The Michigan Women's Hall of Fame includes 170 members as diverse as civil rights "mother" Rosa Parks, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Cornelia Kennedy, former First Lady Betty Ford, businesswoman Marian Ilitch, and entertainers Lily Tomlin, Ellen Burstyn and Aretha Franklin.

Of this group, only two are athletes: speedskater Jeanne Omelenchuk and new inductee Francie Kraker Goodridge. Francie, now 54, was the first state woman to represent the U.S. in track and field in the Olympics. She competed in Mexico City in 1968, and in Munich four years later.

Like her fellow Hall of Famers, Francie faced and overcame formidable challenges. It's only been recently that girls have been encouraged to compete. It took an Act of Congress, Title IX in 1972, to not just level the playing field, but to get women onto it. Sometimes it's been a struggle since then too.

Francie, the middle of three daughters of the late Dr. Ralph and Norma Kraker, admits, "I was the tomboy. I liked to go to games with my dad. We'd go to the boys basketball games at Ann Arbor St. Thomas.

"My dad helped raise the money for the high school gymnasium," she continues, "but they wouldn't let girls use it, even during the day when there was no basketball practice. The gym was treated like a cathedral -- for boys only. The boys were allowed to play ball on the grass field, but the girls weren't allowed to use it. We had to stay on the paved parking lot during recess.

"When I was in junior high I wanted a letter jacket, but they were just for boys teams and cheerleaders. I never ran for a school team in my career."

Francie finally got a letter, but no jacket, in 1994 when she was inducted into the University of Michigan Hall of Honor and the U-M Women's Track and Field Hall of Fame. Not only no jacket, but the block M was smaller than that given male athletes.

Francie got her kicks competing and started early. "There was a 50-yard race in the eighth grade and I won it," she remembers. "When President Kennedy came out with a national fitness test, it included a 600-yard run. Most kids walked; I ran the distance and beat the boys."

Francie eventually set a 600-yard world indoor record at Madison Square Garden in 1967. "It was neat that I found my forte early in terms of distance," she declares.

Former Olympian Ken "Red" Simmons and his wife, Betty (now deceased), spotted Francie early. "I became Red and Betty's hobby," Francie remembers. "After that eighth-grade race, Betty told me, 'You can run fast.' That meant a lot to me. She and Red had been to the 1960 Summer Games in Rome and asked, 'Would you like to run in the Olympics?'

"My mother encouraged me," she continues. "She told me how important it was to pursue something that would be unique."

That was all the inspiration Francie, then 13, needed. She had followed the Rome Olympics and her heroine was Wilma Rudolph, the 100- and 200-meter gold medalist. Eight years later, Francie took the track for the U.S. in Mexico City.

"I had a lot of determination," she recalls.

Since there wasn't a track team for girls in high school, Francie joined the Michigammes, an all-girls track and field club founded by the Simmonses. They coached her and introduced her and other team members to weight training.

"What I loved about running was, first, competition," she says. "I'm a natural competitor. Second, I loved the endorphin effect of training. And third, I loved to run fast."

She continued running for the Michigammes while a U-M student. After setting her 600-yard indoor record, Francie qualified for the Olympic 800 meters. At Mexico City she ran a 2:07.3. At Munich, where women were first permitted to run 1500 meters, Francie turned in a 4:12.76 in the semifinals, the second-fastest U.S. woman's time ever.

There weren't athletic scholarships for women at that time, so Francie waitressed to pay expenses.

"I worked at an old German family restaurant," she remembers. "I made good money and it was fun. I had flexible hours so I could train and go to meets. The airlines had youth fares and I'd do that or fly standby.

"Things are better now. There's equality and that's good. But sometimes when you're given everything, you have less motivation." Francie became a volunteer coach for the Huron High School's first girls track teams. After graduating from U-M, she coached at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

She returned to Ann Arbor as admissions director and track coach at Greenhills School, then was appointed U-M women's track coach in 1981. She led the Wolverines to their first Big Ten women's title in that sport.

After coaching three years at her alma mater, Francie and her husband, John Goodridge, were named women's and men's track coaches at Wake Forest University. The Winston-Salem, N.C. school was known for basketball and golf, but not track -- especially women's track. The Goodridges lifted Wake's program from NCAA Division II to Division I in three years, and spent 15 years there.

As Francie worked to elevate women's track, she stepped -- maybe "stomped" is a better word -- on toes.

The men's team had a $10,000 recruiting budget. The women's team had zero and Francie was told to recruit athletes from the dorms. She and other women's team coaches were asked to have athletes work as "serving girls," handing out refreshments in VIP boxes during football and basketball games.

"I asked whether male athletes were asked to do this," says Francie. "The answer was, 'Of course not.' I refused to let my athletes do it. I pointed out the message this policy gave of women being subservient, and suggested, instead, that women and male athletes be invited as honored guests in the VIP boxes, but no go.

"I won some major battles and big changes were made (to benefit women athletes). I sometimes say that, like other pioneers, I was left on the prairie with arrows in my back. But I don't regret it."

The Goodridges returned again to Ann Arbor, where John coaches Athletics America, a post-collegiate Olympic development club. He also guides distance runners at Eastern Michigan University and recruited Kenyan Boaz Cheboiywo, who won the NCAA cross-country championship last fall.

Francie, a U-M admissions counselor, travels statewide talking to high school counselors, students and their parents.

"Athletically, I jog, bike, ski cross-country and kayak. I'm working to stay ahead of the aging process," she says and laughs.