Tag Archives: women’s sports

Raising the Roof, Retiring Maya Moore’s Jersey, Reveling in Women’s Basketball

As an athlete, coming of age in the 70s during Title IX’s infancy, the explosion of women’s basketball today blows my mind.

This summer, I blended into the 19,023 record-breaking crowd at Target Center in Minneapolis to honor the Minnesota Lynx legend Maya Moore.

Before tip off, I trembled. Awed, I watched as people of all ages, races and backgrounds cheered, wearing shirts engraved with the names and numbers of their favorite FEMALE players.

How fitting that Iowa’s Caitlyn Clark’s Indiana Fever team faced off with the Lynx on the night they retired her idol’s number 23 jersey?

Caitlyn grew up dreaming of playing basketball like Maya one day.

Decades ago, girls like me and my sisters, grew up dreaming of playing at all. Of just being allowed on the court.

This profound moment in time was magic. Especially for my family.

Like Maya, I once wore the number 23.

So did my little sister.

Maya was a star at every level, on her high school team, at the storied women’s basketball program at UCONN, and in the WNBA leading the Lynx to 4 national championships.

By comparison, I couldn’t even play on a team until my senior year of high school. When I played college ball in the 70’s, we were ridiculed by peers, scorned by the NCAA. After college, I signed a contract with hard times to compete in a fledgling Women’s Professional Basketball League (WBL). We played in empty arenas, hitched rides to practice, survived on crackers and never got paid. In the late 70s female ball players were oddities, a pro league of our own insane, but our crazy collective dream gave birth to the 1996 WNBA.

Along with hundreds of courageous pioneers, our sacrifices helped thread together the stunning tapestry of women’s basketball that led to this day, this time, this moment.

In the summer 1999, my sister and I took our daughters to our first WNBA game in the Lynx inaugural season. There were fans, but also enough empty seats that we were able to move close enough to the court for my daughter to catch a free t-shirt.

On August 24, 2024, at Minnesota’s Target Center, as I sat on the upper level of the packed arena, pandemonium erupted as fans paid tribute to their past hero and applauded the exploits of their present star, both catalysts in revolutionizing the popularity of the women’s game.

It’s a far cry from my day, when I played at Madison Square Garden in an arena, so empty, the sound of the ball bouncing echoed through the rafters.

We cannot know who we are if we do not know where we came from.

Before the Lynx/Fever game, when I stood for our national anthem, I raised my hand to my heart and nodded to our past stars.

We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.

Thanks to Title IX, a girl grows up never questioning her right to be all she can be.
That access to opportunity began in the heartland for me, Maya, and countless other little girls.

When we were kids, women were not only absent from the gym. We didn’t know any female doctors, lawyers or CEOs. We fought for the right to play ball and paved the way for our highflying daughters of today, including my own daughter who was a division III athlete on her way to becoming a doctor.

What made Maya Moore extraordinary, was not just her supreme athleticism, but her human spirit embracing equality and battling for social justice that led to the liberation of a man imprisoned for crime he never committed. Maya, the league’s best player, retired from the game at height of her success, to fight for the rights of others.

After the game, Maya Moore Irons addressed former teammates and fans as they raised her number 23 to the rafters. Known for her illustrious MVP career, Maya stands out most, not for her accolades on the court, but for the person she is off it.

“There’s no end to possibilities, when a group of women together bring it!” She said blinking back tears. “Let our unity go beyond Target Center. Show your love and appreciation for those around you!”

“My life,” she added“is an example of what happens when we love a little girl well.”

I, too, am an example of a little girl being loved well. I grew up first in my adoring McKinzie family, then my hometown, Sterling, my Illinois State University community, and my country, the USA. As an adult, I dedicated my life to helping teens reach their dreams on the hard courts and in the classroom across Europe. Never in my wildest fantasy could I imagine how far the game took me and how far we have come.

Basketball, like life, is about paying it forward. Passing it on.

The current Lynx icon, Napheesa Collier, grew up in Jefferson City, just like Maya. Somewhere out there is a little girl who looks at Phee and dreams of being a WNBA star. I look back at my younger self and think “you did good girl”.

We struggled too hard for too long.

We are NEVER going back.

Women’s History Month, March Madness, Acknowledging Ghosts of Women’s Basketball

Half a century ago, no one paid any attention when my friends and I played basketball. We got kicked off the court, but shoved our way back in the game, clearing the lane for Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers, Juju Watkins and the contemporary stars of today.

Over the decades, women’s opportunities grew thousandfold because the cultural landscape changed with media exposure. Today girls never question their right to play basketball; they have female sport icons to emulate.

Born at the turn of the twenty-first century, Caitlin Clark grew up idolizing role models. As early as second grade, she wrote about her goal to play in the WNBA. As Caitlin reached the pinnacle of her college career at Iowa, she helped pack arenas. America watched, mesmerized by her engaging personality, athleticism, and exciting style of play.

In the sixties, in my own second grade story I wrote about the lockers playing a basketball game against the waste baskets during recess. Back then, I imagined inanimate objects in school had a greater chance of competing in the game than girls. Yet, like my sports loving peers, we shot hoops anyway creating a path so new that no one envisioned its existence.

The female hoopsters of my era grew up invisible in a vacuum of time.

As a high school junior, we were allowed to compete in three basketball games. My senior season, we played 14 games and won a conference title, which at the time was more than most schools where girls’ sports remained nonexistent. No one registered my Sterling High school records. Why would they? Still, I know the next generation, including my biological little sister, wanted to play basketball like me. They did. In 1977, they became the first IHSA Sterling Girls State Championship team.

Back in my day, without specialists, and pre/post season programs, girls like me had to be our own personal trainers, dieticians, strength coaches and shot doctors. My dad, Coach Jim McKinzie, gave me a head start by perfecting my jump shot and fundamentals. Workouts with coach, Phil Smith, helped me reach the pro level.

ISU Coach Jill Hutchison presenting Wade Trophy Finalist 1979. Best national basketball player award named after Coach Margaret Wade, 3-time Delta State National Champion.

I attended college in the 70s and received Illinois State’s first athletic scholarship (1978.) Right place. Right time. Right people. My coach, Jill Hutchison and her ISU colleagues paved the way for the groundbreaking reform Title IX that mandated equal opportunity for women in college athletics. Her graduate research dispelled the myth that women’s hearts would explode by playing full court. Hence the girl’s 3 on 3 half court game gave way to full court play in 1970. In 1972 Hutchison, along with ISU’s Women’s Intercollegiate Athletics director, created the first women’s national basketball championship.

This year, when Caitlin Clark, broke the all-time NCAA scoring record, she acknowledged Lynette Woodard’s scoring record during the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) era.

“By 1981 the AIAW staged 41 championships in 19 sports and put women’s basketball on national television,” Sally Jenkins wrote in the Washington Post February 24, 2024. “Which is exactly when the NCAA swooped in with a hostile takeover, pressuring universities into abandoning the AIAW, to absorb what the women had built.“

I played ball in the AIAW era. In the infancy of Title IX, as collegiate athletes, we pushed our bodies, played hard, pulled all-nighters and still made it to class. We drove ourselves cross country in campus station wagons to compete against Michigan, Indiana, Ohio State and today’s Big Ten schools.

Charlotte Lewis ISU star center 1976 Olympian

In the mid 70s, we knew women could star in showtime. Our ISU center, the late Charlotte Lewis, dunked in practice. Our point guard Vonnie Tomich, a WBL All-Star, knocked down treys from downtown long before the three-point shot was added to the rule book.

Marketing? Sh**! No one in corporate America wanted to promote brands with no names like us. Name Image Likeness (NIL) did not exist. Social media, zilch. Media exposure, nada. Our only fans - loyal families and friends.

Today thousands of people tune in to women’s basketball obliterating the old records of attendance and viewership.

By comparison, in the late seventies, WBL (precursor to the WNBA) players’ paychecks bounced months before the league declared bankruptcy. Back then, no one wanted to watch a bunch of “amazon women” play men’s favorite game.

My sister, Karen, first Illinois State High School Championship basketball player, daughter, Hannah, Minnesota High School State Champion rugby player at sold out Iowa - Nebraska women’s basketball game.

We sacrificed our bodies to chase a dream so farfetched and ahead of its time that we were ridiculed. Those scars of scorn remain etched in our souls. But without us, Luisa Harris, Lynnette Woodard and the superstars of the AIAW and WBL era, there would be no Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers or Juju Watkins. For decades women’s sports have been an afterthought, if considered at all. Thanks to media exposure and exciting play, fans now argue about the officiating, players trash talk opponents, and the women’s game is the talk of the town.

Gender disparity still exist in colleges, corporations, and societies, but the icons of the Caitlin Clark era have demonstrated women’s sport will grow if given a chance.

“Build it and they will come,” said Hutchison, Illinois State University’s winningest basketball coach, Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame recipient (2009) and a true visionary of the game.

After a long, arduous journey from the AIAW to Title XI to the NCAA Final Four to the WNBA, the ghosts of the game are hooting and hollering and dancing in the rafters. Forget bracket standings. Ignore NCAA results. Celebrate Final Score. Women Win!

Illinois State University Celebrates Title IX 50th

As a girl, I was stuck on the sideline, watching boy’s basketball games, hoping that the ball would roll out of bounds so I could throw it back into play. I never fathomed girls would be allowed on center court one day.

50 years ago on June 23, 1972, Title IX passed. The federal civil rights law prohibited sex-based discrimination in any educational institution that received federal funding.

It opened doors to places I never knew existed.

Pillars of ISU Melinda Fischer, Linda Herman, Jill Hutchison

Illinois State University's legendary coaches, Linda Herman (30 plus years as esteemed volleyball coach and administrator) and Jill Hutchison (28 years at the helm of women’s basketball and also a successful international level coach) among others, played a major role in Title IX’s passage and assured its implementation for female athletes.

This June 25, 2022, ISU led the nation again by honoring the pioneers in its Title IX 50th Anniversary Celebration.

In 1976, I was one of the first females to be awarded an athletic scholarship to ISU. Back then, I didn’t even know what a scholarship was. No one realized the profound impact Title IX would have on our lives.

Today young female athletes grow up dreaming of being recruited and receiving athletic scholarships and all its perks just like their male counterparts.

During my visit back to the ISU campus for the first time in decades, I was blown away by the accommodations for female Redbird athletes including the opportunity to prepare in the state of the art Jill Hutchison Women’s Basketball Locker Room and play in Redbird Arena, 10, 200 seat capacity.

Many athletes of the current generation never heard of Title IX nor appreciate how we got here. ISU reminded us of the sacrifices in our journey by honoring the pioneers who paved the way

Linda and Jill opened the event by narrating a video of outlining the development of women’s collegiate sport back from the days when women sewed their own uniforms and drove campus station wagons cross country to compete until present times.

We heard firsthand how Title IX shaped the lives of ISU alumni like basketball star Cathy Boswell, 1984 Olympic Gold Medalist, to Jaci McCormick, a Native American player from the Nez Perce Reservation. Jaci went on to co found Rise Above, an organization that uses basketball to promote wellness on reservations.

Speakers also included Melinda Fischer, a former 3 sport athlete, basketball and softball coach with the winningest record at ISU and in the Missouri Valley Conference and Angie Taylor, who after a record-setting career in track and field became an illustrious international and collegiate coach. She also developed programs for Nigerian track and field teams.

Still others on the panel shared how they took the foundation and philosophy built at ISU and passed it on as coaches and administrators.

I was humbled and honored to be invited to speak and the share the stage with these legends. Most of you who follow my column know my story.

Basketball took me from ISU, to the women’s first pro league (WBL), to France, Germany and Switzerland. In the late 70s, the Women’s Professional Basketball League (WBL) failed, but we helped give birth to the WNBA in 1996.

After my American pro team went bankrupt, I flew to Paris as one of the 1st American women in European Basketball League, playing first in France and then in Germany.

When my player’s career ended instantly in a car accident abroad, I became a teacher and coach at international schools. For the next 3 decades I served as an ambassador of the game in Europe, guiding athletes from around the globe, first in France, then in Switzerland.

“No person in the United States shall,

on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in,

be denied the benefits of, or be subjected

to discrimination under any education program

or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

Many of the players I coached pursued higher degrees before returning to their homelands to fight for social justice.

When I was a kid, women were banned from the playing fields. I didn’t know any female doctors, lawyers or CEOs.

We fought for the right to play ball and paved the way for our high-flying daughters today.

My own daughter, who I coached in Switzerland, came to USA where she played in a DIII Final 4 for UWSP, studied 11 years and reached her dream to become a pediatrician.

Many of our present day contemporaries never heard our history. I wrote Home Sweet Hardwood, A Title IX Trailblazer Breaks Barriers Through Basketball, to give a voice to the silent generation of women who battled so hard for the rights we have today.

Jill and Linda and other dedicated pioneers put together an amazing weekend to celebrate our past, to educate, and to inspire the next generation.

We can’t know who we are if we don’t know where we came from.

We are indebted to women who came before us .

From the sideline to Showtime! Thanks to Title IX, a girl grows up never questioning her right to be all she can be.

Happy 90th Birthday to my Pioneer Dad

If I pursued a career unheard of for women, moved abroad and rewrote my script after my dream collapsed in an accident, it is because of you, my pioneer dad, who believed in me every step of the way.

I inherited the McKinzie iron will, a drive to pursue lofty ideals in spite of obstacles.

In the controversial years of Title IX’s infancy, when girls and ball games were non compatible entities, your adamant belief in women’s right to participate in sports would empower all your daughters. Especially me.

Fifty years ago, dads teaching daughters jump shots were anomalies. Fathers discouraged daughters from playing ball games society deemed unladylike.

Yet, you fought for equal rights and shaped values in the athletes you mentored during your 33-year career at Sterling High School where you earned the affectionate title of Papa Mac while racking up Illinois’ 1st ever girls state basketball championship title, a 3rd place finish and an Elite Eight appearance. But what made you proudest was seeing how your athletic “daughters” grew up to contribute to society as principals, teachers and leading members of their communities.

No one felt your influence more greatly than me. When my slender frame took a beating on basketball courts at ever elite levels, you never said, “You’re too small to go pro.” Instead you helped develop my potential. When my American pro team folded, I stated, “I’m going to France to play.”

“What if you get hurt?” You tried your darnest to dissuade me. Then after the shock subsided, you offered your support and returned to the gym to rebound.

When I announced, “I’m engaged to a Frenchman,” you were the first to accept a foreigner into the family and remained my most faithful correspondent, sending manila envelopes to Europe. Rather than disowning me, you sacrificed time and money to make 18 trips across the Atlantic to be part of your gandchildren’s lives.

Though you never visited Scotland, the home of your fore-bearers, it is as if clan bloodlines transcended generations. Like your father and forefathers, you became a leader of men and women. You taught us a code of honor, respect for our fellowman, and fierce loyalty toward family.

Our resilient constitution, strength of character, love of nature, and reverence for honest work may have been virtues passed on from our ancestry, but we developed them by modeling your behavior in a life where you treated everyone equal.

As the head of our McKinzie clan, you set the finest example of what it means to be an honorable leader, a strong chief, and a benevolent father.

I grew up during an era when athletic girls felt shunned without role models. You encouraged me to be myself even when it meant being different and pursuing a career usually sought by men.

It was not easy being a modern day daughter, marrying a Frenchman and raising children abroad. Nor was it easy to be an up-to-date dad, whose dedicated coaching developed the talent that took his daughter away.

I was a selfish, smart-aleck kid; you were too overprotective. You grew up under the “work ethic” when it was a man’s world, only, yet you learned to accept a modern, do-it-herself daughter who lived by the “experience ethic.”

You leaned right; I left. Too much alike in temperament and too different in ideologies to always get along, yet our differences, spurred growth. I loved you enough to let you be a blundering father. You let me be a belligerent daughter. Through headstrong outbursts, we learned to compromise, to live modern dreams without losing old-fashioned values.

You were not a perfect dad, nor I, a perfect daughter. But our love was.

You taught me to shoot a jump shot, swim a lake, drive a car, balance a checkbook, but the greatest lesson I learned from you was “never give up!”

Thirty-five years ago, that fighting spirit helped me recover from a career ending, near fatal car accident 4,000 miles away from home. More recently that same resiliency helped me survive a life altering fall that resulted in a broken cheek bone, eye socket, jaw, nose and skull that led to a 5 hour brain surgery and over a year of rehabilitation. With no end in sight.

I may never play my guitar, type a blog post or swim again pain free.

Everyday as I struggled in physical therapy to squeeze my hand, raise my left arm, and walk without stumbling I think of you and repeat the mantra you ingrained through hours of practice spent correcting my jump shot, “Keep fighting!”

Every night when I called you reminded me,“I am proud of you sweetie.”

And you ended every conversation with these words,

“I think of you everyday and love you more each minute.”

Me too, dad, me too.

Happy Birthday to my 90 year old hero!

Happy 60th Birthday Baby Sis Little Miss Me Too

Happy 60th Birthday to my almost-born-on-leap-year baby sister Little Miss Me Too. The last in line in a family of 4 siblings born 5 years apart, Mom always said, “Karen raised herself.”
“She tagged along with the big kids and figured things out on her own.”
Born 3 years apart almost to the day, we celebrated birthdays together growing up. In our younger years, I made sure she never fell off the dock or crossed the street without looking both ways. In later years, she looked out for me by driving me to doctor appointments and hanging out with me in a dark room on bad days.
Karen was born cute from the tip of her perfect toes to her gorgeous toothpaste commercial smile.
Athletic, energetic, outgoing, to an outsider she made life look easy. She starred on her state championship basketball team, made friends with everybody she met and always saw the bright side of things.
But she worked hard.

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She reinvented herself midlife, returning to college to earn a master’s degree in education while working as a recreational therapist and raising family.
She’s never shied away from a challenge. Even today she courageously continues teaching kindergartners — pulling off 23 little pairs of boots 4 months of the year — in the snow belt of Minnesota.
An adored aunt, treasured wife, loving daughter, revered mother, cherished sister, she collects people as easily as others collect stamps. Church friends, high school friends, work friends, neighbor friends, family friends. Everybody loves Karen and her jovial partner in life Dick. She’s energetic, upbeat, easy-going and down right fun to be with on any occasion.
She raised 2 beautiful daughters, but also became a Mamá Dos to her niece and nephew who moved 4000 miles away from home in Switzerland to attend university in the Twin Cities.
My little sis and I shared a love of sports. She passed me the ball on the basketball court and long after my playing days were over, she took me to my first WNBA game. When I could no longer run, she ran for me completing her first half triathlon at 50something.
She works hard, but plays harder and never passes up an opportunity to celebrate life.
Her friends call her Care Bear, but to me she will always be The Babe, my beloved little sister, blessing my life the past 60 years.

Illinois Basketball Museum Commemorates Love of Game

Basketball symbolizes Illinois as much as sweet corn, the red bird and Abe Lincoln.

Generations of farm kids grew up shooting at hoops nailed above barn doors. City kids learned resiliency playing street ball on concrete courts in the ‘hood. Thousands of student athletes remember cheering and charging across the hardwood inspired by the American national anthem at tip off.

The Illinois Basketball Coaches Association (IBCA) wants to commemorate this history by building our own museum along the famous route 66 in Pontiac, but it will take a team effort to get the foundation laid.[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvqld8Vu5wI[/embedyt]

Illinois’ stars could easily fill the galleries from shot blocking, hook shooting legendary pioneer George Mikan to Doug Collins, former Illinois State University star, NBA player and coach, to Michael Jordan’s stellar Chicago Bulls era. Female standouts such as Olympians Charlotte Lewis (1976), gold medalists Cathy Boswell (1984) and WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks superstar Candace Parker (2008, 2012) also deserve a spot.Illinois Basketball

My family holds a tiny piece of the legend. My grandpa, “Coach Mac,” a 7x hall of famer, led his Northern Illinois University teams to three Little 19/IIAC crowns in the 1940s. My dad, Jim McKinzie, a NIU Hall of Fame athlete was named on the All-Decade Team and All-Century Team for his contributions as a guard in the 1950s.

When I was growing up, girls were shunned from sports, but with athleticism as a birthright, I fought to be allowed in the game.  In the infancy of Title IX, I blazed a my own trail as the first athletic scholarship recipient to Illinois State before playing professionally in the first Women’s Basketball League (WBL) then for teams in France and Germany.

My hometown, Sterling, also played a significant role. My dad co-coached the Sterling High School team that included my younger sister, which went 21-0 and won the first IHSA state girls cage title (1976-77) hosted by Illinois State.

Three generations and four family members have been inducted into IBCA Hall of Fame – my grandfather, Ralph McKinzie, as a coach (1976), my dad and sister, Karen, as part of the championship team (2004) and me as a player (2005).

The list of Illinois’ basketball greats goes on from players, to officials, to coaching dynasties from Toluca High School’s Chuck Rolinski and Ray Meyer’s 42-year stint (1942-1984) at DePaul University to extraordinary fans like Sister Jean (Jean Delores Schmidt). The 98-year-old nun, a beloved member of the Loyola basketball community, who exemplifies our lasting bonds with favorite teams.

But no one in the state has done more for the game than Jill Hutchison. In a legacy spanning 28 seasons as Illinois State University’s head basketball coach, Hutchison was co founder and first president of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association.

To appreciate her impact, we must remember how far we have come. Hutchison’s master thesis proved that a woman’s heart wouldn’t explode by running the fast break. This led to a change in rules – instead of a six-player half court game to the full court five-player game.

As tournament director for the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), she helped establish the regions and the qualifying process for the first national tournament in 1971-1972, which was nearly identical to the regions used in the NCAA today.

At ISU, a powerhouse of womIllinois Basketballen including Hutchison advocated for women even before the 1972 Title IX enactment mandated equal opportunities in academics and athletics.

“Cultural change is slow, slower than you ever want it to be. And that’s what Title IX was—a cultural change, not just for athletics. Females…crossing the gender barrier, that was huge,” Hutchison said.

So often, the pioneers’ accomplishments are overlooked because history is not always recorded as it is being made, especially when the people in power are against the change. A museum could correct this oversight.

Like so many hailing from the Land of Lincoln, a love of basketball reflects my heritage.

Illinois basketball not only influenced me, it also shaped American history.

Find out more about how to help build Illinois Basketball Museum here.