D8 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, APRIL 1 , 2022
to go call my mother from the stands. My
mom went and got some hot water and
black pepper. No tea; hot water like an old
Southern remedy.”
Leon Barmore, Louisiana Tech assis-
tant coach from 1977 to 1982: “We went
to a zone press about 10 minutes into the
game, and it completely turned the game
around.”
Hogg: “And little M ulkey, who wasn’t
even an outside shooter, made a couple of
outside shots there before half.”
Louisiana Tech led by 14 at the half and
went on to claim the first NCAA women’s
basketball championship, 76-62.
Johnson: “There were about three of
us that embraced at the end, and even-
tually I got around to everybody. It was
the second championship in a row, and it
was finally over. We could finally breathe.
It was kind of bittersweet, too, because
that was the last one for me and [fellow
senior] Pam [Kelly]. We weren’t going to
be able to play again.”
Stringer: “Basketball is something
that I’ve worn on my sleeve. It makes
people happy. That [championship run]
was a time Cheyney could step up. Its
chest was high. We were playing the
number one team.... There’s nothing
more important than that.”
Chapter 3
‘We will never accept crumbs’
South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley sitsNCAA FROM D7 at the dais the day before the 2022 NCAA
regional in Greensboro, N.C., emblematic
in many ways of the strides women’s bas-
ketball has made since that inaugural
NCAA tournament in 1982.
Her top-ranked Gamecocks lead the na-
tion in attendance, averaging 12,268 for
home games, and she is among the nation’s
highest-paid women’s coaches, signing a
seven-year, $22.4 million deal last fall that
she hopes serves as a benchmark for great-
er investment in the game.
There are other metrics for the sport’s
growth under the NCAA.
The women’s tournament has expanded
from 32 teams in 1982 to 68 this year.
Seating capacity for the Final Four has
doubled, from the 9,500-seat Scope to the
18,067-seat Target Center in Minneapolis
Media coverage has grown exponential-
ly — from 37 credentialed journalists that
first year to 716 in 2019, the last pre-pan-
demic year. And every game of this year’s
tournament is televised.
Another metric is the NCAA banner
draped behind Staley at each tournament
news conference, adorned with a dizzying
array of #MARCHMADNESS logos.
The NCAA’s decision to let women pro-
mote their tournament with the men’s
trademarked “March Madness” slogan — a
first this year — is one example of the
low-hanging fruit among several meatier
steps urged by the outside law firm that
reviewed the organization’s policies after
last year’s uproar over the subpar way
women were treated in the 2021 tourna-
ment. The firm’s scathing report found the
NCAA historically undervalued women’s
basketball in myriad ways, from market-
ing and promotion to broadcast contracts
and revenue-distribution formulas.
It is a narrative now four decades old.
After her Lady Techsters won the 1981
AIAW championship, Hogg had champi-
onship rings made for the players. After
they won the 1982 NCAA title, it took
35 years for the squad to get NCAA rings.
“Maybe they forgot?” Turner Johnson
mused. “But better late than never. I was so
proud of it.”
Largely lost, too, is Rutgers’s AIAW tri-
umph. That’s why Geoff Sadow, who cov-
ered the team’s 1982 season as an under-
graduate, co-produced a documentary,
“Forgotten Champions,” weaving an audio
recording of the student-radio broadcast
with the only known footage of the untele-
vised game, found in a tin canister in
Grentz’s attic decades later and digitized
for the purpose.
“This team deserved more accolades
than it has gotten,” Sadow said.
The same could be said of each team
that reached the 1982 women’s champion-
ships.
Laney wonders whether Cheyney
State’s 1982 Wolves will ever get their due
for reaching the inaugural NCAA title
game.
“You can’t forget the history that we
made, and we made history,” Laney said.
“That team should be inducted into the
Naismith Hall of Fame. How do you not
recognize the history that was made by this
small historically Black college that no one
expected to be there except for us and our
fans and our families?”
It’s impossible to gauge how the trajec-
tory might have differed — for better or
worse — had women’s basketball contin-
ued to be run by a separate organizationwith the interests of female athletes at the
forefront rather than by the NCAA, domi-
nated by football and men’s basketball
interests.
“I really think we lost 10 years in pro-
moting women’s sports,” said Texas wom-
en’s athletic director Donna Lopiano, who
also served as the AIAW’s final president.
“As soon as women joined the men’s athlet-
ic establishment, everybody forgot about
promotion and publicity, which is every-
thing in terms of developing a brand and
assigning value to the female athlete and
value to her product. That’s exactly what
schools didn’t do. They put all their money
into football and basketball.”
That’s why, under Lopiano’s watch, Tex-
as was among the AIAW holdouts in 1982,
even though Conradt wanted to play in the
NCAA tournament.
“From a coaching standpoint, I wanted
to be there with the big schools and the
bright lights and the potential for growth,”
Conradt said. “As I look back on it now, I
have totally different feelings. I am so
proud of the fact, and it was to Donna’s
credit and the University of Texas, that we
stayed with AIAW that last year because it
became a statement. It was a statement
that: ‘Yes, women can control their own
destiny. We are not dependent on the
NCAA, male-dominated organization to
create this opportunity for women’s bas-
ketball.’ ”
And on it goes, with each generation of
women’s players and coaches pushing for
tougher competition, a place in bigger
arenas and a national audience despite the
NCAA’s track record of selling them short.
“I’ve told my teams many a time,” String-
er said, “ ‘We will never accept crumbs.’ ”Clockwise from top: Yolanda
Laney, pictured at a park near
her Delaware home, helped
Cheyney State to two Final
Fours.C. Vivian Stringer took small
Cheyney State to the first
NCAA women’s basketball
championship game in 1982.Rutgers senior Chris Dailey cut
down the net after the Scarlet
Knights beat Texas to win the
final AIAW women’s national
title March 28, 1982.KYLE GRANTHAM FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTTOM COSTELLO/WHOO-RAH PRODUCTIONS RUTGERS