Mary Douglas Ayres was born in New Orleans and moved to Knoxville in 1904 when her father, Brown Ayres, was named president of UT. In 1917 she earned the baccalaureate degree and a teaching certificate from Sophie Newcomb College in New Orleans. While a student at Sophie Newcomb, her basketball coach was Clara Baer who was credited with being the founder of women’s basketball. Ayres was also a track standout and was honored as the most outstanding women’s athlete in the South.
Following graduation, she taught at the Homestead School for Girls in Virginia and joined the Army Nurses’ Corps in Washington, DC. In 1919 she returned to Knoxville and was named coach of the UT women’s basketball team. In March 1920 UT women students, with Ayres’ approval, requested “equal rights and privileges” with male athletes, including team travel to other colleges for athletic events, increased funding for the women’s program, and representation on the Athletic Council. In Washington she had met Frank Ewell, then serving in the army, whom she married in June 1920. The Ewells moved to Pennsylvania and moved back to Knoxville in the 1930s where Mary Ewell worked as clerk and later as a secretary to Professor Robert “Red” Mathews. Mathews, an engineering professor and executive secretary of the national engineering honor society Tau Beta Pi, was also UT’s first cheerleader.
Ewell was presented with the Notable Woman Award by the UT Commission for Women at age 103 in 1998.