by Charles Bonniwell
Funeral services were held for Joan Packard Birkland who passed away on June 15, 2019. She was described as one of the greatest (if not the greatest) female athletes in the history of the State of Colorado. She was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, Colorado Women’s Sports Hall of Fame and the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame. The Joan Birkland Pavilion at the Gates Tennis Center in Denver, headquarters of USTA Colorado, is named in her honor.
She was born on August 17, 1928, in Denver to well-known surgeon Dr. George Packard and his wife. She was one of three sisters. With no organized sports for girls she played baseball, football, basketball and tennis with other children (mostly boys) at City Park near her home. After graduating from East High School she went on to the University of Colorado in Boulder where she met Ormand Birkland Jr., whom she married in 1948. The marriage lasted over 50 years until his death in 1999.
The marriage, by all accounts, was a happy one, notwithstanding (or perhaps because of) the fact Ormand was every bit as mediocre in sports as she was outstanding. She took up golf as it was the one sport he played and she was soon regularly beating him. She joined an AAU basketball team (the Denver Viners) while at the University of Colorado where she played with tennis great Phyllis Lockwood. They became an almost unbeatable women’s tennis doubles team in Colorado. She competed on the Denver Vipers team for eight years, becoming honorable mention All-American in the sport of basketball.
The Birklands joined the Denver Country Club (DCC) in 1953 and she began to concentrate her athletic endeavors on golf and tennis. She described her activities at the time as: “A typical day for me would be to hit and shag balls, take a lesson from a DCC golf pro, play nine or eighteen holes with Dorothy Major at Willis Case or meet Phyllis Lockwood and play tennis with her in Boulder, and then we would shoot a few hoops at CU.”
Later in her career she generously gave her time and talents to children with handicaps, including teaching golf at an amputee program at Children’s Hospital, bowling with children with cerebral palsy and coaching basketball for asthmatic kids.
She was also active with many women’s and sporting organizations including the United States Golf Association. Birkland co-founded Sportswomen of Colorado and served as that organization’s executive director for 40 years.
In 1957 she took on the number one female player in the world Althea Gibson at the Colorado Open which, at the time, attracted many of the world’s greatest tennis players. To the shock of the press and the gallery Birkland began beating the world’s number one player. A reporter for The Denver Post called in to his paper to hold the afternoon press as he might be reporting “one of the greatest sporting upsets in the history of Colorado.” In the end, however Gibson prevailed 8-6, 6-4.
By the 1960s she excelled at the highest levels at both golf and tennis simultaneously, an athletic feat that is almost unheard of in the annals of Colorado sports. She won the Denver amateur tennis title in 1960, 1962 and 1966 and the Colorado state tennis title in 1960, 1962 and 1966. She garnered six singles and 15 doubles titles in Colorado and Intermountain tennis tournaments.
On a friend’s dare Birkland in 1962 competed in and won both the state tennis and golf championships in the same summer and repeated this feat again in 1966. She was awarded the Robert Russell Prize for Colorado Amateur Athlete of the Year in 1962.
She took the state women’s golf title seven times. At the Denver Country Club she won 30 straight Ladies Country Club Championships from 1955 to 1984. Many of the victories were anything but easy sometimes winning at the 18th hole or in sudden death in the match play format. She attempted to retire from the competition several times but her competitors, some of whom were themselves state golf champions, would hear nothing of it. As one of her competitors said: “As far as I was concerned, no Joanie — no tournament.”
Even in her 90s Birkland could regularly be found on the golf range at the Denver Country Club working on her swing while interacting with golfers around her and trying to pick up tips to improve her game. Fellow inductee to the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame, Gary Potter, stated: “She was amazing. She cheerfully accepted the fact that the ravages of time severely restricted her playing abilities, but she simply wanted to be the best she could be with whatever limitations God had provided that day. She happily picked up whatever tips or advice you may provide and incorporated them into her play if they made sense to her. She was an extraordinary and truly wonderful human being.”
While she never had any children herself Birkland is survived by an extended family including her sister Evelyn McLagan, her brother-in-law Neil McLagan, nephew Hugh Birkland and nieces and nephews, Tracy Tempest, George Tempest, Scott McLagan, Tom McLagan and Ken McLagan and their families.