Rebekah Pite, the history department head, focuses her scholarly research on food and labor in Latin America. But she also has a strong interest in another staple of the region: soccer.
“Everywhere I’ve lived, I’ve always continued to play soccer,” Pite said.
Her athletic pursuits haven’t always been concentrated on just one sport. Pite played as a 4-year starter for women’s soccer and lacrosse during her time at Amherst College, a Division III school in the New England Small College Athletic Conference, from 1991-1995.
“Part of the reason I went to a Division III school was to play both,” she said, noting that she was recruited to play Division I lacrosse. While specializing in a sport at both the high school and college level is normal now, Pite said it was “extremely common” to play multiple sports at a Division III school, especially at the time.
Pite, who played outside back, was co-captain of the women’s soccer team — an elected position — her senior year. The team made the ECAC, now the New England Small College Athletic Conference, tournament all four years and won the “Little Three” Championship against rivals Wellesley College and Williams College. Winning the latter was “a big deal,” she emphasized.
Adding to the excitement, Amherst allowed teams to enter NCAA tournaments for the first time in her senior year. Pite’s soccer team made it to the Sweet 16.
“It was really exciting to go and get wined and dined,” she said.
Pite said that her strongest memories of her athletic involvement were her friendships.
“I remember just feeling so incredibly close with my teammates,” she said.
Michelle Morgan, a professor of physical education and athletics emeritus at Amherst, is retired now but coached for 44 years, including Pite’s soccer team. She highlighted Pite’s athletic capabilities, including her speed, comparing her to a gazelle.
“She was a very good defensive player for the Amherst team and was a fabulous leader,” Morgan said. “She led by example.”
She said that one of her fondest memories of Pite was of her team taking a rivalry tradition — knocking down a hanging purple cow representing Williams from the goal crossbar — very seriously.
“She was just a fun, intelligent player,” Morgan added. “She helped me become a better coach through her four years, so I’m grateful for that.”
Morgan was recently commemorated with Morgan Way in 2023, a path on the Amherst campus, and the first endowed fund named after a female coach at the college. Pite said that collegiate women’s sports at the time — for both players and coaches — faced challenges. She recalled how established men’s programs were more financially supported by alumni.
“I got opportunities that previous generations didn’t get, but we still weren’t treated the same, necessarily,” she said, recalling how on a trip to Florida, the women’s soccer team had to drive, while the men’s team got to fly down.
Pite’s collegiate lacrosse career playing defensive wing was not as dominant as soccer, but she said she could not pick a favorite between the two.
Michelle Conroy grew up with Pite playing soccer and lacrosse. They were co-captains for both teams at Daniel Hand High School and have known each other for over 40 years.
“I’m so grateful to soccer and to lacrosse for bringing us together, and for keeping us together as friends for all of these years,” she said. Conroy also went on to play soccer at the collegiate level at Dartmouth College.
In her first soccer game in high school, Pite defended the now-retired women’s national team member Kristine Lilly. Pite said that she wasn’t informed who she was defending but held her to just four goals.
“After that, other people I marked were considerably easier,” she said.
Both Pite and Conroy were introduced to lacrosse in high school, which was a new program at the time.
Pite was inducted into the Madison Athletic Hall of Fame of Madison, Connecticut, in 2022.
“It was super well-deserved on so many levels,” said Conroy, a 2021 inductee, highlighting both Pite’s athletic achievements and her involvement in the Madison community.
After college, living in Barcelona, Spain, Pite trained with the Barcelona Women’s Football Club and was also involved with adult soccer leagues in Mexico, Argentina, Michigan and the Lehigh Valley.
Pite has not played since her return from Spain for a study abroad trip and noted “it does feel like a little bit of a hole.”
Sports continue to be a part of her life, otherwise. While Pite does not research sports, she said that she reads a lot about the history of sports and that it is a topic in some of her classes.
Pite said that her involvement in sports has given her a certain “grit and resilience” and also confidence as a woman, as she is only the second woman to achieve tenure in Lafayette’s history department.
“Having been on a field and played a lot of sports where I would be the only woman, I think there was a certain way in which it gave me confidence to be in situations where I was part of an underrepresented group,” she said.
