it was made a varsity sport under head coach Tyler Benson, who led the Blue to a 7-5-1 record with Weaver as captain.
 
"It was an honor to be the captain and first starter," said Weaver, who is a lawyer in New York City focusing on publishing and first amendment law. "It was a thrill to be among the first women to start playing ice hockey. Admittedly our team did not have the skills of today's players, but hopefully we paved the way in some measure."
 
Weaver, who went from New Haven to Columbia University Law School and then private practice in Manhattan, moved to in-house work for McGraw Hill and then the Hearst Corporation.
 
"I realized how far women's hockey had come when the women first played in the Olympics in 1998. I was at a bar in New Jersey where men were admiring the play on TV, not realizing they were watching women. When they figured it out, they were in awe!"