Dr. Yvonne “Bonnie” Slatton devoted her life to improving the lives of others, and that continued after her passing.
Slatton came to the University of Iowa in 1964 to be on the faculty of the women’s physical education department and coach tennis and badminton. She had earned her master’s at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and her undergraduate degree at Middle Tennessee State University. Slatton received her PhD in physical education from the University of Iowa in 1970 and later served as chair of UI’s women’s physical education department from 1987 until 2000.
Slatton was close friends with Dr. Peg Burke, who came to Iowa at the same time to earn her PhD as well. Burke was raised in Kentucky, while Slatton was from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Burke and says she and Slatton argued all the time about which state was better.
Burke says they came to Iowa because of Gladys Scott, who was chair of the women’s physical education department at the time.
“I was offered here and Southern Cal, where there was another strong mentor, Eleanor Metheny, and I often wondered how my life would have been different if I’d gone to Southern Cal in the 70s instead of coming here,” Burke says.
Burke and Slatton lived together for 57 years, and Burke says Slatton was “one of the easiest” people to get along with in the world.
“She thought anger was a waste of time,” Burke says. “And so, you couldn’t get in an argument. Here, I have an Irish temper, and I couldn’t get an argument. She would either just walk away or be silent… Usually my anger was at myself for something I had done, or I’d hit my finger with a hammer or something, and the most she would say was probably 10 words, something like, ‘well, I hope that makes you feel better.’ It just totally deflates you. But she was a delight.”
Slatton was very active in sports leadership, serving as faculty representative to the Big Ten and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). She also served on the executive committee and executive board of the U.S. Olympic Committee, alongside former Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, and was a member of the official delegation to the Pan Am Games in Cuba in 1991 and the Olympic Games in Spain in 1992. She was deeply interested in ethical and moral issues in sport and leisure, as well as gender and diversity, and taught courses at UI such as Inequality in Sport, Sociology of Women in Sport, and Philosophy of Sport.
Slatton received several awards from UI including the Brody Award in 1995, the Jean Jew Award in 1997, and the Hancher Finkbine Award in 2009.
Along with Burke, Slatton was close friends with Dr. Christine Grant, UI’s first and only women’s athletic director. The three became famous for their advocacy of equal opportunities for women in sports through Title IX. Slatton served as president of the National Association for Girls and Women in Sports, and spent a year in Washington, D.C., as Acting Executive Director of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women.
Lark Birdsong, Iowa’s first women’s basketball coach, told Iowa Magazine in 2022 that leadership for Title IX had its “locus in Iowa.”
“Three Hawkeye professors, Christine (Grant), Bonnie Slatton, and Peg Burke, in addition to other brave women, did the impossible against insurmountable odds,” Birdsong said. “They led a national effort to ensure equal opportunities for women. What we see in intercollegiate athletics today is testimony to their immense effectiveness. And what they created at Iowa is reflected in loyal Hawkeye pride in today's teams."
Slatton remained active after her retirement from UI in 2006 and played tennis into her 80s, when she developed problems with her vision. She ultimately decided, upon her death in 2022, to donate her eyes to Iowa Lions Eye Bank to help researchers better understand vision loss.
“Being with the university, we realize the value of research,” Burke says. “We might learn something that could prevent it from happening to someone else.
“She was very focused, you know, and fought discrimination of all kinds.”
