SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
This is a blast from the past, a historic initial national women’s basketball championship.
It was a decade before Louisianan Tech won the first NCAA Division I title, 23 years before the University of Connecticut women began its storied run under Geno (the genus) Auriemma to a record 11 championships, one more then that achieved by the legendary John Wooden with the UCLA men.
It bounced in in 1972 when Immaculata College, a private Roman Catholic school in the suburbs of Philadelphia, made a implausible run to three-straight national AIAW titles. Known then as the Macs, it later became the Mighty Macs. Coached by Cathy Rush, they were not hailed as the best in the land, but were up there as one of the top seeds in outclassing the rest of the nation in an unprecedented sweep.
Rush did not play high school ball because it was not yet an official sport for the girls, but hung out in the schoolyards shooting hoops with the girls and boys. She also read up on the game, and in the early summer of 1972, was hired to coach an Immaculate roster mixed with inexperience and grit. The 12-player roster was eager, but first had to take some first learning steps.
And for this, Rush later received the recognition she was due by being inducted into the prestigious Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008, and previously was honored with Women’s Philadelphia Hall of Fame Award in 2000, and in 2005 the Sports Hall of Fame Award. It took awhile, but her historic accomplishments can never be forgotten.
Now West Chester State University in Pennsylvania, in Chester County not far from the Immaculate campus, was one of the bullies at the time. It assembled some quality young women and had won its first nine starts. So in game four, Rush piled into the small yellow bus with her team for the short ride to meet up with the undefeated Rammys.
Immaculate played a confused game, was outplayed, and also annoyed by the constant chanting of the home crowd. It was trounced, 70-38, had a dismal, unhappy ride home. Twice, its bus stalled, once it almost ran out of gas, but finally made it back to the Philly area.
Once. Rush stood up in the bus and informed her team that the season isn’t over yet, so forget what transpired and, who knows, maybe we will see them again. She tried her best to bring confidence, and it worked as the dandy dozen pieced together, learned with each game, and entered the first national tournament as the fourth seed, and with 15 victories in 20 starts. They were ranked second in the East behind 22-1 West Chester State.
They opened at home against Cheney from Lincoln, Pa., and won handily 64-48, then hit the road for Madison Square Garden in New York City to face local favorite, Queens College, and win a 65-61 tussle before an announced crowd of 12,000. The New York newspapers played this up, ran a box score, photos. Next, it got past Illinois State in Normal, Ill.,55-50, and then learned that, you guessed it, West Chester had won its Final Four test over highly regarded Delta State, and was its opponent in the anticipated finale.
The championship game was to be played in Texas at Sam Houston State. Immaculate brought an average group of fans, West Chester State arrived with about three busloads. But the then-Macs were more than ready. They came out with renewed confidence, a learning experienced through the season, and after seven lead changes and the same number of ties, emerged victorious this time 52-48 to the joy of its fans and the disappointment of the losers this time. It came on July 3rd and made for a celebrated Fourth of July in Immaculata land.
Said Rush in the locker room celebration: “This is a proud moment, we put that embarassing loss at their place into the closet, went on with our season and accomplished a wonderful thing, a national championship. Yes, they won that time, we took that dismal, frustrating ride home, and we fought back this time in a much bigger moment. A toast to all of you.”
,
The former Theresa Shank, the team leader, hung around the sport for 35 years as head coach at Saint Joseph’s in Philadelphia, Rutgers in New Jersey, University of Illinois, and Lafayette College in Pennsylvania before retiring in 2017 with a 44th-best 681 wins, 362 losses and a .653 percentage.
In the championship game against West Chester State as a guard/forward, she scored a team-high 17 points and handed out five assists. Guard teammate Maureen Mooney dished out six assists, came away with the same number of steals, and tossed in seven points, forward Denise Conroy brought down a game-high 14 boards, scored 10 points, and underneath it was Patricia Opila taking down 11 rebounds and adding 13 points.
That amounted to 47 of their team’s 52 points, and all four were sophomores, anxious to maybe win another AIAW championship.
And that they did, not one but two more.
The following year, it was now 2nd-seeded Immaculate downing South Dakota State, 60-47, in the opener at home, and then edging the Indiana State team, 49-47, the same Hoosiers that had upset 3rd-seeded West Chester State in the second round. In the Final Four, the now Mighty Macs disposed of surprising unranked Saint Joseph’s of Philly, 64-56, and in the title game in Biloxi, Miss., topped Mississippi State, the No. 1 seed, 46-43.
Year three of the unprecedented sweep took the court with Immaculate again the No. 2 seed, and it had no problem eliminating visiting Texas-Arlington, 76-48, in game one, then handed Elizabethtown a 69-59 setback, Elon a 71-46 trouncing, and in the final contest of the three-year sweep, ran into another new rival in St. John Fischer and survived a tight 42-39 clash when St. John Fischer took the air out of the ball and slowed down the Mighty Macs’ attack.
The school opened as Smith College in 1893. It later became Immaculata University in 2003. It remains as a comprehensive, co-ed, faith-based, private Roman Catholic school of liberal education faith. But through all these years, the historic 3-year women’s historic basketball run will always be remembered, and the school’s halls has trophies as evidence galore on display.
Other schools that played in the Immaculata era were Chattanooga (Tenn.) Cheney (Pa.), Clark (Mass), Elizabeth (Pa), Elon (Pa.). Emanuel (Mass.), Frances Marion (Ind.), Mercy (Pa.), Midland, (NE), Mount Mary (Pa.), Sam Houston State (Tx.) Saint Peter’s (NJ), Saint Joseph’s (Ind.) Clark (Ma.), Frances Marion (Ind.), Emanuel (Mass.), Elon (Pa.), Sam Houston State (Tex.), Texas-Arlington,(Tx.), Virginia Wesleyan (Va.).
