Newspapers in 1953 were chockablock with information …
 
• Sir Edmund Hillary became the first person to scale Mt. Everest.
• Joseph Stalin died and Nikita Khrushchev took over the Soviet Union.
• Queen Elizabeth II was crowned.
• The price of gas was 29 cents a gallon, and the Richfield station down the street was giving away drinking glasses with every fill-up.
 
Oh, and tucked away in the bottom, left-hand column of a page from the June 4 Davis Enterprise was this tidbit:
 
"The Aggie Varsity Rifle Team has gained national recognition this semester, due in large part to the skill of one of its coeds."
 
The prior year, that coed, Audrey West, had become the first woman in UC Davis athletics history to win a varsity letter. That following year, she showed the guys how to shoot.
 
All that West, now 90 years old, did in the National Finals was hit 269 of 300 bullseyes to place third overall. More than 200 collegiate squads were in attendance at those national championships, and her marksmanship helped the Aggie Rifle Team finish 14th overall.
 

 
Earlier, The Enterprise wrote about West's authority at the West Coast Regionals in Berkeley:
 
"The tiny Aggie was the first-place woman … (as she) fired a sizzling 279-of-300 to help give the Aggies third place in the Regional Team matches."
 
A big deal, right? A woman eventually finishing in front of the all-male teams from West Point and the Naval Academy and all but two college men in the United States …
 
"I didn't even know there was such a thing as a rifle team at the school, but I had a girlfriend (Kathleen Vernon) who said, "I want to go shoot, but I don't want to be the only girl on the team," West remembers.
 
"She encouraged me to come join the team and I said, 'Yeah, sure,' but I had never even had a gun in my hands until then."
 
In the early '50s, there were no intercollegiate women's sports at what was then the College of Agriculture at Davis. The rifle team seemed like a good diversion for the otherwise athletically gifted West's hectic course of study, animal husbandry.

And timing was in the soon-to-be sharpshooter's favor …
 
Heading into uncharted territory, the 20-year-old Audrey West (neé Hall) had two things going for her: an ability to pick up new things quickly, and falling in love with the ex-Marine who doubled as the squad's coach and teammate, George West.
 
West saw to rifle-range success in Audrey Hall's first days. (That range, by the way, was in the basement of one of the campus' first dormitories.)
 
Such was that partnership that Hall and West would be Cupid's bullseye as the couple married between their junior and senior years at Davis.
 
Back to the range. Was Audrey surprised at her success shooting .22-caliber rifles, especially after going from zero-to-60 so quickly?
 
"I never really thought about it," she said with a chuckle, flanked by her daughter Kendra Williams and son Mark West at her East Davis home. "I guess not. I paid attention, did what I was asked."
 
West also said she received no pushback from being "a girl on a boys' team." She felt completely accepted …
 
"As far as I know, everybody was fine with it — as long as I could hit the bullseye."
 
No one ever called her condescending names, she recalls, at least not to her face; not with a gun in her hands. She says she never even received an Annie Oakley reference: "We were just doing our jobs."
 
George kept busy in the off-season playing football and baseball for the Aggies. Meanwhile, Audrey was working through a course of study that had nothing to do with her real passions, mathematics and mechanics.
 
Growing up in Pasadena, West attended Muir High School, which at the time was half prep school, half junior college.
 
Matriculating with outstanding grades, the math whiz wanted to attend nearby Caltech, but she smacked her head on the glass ceiling.
 
"They took only men at that time, so there was no way Caltech was in the equation," West explained. "But veterinary school was something that interested me, too."
 
So, Davis hit her radar. But again, stereotypical impressions butted heads with actual abilities and potential.
 
West applied to the College of Agriculture's Veterinary School — one of the first women to so apply.
 
Her interview for admission went poorly.
 
"They told me I was at school because I just wanted a husband," West remembers.
 

 
But it all worked out.
 
After graduation, George and Audrey toured the U.S. as the ex-Marine coached the Sixth Army Rifle Team.
 
"I saw all the states except Hawaii. I went on to have four kids and (enjoy) a full life," reflected Audrey. "It's been pretty good."
 
Returning to Davis, Audrey went back to college and earned a master's degree in electronics from Sacramento State. For 15 years, she taught algebra, trigonometry and nursing mathematics at Yuba College in Woodland and Marysville campuses while becoming one of the go-to people in the region for lawnmower repair and fixing Volkswagen engines. Yeah, all that.
 
West credits a lot of the lessons learned during her college days for her diverse undertakings. She also remembers the feeling of inclusion on a campus that had an enrollment of only 1,343. There was a sense of Aggie Pride throughout campus, even though that term wouldn't live in the UCD vernacular for another decade.
 
George and Audrey were married for 62 years before his death in 2014. "Kids" Mark and Kendra stayed in Davis, with Kendra becoming an Aggie and briefly swimming for UC Davis before graduating. Kendra's sister Audrey Lynn (who now lives in Pennsylvania) also competed for retired coach Barbara Jahn's swim crew. George Jr. — another UC Davis product — is now an engineer in San Jose.
 
Meanwhile, Mark strayed from the Aggie family and attended Cal. Learning well from his dad, Mark was also a crack shot and competed for the Bears' ROTC rifle team (even though he was not a member of the military program).
 
Mark graduated with a doctoral degree in neuroscience, but found his passion in viticulture. His popular Rominger-West vintages retired in 2012.
 
Since Audrey West's achievement as the first letter-winning female in UC Davis history, a lot has changed on campus.
 
Enrollment has topped 37,000. Female students outnumber men, 60 percent to 40 percent, and there are 14 women's sports teams from which to choose.
 
Still, recognition wanes. According to one study, there has been an almost 500 percent increase in the number of female student-athletes in college since the mid-1980s, and more than 9,500 intercollegiate women's teams existed five years ago.
 
At UC Davis, since West fired her last Aggie shot, athletic affiliations have transitioned from the Girls Athletic Association (remember intramural half-court basketball?) to the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women to the NCAA (and nationally televised tournaments like Women's March Madness). The Aggies are now serious contenders in Division I.
 
West retreated to her memories one more time while holding her Circle C letterman's sweater, a family heirloom …
 
"This sweater and the experience (of shooting) mean an awful lot to me, but the reaction to our accomplishments? To my accomplishments? I don't recall any," West said.
 
But in the past 70 years, a lot of gender equity has been earned in UC Davis sports. And even though one of the women who started that ball rolling remembers it as "no big deal," a legion of female student-athletes who have come after would tell Audrey that her accomplishments were a very big deal, indeed.
 
Up next: We talk with administrators, coaches and student-athletes past and present about "Moving the Needle at UC Davis After Title IX."