50 Years of Title IX: Eleanor Keady Gaffney
May 3, 2022 | General, Women's Lacrosse
Eleanor Keady Gaffney, a graduate of Boston University's Sargent College in 1953, was a two-sport athlete who excelled in both field hockey and lacrosse.
She made the All-Boston field hockey team three times, from 1951-53, and the All-Boston lacrosse team twice, in 1953 and 1954.
Her accolades did not stop there. She also was a Scarlet Key and Athletic Association award winner in 1952, and a recipient of the Twinness Award in 1953. Gaffney also made the Northeast Section field hockey team twice before earning a berth on the U.S. reserve team.
After three years as a reserve, Gaffney was named as a forward on the U.S. National field hockey team in 1958. It was there she played for two years against the top international competition. After playing two more years with the reserve squad, she again made the national team, which in 1962 tied England, 3-3, marking the first time England had not won in Wembley Stadium.
A member of the U.S. National lacrosse team from 1955-62, which included stints with the First Team (1956-58, 1960, 1961), the Reserve Team (1954, 1962) and the U.S. Touring Team (1957), she also served as president and vice president of the U.S. Women's Lacrosse Association and was a member of the Boston Women's Lacrosse Association from 1953-62. She was later the founder and co-director of the Cape Cod Field Hockey and Lacrosse Camp from 1975 to 1985. She served as a U.S. National Lacrosse umpire, taught and coached lacrosse for many years, and was instrumental in developing lacrosse in the town of Sandwich, Massachusetts, where for 26 years, she was an elected member of the Sandwich School Committee.Gaffney was inducted into the BU Athletic Hall of Fame in 1980 and the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2010.
