FRIDAY, APRIL 1 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU D7
Chapter 2
‘We could finally breathe’
Powerhouses Louisiana Tech and Old
Dominion led the AIAW defections to com-
pete in the first NCAA tournament, which
had a 32-team field and a nationally tele-
vised final. Top-ranked all season, Louisi-
ana Tech was heavily favored, having re-
turned nearly every starter from its un-
beaten, AIAW championship season the
previous year. In 1981-82, Louisiana
Tech’s roster was awash in talent, led by
all-Americans Angela Turner and Pam
Kelly, point guard Kim Mulkey and back-
up center Debra Rodman, Dennis Rod-
man’s sister.
Its opponent at Norfolk’s Scope Arena
was less anticipated: Cheyney State, a
small HBCU 30 miles west of Philadelphia.
C. Vivian Stringer was a 22-year-old assis-
tant professor when she volunteered to
coach the Wolves in 1971, in addition to her
teaching duties. She built Cheyney into a
basketball power on a meager budget by
instilling belief, toughness and pride while
honing her coaching skills under mentor
John Chaney, who coached Cheyney’s men.
A capacity crowd of 9,531 attended, and
the final was aired on CBS. Tickets cost $5
to $7, and both teams had vocal cheering
contingents at the Scope. Cheyney couldn’t
afford to bus down a pep band, so Norfolk
State’s band volunteered its services.
C. Vivian Stringer, Cheyney State
coach from 1971 to 1983: “There was no
decision on my part [about competing in
NCAA FROM D6 the NCAA tournament rather than the
AIAW] because we didn’t have any money.
Cheyney was so poor.... A sporting goods
company in West Chester, Pa., which
wasn’t that far from Cheyney, gave us some
letter C’s because we had gotten some
white sweaters we could put them on. So
all the sudden, now we [had a] uniform,
and now we had a big letter C. We didn’t
have money to afford anything like that....
We didn’t have equipment. We didn’t even
have a trainer.... I didn’t get paid a dime.
... The only thing I asked my department
head to do was, ‘Could you please not
schedule a class at 8 o’clock in the morning
[after a basketball game] because you nev-
er know where we we’re [traveling home]
from?’ I would have done anything to
coach for free.”
Sonja Hogg, Louisiana Tech coach
from 1974 to 1985: “We started the whole
[Louisiana Tech] program in 1974 on
$5,000. Dr. F. Jay Taylor, the president of
Louisiana Tech, was a man before his time.
Not an athlete but a brilliant academic
who had a little vision and knew what was
probably going to happen as far as Title IX.
He approached me and asked if I would
start the basketball program.... I had
started out with no scholarships because
you couldn’t give scholarships under
AIAW. I didn’t have any assistants. I was a
little 28-year-old teacher that didn’t know
any different — except that I worked all the
time.
At Louisiana Tech, Hogg (pronounced
“Hoag”) handled recruiting and hired
Leon Barmore to run practices and direct
game strategy. Hogg also came up with the
“Lady Techsters” nickname.Hogg: “The reason we didn’t become
the Lady Bulldogs, because Bulldog is our
mascot at Louisiana Tech, is: You know
what lady dogs are called down in the
South? They’re called bitches! And so,
starting the program, I could just see it:
‘Here comes Miss Hogg and all her little
bitches!’ So we made every effort to avoid
that!”
Stringer: “Our first [1982 NCAA tourna-
ment game] was [hosting] Auburn. Au-
burn came to me and said, ‘Do you have
some balls we can use [for practice]?’ I had
to turn around and give the Auburn play-
ers the leather balls. We only had four
leather balls; the rest of them were rubber.
“... I never thought of us as being less
than. I believed we could play anybody.
That was my mind-set and their mind-set.”
Yolanda Laney, Cheyney point guard:
“We had that type of determination from
within that, no matter who we stepped on
the court with, we would be victorious. The
four years I was at Cheyney, we never lost a
home game.”
Stringer: “We trained with the guys. We
ran with guys that were 6[-foot-]7, 6-8, so
our women had to run that much harder
and that much faster to keep up. We just
believed in ourselves, and we worked hard.
Oh, my God, we worked hard!”
Debbie Primeaux Williamson, Louisi-
ana Tech reserve: “Coach Barmore would
say, ‘Any one of you could start for any other
Division I team in the country!’ That’s how
much talent we had.”
Hogg: “We had been outscoring teams
by 20, 30 points, but Cheyney State had
all-Americans, and we told our team, ‘Now
look: If we get down, just settle in. They’re
good. Stay calm. Stay patient.’ Thank good-ness we did.”
Angela Turner Johnson, Louisiana
Tech guard: “We had fans that followed us
all across the country. We had a big cheer-
ing section. Every now and then I could
hear voices that I recognized even in that
huge arena. Everybody was excited. You
could see them shaking the pompoms and
making all kind of noise.”Stringer’s focus was divided. Four
months earlier, her infant daughter, Nina,
was diagnosed with spinal meningitis. She
and her husband, Bill, split time at Phila-
delphia’s Children’s Hospital while String-
er coached on, missing as few practices and
games as possible.Stringer: “I had ambivalent feelings....
I looked out over the crowd, and I kept
thinking about Nina [at Children’s Hospi-
tal]. It was touch and go. My daughter was
left without the ability to walk and talk or
do anything. I’m grateful to God now that
she has continued to live.... As a woman,
as a parent — you can imagine I’m sitting
there, in the midst of all this hoopla, and
I’m thinking, ‘I don’t know.’ I was there, but
I wasn’t there.”Laney was fighting her own battle,
seized by debilitating menstrual cramps.
But she made it to the court for tip-off and
helped Cheyney State bolt to a 16-8 lead.L aney: “It’s the worst memory I ever
had. All the sudden it hit me when we were
coming to the bus. I felt so tight, my
stomach and my legs. I was in the locker
room crying on the table. I had to ask them
SEE NCAA ON D8Clockwise from top: Rutgers,
playing at the famed Palestra in
Philadelphia, beat Texas to win
the final AIAW national
championship.Theresa Grentz coached
19 seasons at Rutgers and went
434-150.After winning the title and
talking with reporters, Grentz
took her team out to dinner. “It
took [husband] Karl and I two
credit cards to pay the bill, but
we paid it,” she said.TOM COSTELLO/WHOO-RAH PRODUCTIONSTOM COSTELLO/WHOO-RAH PRODUCTIONS KYLE GRANTHAM FOR THE WASHINGTON POST