Bio

Helen Briwa is the only person in UW-Oshkosh history to serve as the school's women’s director of athletics.

Briwa held the position from 1971-88 and during that time UW-Oshkosh's seven women's programs combined to win three national championships and 18 Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference titles.

Briwa grew up when the concept of participating in women's collegiate athletics was simply a dream. In college, the Hudson, N.Y., native participated at the highest level of field hockey, lacrosse, basketball, softball and tennis offered to women. Those teams operated on a weekly sign-up, practice and competition basis. As a field hockey player, Briwa made the Mohawk Association First Team and Northeast Region Second Team. In lacrosse, Briwa's team qualified for regional and national tournaments.

Briwa brought her competitive drive and passion for women's athletics to UW-Oshkosh in 1968. Shortly after, UW-Oshkosh women were competing for collegiate glory on courts, in fields, in pools, and on tracks across Wisconsin as well as the country.

In 1970, Briwa was a member of a three-person committee that drafted the constitution for the then-called Wisconsin Women’s Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The conference was formed the following year and Briwa was named UW-Oshkosh's Women's Director of Athletics. Briwa was a member of the Search and Screen Committee that selected the WWIAC’s first commissioner. She served as the league's President in 1982 and Past President in 1983.

Briwa also assisted in the formation of the Midwest Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women and served as the organization’s commissioner from 1971-73.

Briwa was head coach of numerous sports at UW-Oshkosh, including women’s badminton (1974, 78-79), women’s field hockey (1968-92), softball (1971-72, 76), women’s track & field (1969, 74-77) and women’s volleyball (1968-73). She was named the WWIAC Field Hockey Coach of the Year in 1981.

Briwa retired as a professor in UW-Oshkosh's Physical Education Department in 1994. She received a Special Recognition Award from the WWIAC in 1989 and was inducted into the UW-Oshkosh Athletics Hall of Fame in 2006 and the WIAC Hall of Fame in 2022.

Briwa earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education from Skidmore College (N.Y.) in 1953, master’s degree in physical education from Smith College (Mass.) in 1956 and doctorate degree in physical education and guidance from The Ohio State University in 1966.

Briwa resides in Oshkosh, where she continues to serve as a member of the UW-Oshkosh Athletics Hall of Fame Committee, Badger Dachshund Club and Dachshund Club of America.

Updated 8/1/2022