Ellie Noack, 92, leaves a legacy as pioneering athletic director of Austin ISD

Former Austin school district athletic director Ellie Noack reminisces on a pioneering career as a physical education leader during a 2016 banquet at the University of Texas. The Texas graduate served as the state’s first female athletic director for a large school district.

Ellie Noack, the former Austin school district athletic director and a pioneer for women’s athletics, died Jan. 24 at the age of 92.

Noack, the namesake of the athletic complex in Northeast Austin near LBJ High School, leaves a formidable legacy. A native of Port Arthur who earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of Texas, Noack became the first female athletic director of a multi-high school district in Texas when she took over the Austin school district’s athletic director job in 1980 after six years serving as the first female assistant athletic director.

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An important hire for girls sports in 1980

Noack, 49 at the time of her hire, earned $36,000 a year after her promotion in 1980. But as she told the American-Statesman that year, her position as a leader for the school district meant much more than a paycheck.

The job was “a screaming statement that women have finally come into their own in the sport arena,” Noack said.

An ardent athletics fan as a child, Noack had limited options beyond supporting boys athletics as a member of the pep squad or competing in the occasional church-league volleyball game. Those options didn’t increase much at Texas, where she earned her degrees and began a 36-year career in education and athletics.

“Looking back, I see what crumbs the girls got,” Noack told the Statesman in 1980. “It wasn’t really formal athletics I was into even in college because there was so little available. I just took what I could in those days. Maybe I should have been more militant about it all, but I always thought that my mere presence and perseverance in athletics would make a difference one day.”

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How girls high school sports grew under Ellie Noack

It certainly did, especially in the Austin school district. Noack taught at Baker Junior High School, Austin High and Lanier High before becoming the district’s instructional coordinator for physical education in 1962. In that role, she expanded competitive sport opportunities for girls through the development of a girls intramural program for both junior and senior high schools.

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Noack continued to expand girls athletics programs and increase participation throughout her career, establishing all-city tournaments and meets for girls in a multitude of sports. Her many achievements were recognized by the Texas Athletic Directors Association, which inducted Noack to its Hall of Honor in 2001. In 2016, UT’s kinesiology and health education department inducted her into its hall of fame, too.

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“We accomplished a lot,” Noack said at a UT banquet in 2016 that honored her legacy. “We were able to add lots of sports and really enhance the women sports. Anybody could have done it; you just had to want to do it and put in the work.”

In retirement, Noack remained an ardent supporter of girls sports at all levels and especially women’s athletics at Texas.

Services will be held at University United Methodist Church on Feb. 6 at 1 p.m. In lieu of flowers, her family has asked for a donation to Hospice Austin (www.hospiceaustin.org) or the Austin Humane Society (www.austinhumanesociety.org).

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Ellie Noack remembered as pioneer, state’s first female high school AD