Sarah
Mleczko Woolworth '76
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I
feel lucky to love what I do and to know how to fight to do what I
love,” says Sarah Mleczko Woolworth ’76. As a student-athlete
at Andover and Harvard, as a scholar and lover of fine art, and now
as a private art dealer, she has been doing what she loves and doing
it extraordinarily well for most of her life. It may be difficult
to say whether fate or design resulted in her entering arenas where
men had previously been predominant, but that is where she has found
herself repeatedly and where her passion, energy and talent have helped
her to excel.
Entering Phillips Academy as a lower in fall 1973, Sarah Mleczko was
among the first girls to attend the academy after the merger with
Abbot. At Andover, she was a standout athlete, earning nine varsity
letters in three years. As an upper, she took up squash
and began playing on the boys’ JV squad. “I believe Sarah
could adapt herself to play any sport proficiently in a very short
period of time,” recalls her coach Lou Hoitsma, now retired,
“for she had the confidence, attitude and ability to attempt
and succeed.” Indeed, Mleczko carried those attributes on to
Harvard, another school in the midst of transition from an all-male
to a coeducational institution, where she earned 10 varsity letters
and was subsequently inducted into the Varsity Club Hall of Fame.
After graduating from Harvard in 1980, she had the opportunity to
pursue her other great passion—art—first as an art consultant
and gallery director, then as a private art dealer in New York City.
Choosing Andover over several other boarding schools was a decision
she made confidently, influenced in part by Dean of Admissions Josh
Miner, who said, “You’re coming here; we need people here
like you.” Growing up with three older brothers on Long Island
and then in Wilton, Conn., Mleczko had a head start dealing with the
3-to-1 ratio of boys to girls she encountered at Andover. Among her
studies, she recalls most fondly Spanish with Jim Couch and French
with Hale Sturges, her favorite teacher. Clearly the respect was mutual;
when asked about her, Sturges could hardly have been more effusive.
“Sarah was a pivotal figure in the transformation of Phillips
Academy into a truly coeducational institution. … Name the sport
and she played it well. … I taught her in French 42 and French
52, and her enthusiasm, intelligence and dedication remain among my
fondest memories of that era.”
At the time of the merger, everyone was working to make coeducation
a success, but it was definitely a period of transition. The sudden
growth of the school from around 900 to more than 1,200 students and
the expansion of girls’ varsity teams from six to 13 sports resulted
in a strain on facilities. The first women’s locker rooms, in
the dank basement of Cooley House, left Mleczko unfazed. “Bad
locker rooms were a fact of life that was not going to change what
needed to happen on the field, which was to win games,” she says.
Even in the first year of the PA-Abbot merger she never felt girls
were treated as intruders; in fact she found the boys very supportive
of the girls’ teams.
A true impact athlete from the start, Mleczko, in her first varsity
contest at Andover, scored two goals in the field hockey team’s
opening 4-0 win on the way to a 5-2-2 season. She led the basketball
team in scoring, averaging 15.8 points a game, including 22 against
Exeter. After a spring lacrosse season in which she scored 44 goals
in eight games, including 12 in the team’s two victories over
Exeter, Mleczko earned the remarkable distinction of being named Female
Athlete of the Year as a lower. In her second year on the Hill, Mleczko
led the field hockey team with 12 goals and then, rather than returning
for another season of basketball, decided to take up squash. In December
she made PA history by competing on the boys’ JV squash team
before becoming No. 1 on the ladder of the new girls’ varsity
squash team later that winter. She completed her upper year with an
amazing 54 goals in nine games as the girls’ varsity lacrosse
team went undefeated. Fall of her senior year saw another fine season
in field hockey, then Mleczko and the girls’ squash team went
undefeated in 1975–76. In her final season for the Blue, she
eclipsed her previous record by blasting 61 goals, as the lacrosse
team went 7-1. She was named Female Athlete of the Year for the third
year in a row. |
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At
Harvard, Mleczko was so successful in field hockey, squash and lacrosse
that she earned induction, in 1996, into the Harvard Varsity Club
Hall of Fame. She was the first female athlete elected to the Crimson’s
Hall of Fame in the All-Around category, a very select group. During
her playing career at Harvard, Mleczko set the career scoring record
of 32 goals in field hockey, played in the top two positions on the
squash ladder, and established all of the school’s offensive
standards in lacrosse. “Every game was a big game for me,”
she remarked in a recent conversation with Chuck Richardson ’82,
associate director of alumni affairs. “That’s just the way
I was … and still am, in a very different context.”
Something else very signi-ficant was happening to Mleczko at Harvard.
An art survey course during her freshman year opened up a new area
of interest and passion, and it was not long before she was throwing
herself into art with the same energy she had previously devoted to
athletics. During the following summer, she traveled through Europe
with her backpack and Eurail Pass, soaking up all the art she could
see. Back at Harvard, Mleczko took a fine arts concentration, and
as time progressed art became a real calling for her. After graduation,
she spent a year as an art consultant in Boston and then landed a
job as director of contemporary art at a New York City gallery. Through
her work at the Coe Kerr Gallery, Mleczko met her first husband, Fred
Woolworth. Later, in 1987, she opened her own business as a private
dealer. Sarah M. Woolworth Fine Art, Inc., specializes in American
and European 19th century painting. Woolworth has been recognized
in Art & Auction magazine as one of the top eight private dealers
in the country and has put together some of the biggest deals in her
field.
Woolworth continues to call upon the discipline and endurance she
learned in sport to manage her complex, demanding life, which includes
work, husband, family and homes in two cities. After an amicable divorce
from Fred Woolworth, who remains a colleague, she married Robert Kasten
in 2000, and together they have a year-old son, Robby. Kasten, a former
U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, is now president of a Washington, D.C.,
consulting firm, so Woolworth splits her time between homes there
and in New York. She told Richardson, “More and more, my work
involves helping families and individuals put together or take apart
art collections. I love my work, and my work gives me a chance to
use everything I learned in sports about persistence, sportsmanship,
seizing opportunities and having fun.” |
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For
the latest team results in all sports, go to www.andover.edu/athletics
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