First US Women's Olympic Basketball Team Trained In Warrensburg, MO at UCM - Summer of 1976
Front: from left, Susan Rojcewicz, Juliene Simpson, Cherri Rapp, Pat Head, Anne
Myers, Nancy Lieberman, Rita Easterling
Back: Dr. Millie Barnes, Coach Cathy Rush, Patricia Roberts, Luisa “Lucy” Harris,
Nancy Dunkle, Charlotte Lewis (d.2007), Mary Ann OConnor, Billie
Moore - Coach
In 1975, the Pan Am The gold medal winning 1975 team was especially dominant, winning all seven games convincingly. The closest game was the final against Brazil, and that game was won by the USA team 74–55.
1975 USA Women's Pan American Team
Pat Head Summit, Carolyn Bush, Nancy Dunkle, Rita Easterling,
Lusia Harris, Charlotte Lewis, Nancy Lieberman, Ann Meyers Drysdale,Mary Ann O'Connor, Cherri Rapp, Sue Rojcewicz, Juliene Simpson,
Cathy Rush, Billie Moore, Mildred Barnes
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| 1976 Olympic Team |
| NAME | POS | HGT | WGT | AGE | SCHOOL | HOMETOWN | ||||||||
| Carolyn Bush | F | 6-2 | 145 | 23 | Wayland Baptist | Kingston, TN | ||||||||
| Nancy Dunkle | C | 6-2 | 155 | 23 | California State -Fullerton | La Habra, CA | ||||||||
| Rita Easterling | G | 5-8 | 134 | 20 | Mississippi College for Women | Morton, MS | ||||||||
| Lusia Harris | F | 6-2 | 180 | 20 | Delta State | Minter City, MS | ||||||||
| Pat Head | F | 5-10 | 155 | 23 | Tennessee-Martin | Seymour, TN | ||||||||
| Charlotte Lewis | C | 6-3 | 155 | 20 | Illinois State | Peoria, IL | ||||||||
| Nancy Lieberman | F | 5-10 | 140 | 17 | Far Rockaway H.S. | Far Rockaway, NJ | ||||||||
| Ann Meyers | G | 5-9 | 135 | 20 | UCLA | La Habra, CA | ||||||||
| Mary Ann O'Connor | F | 5-10 | 158 | 22 | Southern Connecticut State | Fairfield, CT | ||||||||
| Cherri Rapp | F | 5-11 | 150 | 25 | Wayland Baptist | Estelline, TX | ||||||||
| Sue Rojcewicz | G | 5-7 | 135 | 22 | Southern Connecticut State | Worcester, MA | ||||||||
| Juliene Simpson | G | 5-6 | 156 | 22 | John F. Kennedy Coll. | Roselle Park, NJ | ||||||||
| HEAD COACH: Cathy Rush, Immaculata College (PA) | ||||||||||||||
| MANAGER: Mildred Barnes, UCM, Warrensburg, MO ASSISTANT COACH: Billie Moore, Fullerton State University (CA) | ||||||||||||||
 
U.S. women’s basketball: A dynasty that began in a two-room apartment
By Sally Jenkins August 16, 2016 Washington post link RIO DE JANEIRO — The United States was just a start-up when women’s basketball was first played in an Olympics in 1976. Back then, Team USA was 12 women living off one credit card and sleeping in bunk beds without air conditioning. Forty years later, the memories are a measurement. At the 2016 Rio Games, the U.S. women led by Diana Taurasi and Tamika Catchings are living on a Silversea cruise ship along with the men’s team, and they deserve the sumptuous lounge chairs, because they’re going for a sixth straight gold medal and are beating their opponents by an average of 40 points. But they’d play that way no matter what the lead, or their circumstances, because that’s the program’s tradition. The tone was set four decades ago and it’s conspicuously observed by the fact that today’s players wear the same jersey numbers as the ’76 squad. Since then: seven golds in the past nine appearances, a 41-game winning streak (the latest being Tuesday’s 110-64 blowout of Japan), and don’t believe for a minute they were all walkovers. As Coach Geno Auriemma said, “There’s this culture of: This is what we do.” The funny thing is that the foundational victory of the U.S. women’s program wasn’t a gold medal performance, but rather silver. Over the years I’ve talked to various ’76ers, thanks to my friendship with the late Pat Summitt, with whom I co-authored three books, and what stands out is the quixotic nature of that team. They faced an even bigger dynasty from that era: a Soviet machine that was the reigning five-time world champion and led by a 7-foot-2 human tower named Uljana Semjonova. All the Americans had were a bunch of idealistic college women who were intrigued with the idea of being pioneering Olympians. “We were the first,” says Annie Meyers, now a commentator for NBC. Meyers wore No. 6. Sue Bird wears it now. They were willing to put up with almost anything to get to the Olympics. It started with a series of regional tryouts; USA Basketball literally took out newspaper ads to invite all comers. They were a bunch of college kids, most of whom had never been overseas. But national coach Billie Moore built a pressing, lunging team and to toughen them up led them on a barnstorming series of scrimmages against men’s squads, barking at them in a collar-grabbing voice, “Put a body on that guy!” They were so physical that one boys’ all-star team refused to come out of the locker room after halftime, just quit. They had training camp in an un-air-conditioned (Garrison) gym in Warrensburg, Mo., because it was cheap living, and the local Rotary Club would feed them for free. The scrimmages were sometimes punctuated by practices so grueling that “we’d run for the first hour without ever touching a ball,” Moore says. Players would dart out the door to throw up and then return to the court. The oldest member and their emotional leader and co-captain was Pat, who was just 24 but already Tennessee’s head coach. She was playing on a bad knee with a vivid snaking S scar from the crudity that back then they called ACL surgery, but “she was the most aggressive person I ever met on the court,” Cindy Brogdon remembered. Trish Roberts recalled, “If there was a ball rolling on the floor, she was going to dive for it.” One day in a drill, Roberts and Pat went up together for a rebound. Since turning professional in 2004, Diana Taurasi has three Olympic gold medals with the U.S. national team, three WNBA titles with the Phoenix Mercury and six international titles in the EuroLeague. (Ashleigh Joplin, Thomas Johnson/The Washington Post) “She put her elbow out and it got me right in my hip bone and to this day I still have problems with that bruise,” Roberts said. Pat Head Summitt wore No. 14. Tina Charles wears it now. They were such underdogs on the international stage that no one at USA Basketball expected them to make it out of the 22-team Olympic qualifying tournament in Hamilton, Ontario. When they swept it 5-0, the federation was caught flatfooted. There were no uniforms for them, no plane tickets, no accommodations. The head of USA Basketball, Bill Wall, gave Moore his personal American Express card number so they could eat. They transported by vans to Montreal, where the only thing available in the Athletes’ Village was a tiny two-bedroom apartment with one bathroom. Twelve tall women crammed into that apartment. There were even bunk beds in the kitchen. “We had seven or eight in a room with one bath,” Brogdon says. “I don’t know how we survived with that many. As I recall, we were so excited at what we had accomplished just to get there and be the first U.S. women’s team that it wouldn’t have mattered how we lived.” Brogdon wore No. 4. Lindsey Whalen wears it now. After victories over Bulgaria and Canada, they met the almighty Soviets. They’d had days to stare at Semjonova. Her championship rings were the size of 50-cent pieces. Pat later remembered watching her eat an apple: It looked like a golf ball in her massive hand. But Pat struck up halting conversations with her in the Athletes’ Village, and they became friends — long after Pat was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she would reminisce about Semjonova. As they took the court, Brogdon found herself standing next to the Soviet center. “I remember standing under her armpit,” she said. “I’m there in my polyester right under her armpit.” They never stood a chance. The game plan was to front Semjonova and when she moved, try to take the charge. Roberts bravely decided to draw the first contact — and flew backward through the air and landed in the lane. As she rolled over and looked up, she saw Semjonova falling, too: “I started crawling, because I knew if she fell on me, it was over.” They lost, 112-77. Trish Roberts wore No. 12. Diana Taurasi wears it now. They met Czechoslovakia for the silver medal, and the loser would go home without a medal. (Medals were awarded based on overall record after round-robin play among the six teams.) Before they took the court, Moore told them what they already knew: They weren’t just playing for a medal. They were playing for “a moment in time,” as she put it. “I very much wanted them to understand that there would be other Olympians, but they would only ever be the first.” They won by 17 points. Their leading scorer was Lusia Harris out of Delta State. Harris wore No. 7. Maya Moore wears it now. That night, they celebrated so tumultuously that Moore pleaded with them to moderate their intake, so they would remember standing on the platform. They remember. We should, too. 
The 1976 U.S. Women’s Olympic team, which won the silver medal, will be honored at the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame Induction weekend June 14 as “Trailblazers of the Game.” The women who made that team were the best of the best and their accomplishment set the stage for an incredible run of success for the U.S. women on the international stage.
The U.S. men had begun playing at the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936, but it wasn’t until after the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich that the overwhelmingly male International Olympic Organizing Committee deemed women basketball players fit to play in the Olympic Games.
For almost 40 years, American women had hoped against hope for a chance to play basketball on the biggest stage of all: the Olympic Games. The best female basketball players in the world did compete against each other, but such contests as the Pan Am Games and the World Games garnered little of the publicity and attention that the Olympics did.
As the women’s movement gathered steam in the ’70s, the male establishment felt pressure to abandon the notion that women couldn’t compete in strenuous sports (though women wouldn’t be allowed to run marathons until 1984). Much of the pressure actually came from behind the Iron Curtain, where such countries as the Soviet Union and East Germany were churning out women athletes in record numbers (with the help of performance-enhancing drugs, it would later be learned).
At 24 years old, Pat Head, the new coach at the University of Tennessee, was one of the oldest women vying for a spot on the 1976 Olympic team. She had plenty of competition. When the United States Olympic Committee held tryouts for the first U.S. women’s Olympic basketball team in the summer of 1975, 1,000 of the best high school, college, and post-college players
showed up. Head was in college when the announcement came that women’s basketball would be added to the Summer Games in 1976. She planned to spend a full year training for the Olympic tryouts after she graduated from UT-Martin in June, 1974. But in a game in January, she was hit behind the knee and crumpled to the floor. Doctors said she’d torn her anterior cruciate ligament and her meniscus so severely that there was little chance she’d ever play basketball again. Obviously, they didn’t know Pat Head (who would go on to coach Tennessee to eight national championships as Pat Summitt) or her father.
According to her 2013 memoir, “Sum it Up,” Summitt’s father drove her all the way to Nashville to see the best orthopedic surgeon in the state. The 12-inch scar, from her thigh to the top of her calf, attested to the complexity of ACL surgery back then. Summitt rehabbed her knee for the rest of 1974 but it was still stiff and sore a year later. She made the roster of the U.S. team for the Pan Am Games in early 1975, but she sat the bench throughout the tournament, slowed by her loss of mobility and the 20 pounds she’d gained since the surgery.
“I hardly played, unless it was a twenty-point blowout,” Summitt told Sally Jenkins, the co-author of her 2013 memoir. “I joked that I played end, guard, and tackle: sat on the end of the bench, guarded the water bottles, and tackled anyone who came in there who wasn’t supposed to be there.”
By the time the Olympic tryouts were held in June, 1975, Summitt had lost 27 pounds She had worked out five or six hours a day, determined to be in the best shape of her life. She may still have been the oldest and least mobile of the 24 women who made the first cut and assembled in Warrensburg, Missouri for the final tryouts. But she was able to endure the workouts that Coach Billie Jean Moore put the players through for those five grueling weeks.
“She was so strong that you couldn’t get around her to follow your shot,” said Cindy Brogden, who also made the team and was Summitt’s roommate in Montreal. “She was the most aggressive person I ever met on a basketball court.
Billie Jean Moore, the coach of the first Olympic team, was a no-nonsense, defensive-minded tactician who had led Cal State Fullerton to an AIAW national championship in her first year as head coach in 1970. Sue Gunter, who had played with Nera White on the Nashville Business School teams, and was coaching at Stephen F. Austin at the time, was the assistant coach. Their goal was to choose the 12 players who had the best chance of upsetting the Soviet Union’s team and its legendary 7-2 center, Uljana Semjanova of Latvia. The Soviets hadn’t lost an international tournament game since 1958. The U.S. National Team had come within three points of them in an exhibition game at Madison Square Garden in 1974. But the Soviets came back and defeated the U.S. in the next game in California by 30 points.
Ann Meyers, who had been the only high school player on that U.S. National team, said the Soviet’s pride was hurt by the close game in New York, as well as the rudeness of some of the U.S. players (including her) who made fun of the size of Semjonova’s feet during a shared pre-game meal.
“That first game had motivated the Soviets to bury us,” recounted Meyers in her 2012 memoir, You Let Some Girl Beat You, “Jules’ (Juliene Simpson) and my behavior during the pregame meal put the nail in the coffin.”
By the 1976 tryout, Meyers was already an All-American from UCLA. She had sprained her ankle during the regional tryouts, but made it to the final round in Missouri on the strength of her resume. In her memoir, she recalled the five weeks in Missouri as a “sauna straight from the underworld.” The three-a-day workouts, seven days a week, always ended with a 30-minute session of lines, also known as suicide sprints, that left the players gasping for air or dry-heaving. The 12 players who survived, and would be heading to Canada, as the first-ever U.S. Olympic team were Meyers, Summitt, Brogden, Lusia Harris, Juliene Simpson, Nancy Dunkle, Charlotte Lewis, Trish Roberts, Sue Rojcewicz, Mary Anne O’Connor, Nancy Lieberman, and Gail Marquis.
Meyers and Summitt were by no means the only experienced players on the team. Lusia Harris, the 6-foot-3 center from Delta State, had also played in the 1975 Pan Am games. She had found international play to be rougher and more physical than college ball, but she was not the least intimidated. The hardest part for her was adjusting her game to the faster pace that Moore liked her teams to play. At Delta State, she usually pulled down the rebound and jogged upcourt, knowing her teammates wouldn’t put up a shot before she settled herself into the post.
The player attracting the most media attention was a 5-foot-10 redhead from Brooklyn, New York, named Nancy Lieberman. In 1975, Lieberman was a 17-year-old high school senior who developed her no-look passes and uncanny shooting eye on the playgrounds of the city. While she was a natural point guard because of her quickness and passing skills, Lieberman had a cockiness that made her believe she could throw elbows and get rebounds even against taller bigger opponents.
“You don’t find many guards who will rebound the way she does,” said Marianne Stanley, who recruited Lieberman out of high school in 1976 to play at Old Dominion. “I haven’t seen too many people who have her confidence. You can’t teach that… she probably came out of the womb swinging.”
While these 12 players were the U.S. Olympic team, they still had to make it into the Olympics. Because the U.S. National team had come in eighth in the most recent World Championships, it was not awarded one of the automatic berths. Canada, as host country, was assured a berth, as were the Soviet Union, Japan and Czechoslovakia, winners of gold, silver and bronze in the World Championships.
The U.S. would have to vie with nine other teams for the two remaining spots in the Olympics in a qualifying tournament in Hamilton, Ontario, just over the border near Niagara Falls. Meyers and Summitt recalled the dorms they lived in during that tournament as run-down and dismal. But at least the rooms were free. Since the U.S. women weren’t officially an Olympic participant, they had no budget — only a $500 limit on a credit card that had to last the length of the qualifier. The U.S. easily disposed of France and Mexico, but barely escaped with a win in a one-point game with Bulgaria, 76-75. Still, they’d made it to the Olympic Games and headed to Montreal on July 4, 1976, the country’s bicentennial.
Summitt remembers the Opening Ceremony as a blur of red, white, and blue. Just to be among the best athletes in the world, on the biggest stage was a dream come true. But there was basketball to play, and the U.S. team started off on the wrong foot with a loss to Japan, 84-71. Turnovers in this inaugural event did the U.S. in, but the team rebounded with a big win over Bulgaria, 95-79, the next day. Two days later, the U.S. beat host Canada, 95-79.
The much-anticipated game with the Soviet Union came next. Summitt was assigned the task of guarding Semjonova, who was a full 14 inches taller. “I came up to her armpit,” she recalled. The U.S. strategy was to try to get in Semjonova’s way and draw charges when she swung into the post with the ball. But Semjonova, who would become the first non-American inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993, didn’t really have to throw her weight around to dominate play. In fact, she didn’t even need to jump. The Soviets scored the first 15 points of the game, as Semjonova scored 32 points in only 23 minutes of play. The Soviets won the game 112-77.
“By the end of the first quarter, Semjonova had already connected on 15 straight layups without her size 18 feet ever leaving the ground,” recalled Meyers.
The New York Times broke down the Soviets’ strategy in the next day’s paper, in what came off as a mocking attitude towards both teams: “Miss Semjonova simply stationed herself like a pillar under the basket…and grabbed rebounds as if she were picking cherries in the Ukraine. Then, as her teammates worked the ball down the court, she would lumber behind them…and tower beneath her own basket for an almost certain score. The United States players, scrappy but less practiced than their foes, leaped about her like puppies yelping for their lunchtime snack.”
Because the Olympics was a round-robin tournament, the U.S. team still had a chance for the silver medal if it could win its last game against Czechoslovakia. That game wasn’t as lopsided as the final score would indicate. Tied 37-37 at the half, the U.S. broke it open in the second half and won, 83-67. Harris, no doubt relieved to be rid of the towering presence of Semjonova, led all scorers with 17 points, as she did most nights, while Dunkle added 14, and Roberts, Rojcewicz, and Simpson each scored 10 points.
Moore took the team out to celebrate that night. She told the players to relish their roles as pioneers. “There will be many more teams that follow you,” she told them. “But there will only be one team that was the first.”
...........This is how it happens: A dozen women, isolated outliers, are so committed to playing for their country that they will practically starve for the honor. The first American women’s basketball team in ’76, captained by Pat Head Summitt and featuring Ann Meyers Drysdale among others, had a budget of $500. They held training camp in an unairconditioned gym in Warrensburg, Mo., because it was the cheapest facility they could find, and they begged meals from the rotary club.
“We’d do anything for free food for the team,” Moore says.
Bill Wall, the executive director of USA basketball, stepped forward and put up his personal credit card to support their attempt to make it into the Montreal Games. When they won the qualifying tournament, they were such a surprise that nobody had made any accommodations for them.
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Mexico City, Mexico • October 12-26, 1975
The 1975 Pan American Games were marked by three changes of location. Originally set to be held in Santiago, Chile, the site was switched to Sao Paulo, Brazil, after Chile withdrew its offer to host, then was moved to Mexico City, Mexico, just 10 months prior to the start of the competition. For the U.S. women, the change in sites mattered very little, they had their sights set on regaining the Pan American gold.1975 USA RESULTS (7-0)
USA 99 Mexico 65
USA 75 Canada 56
USA 116 El Salvador 28
USA 70 Cuba 64
USA 99 Dom. Republic 50
USA 74 Colombia 48
USA 74 Brazil 55
1975 PAN AM GAMES FINAL STANDINGS
1. USA (7-0) 5. Canada (3-4)
2. Mexico (6-1) 6. Colombia (2-5)
3. Cuba (5-2) 7. Dominican Rep. (1-6)
4. Brazil (4-3) 8. El Salvador (0-7)
Compiling an unblemished 7-0 record to capture top team honors at the 1975 Pan American Games, the USA gold medal victory ended a 12-year drought for the Americans. Finishing second in 1971 and 1967, the United States rolled to the gold in 1975 for its first gold medal in Pan American Games competition since 1963.
Featuring the same USA team that two months prior to the Pan American Games had finished 4-3 and in eighth place at the 1975 World Championship in Colombia, coach Cathy Rush of Immaculata College (PA) had her U.S. team in full gear for the Pan American Games.
Led by the dominating inside play of Delta State's 6'2' Lusia Harris, the '75 USA team featured both a high powered offense and a suffocating defense. Averaging 86.7 ppg. while allowing opponents just 52.3 ppg, the U.S. women were involved in only one contest that was decided by fewer than 19 points.
Opening against host Mexico, a team that had finished ahead of the U.S. in sixth at the '75 World Championship and a team that would go on to earn the Pan Am silver medal, the U.S. was impressive in a convincing 99-65 win.
The Americans followed that win with a dominating 75-56 victory over Canada, then thumped an over matched El Salvadore 116-28. In it's closest game of the tournament, the U.S. recorded a hard-fought 70-64 victory over eventual bronze medalist Cuba.
The Dominican Republic proved no match for the Americans as the U.S. sailed to a 99-50 win, and Colombia was easily handled 74-48.
Meeting Brazil, a team that had defeated the USA women in three consecutive Pan American Games confrontations and a team which had won the gold in 1971 and 1967, this time it was the Americans who came out on top, handing Brazil a convincing 74-55 loss. With the win, the U.S. captured the Pan Am gold medal ending 12 years of frustration for the U.S. women and marking the end of Brazil's dominance in the Pan American Games.
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| Uljana Semjanova 7 foot 2 inches, Russian |
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| Nancy Lieberman, 1st Grade Class, 2nd from the right, yellow dress. From her Charity - Facebook Page. |
UCM Hall of Fame Induction Class of 2010
Mildred "Millie" Barnes
Women's Basketball Coach
University of Central Missouri (1971-80)
Barnes, who coached the Jennies for nine seasons (1971-80), is credited with laying the foundation for the current Jennies' basketball program. She never had a losing season in her nine-year career, compiling a 156-63 record and winning two AIAW state championships. The Jennies were 26-5 in her final season (1979-80) as coach and reached the AIAW national tournament. Highly respected in women's basketball circles nationwide, Barnes became the first woman to serve on the board of trustees of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame (1977-86), and was the only woman out of 50 trustees until the late 1980's. Barnes has served on numerous other national committees and boards, as she was also the first female to be appointed to the Board of Directors for the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union, to be appointed to a U.S. Olympic Committee by the NCAA, and to be elected Vice-President of the Amateur Basketball Association of USA.
She served on the U.S. Olympic Women's Basketball Committee as the chair and was instrumental in bringing the first U.S. Olympic Women's Basketball Team to Warrensburg to train prior to the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. The team earned a silver medal at the Olympics and featured such prominent women's basketball names as Pat Summit, Nancy Lieberman and Ann Meyers. In addition to the Central Missouri Hall of Fame, she is in four others including the Northeast Women's Hall of Fame (1994), the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame (2005), the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame (2000), and the Boston University Athletic Hall of Fame (1978) where she was the first woman ever inducted. Barnes retired from Central Missouri in 1991 as professor emeritus of physical education, following 22 years of service to the university.
As an athlete, she was a member of the U.S. National Lacrosse team and competed nationally in field hockey, tennis, and badminton. She was drafted by the women's professional baseball league, and was on the All-American Lacrosse Team 12 years in a row. She earned her bachelor's from Boston University, and her master's and doctorate degrees from Surgent University. She was also a nationally rated basketball, lacrosse, softball, and volleyball referee. She was the President of the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport from 1974-1975.
She was the Chair of the basketball rules committee and the official rules interpreter for all high schools and higher education institutions from 1966-1969. She was the Chief of the Delegation for the U.S. Women's Basketball team at the World Championship in Columbia, South America in 1975, was the manager of the U.S. Women's Basketball team at the Pan American Games in Mexico City in 1975, was the Chief of Delegation for the U.S. Women's Basketball team at the Jones Cup in Taiwan and Japan in 1976, and was the coach of the U.S. Women's Basketball team at the Jones Cup in 1977.
Pat Head Summit's Passing.....
Basketball Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman paid tribute to 1976 Olympics teammate Pat Summitt on the Dan Patrick show and praised Summitt's character as a person and basketball legend.
Basketball Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman paid tribute to 1976 Olympics teammate Pat Summitt on the Dan Patrick show and praised Summitt's character as a person and basketball legend.
Summitt passed away at the age of 64 after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
“They called me Saturday and said you need to get out here. And I booked a flight Sunday to go to Knoxville. And then they called me Sunday night and said, Nancy you can’t come out here,” Lieberman said. “You know hospice is saying every body has to leave because Pat won’t go. Pat refuses to die because she knows so many people are wanting to see her. And it’s just Arby, and Tyler and Ms. Hazel, her mother. And she just needed to be by herself and here she is finally found some peace. But you know I love the lady.”
Summitt rehabbed from a torn ACL as a senior at Tennessee-Martin in order to make the Olympics, where she served as a co-captain. The U.S. lost to the Soviet Union in the gold-medal game but Lieberman made history as the youngest basketball player in Olympic history to win a medal at just 18 years old. Lieberman is now an assistant coach with the Sacramento Kings.
During her 38-year career as the head coach of the Tennessee Lady Vols, Summitt amassed 1,098 wins, the most ever for a college basketball coach.
Kirby Keth befriended Pat Head (Summit) in Warrensburg and even brought her to meet his mother, Mrs. Earl Keth, while Pat was training with the Olympic Team there. 1976
Ed. note...
Kirby Keth befriended Pat Head (Summit) in Warrensburg and even brought her to meet his mother, Mrs. Earl Keth, while Pat was training with the Olympic Team there. 1976
Ed. note...
1976 The First US Women's Olympic Basketball team trained in Warrensburg at UCM, thanks to Coach Dr. Millie Barnes. On that team included players such as Nancy Lieberman, Lusia Harris, Pat Head, and Ann Meyers, and coach Cathy Rush, each of whom would be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. They were the first group of women to represent the U.S. in the Olympic Games, the first time women were allowed to compete in basketball. They trained in old Garrison Gym and the University Gym. Kirby Keth, Rob Ruth, Linda Bales team volunteer,Marla Maxson, Rick Good was a student athletic trainer and scrimmaged against, and others like myself were among the locals who were able to see many of their practices. From --Wayne Swisher Great post Bruce Uhler. Me and my buds John Welling, Jack Carmichael, Robin Fisher, Jeff Barrows and more got into many pick up games with the ladies. They were tough!
As we mourn the loss of basketball legend Coach Pat Summit, you see her as young lady who loved the sport on those early teams. RIP Coach Summit.
As we mourn the loss of basketball legend Coach Pat Summit, you see her as young lady who loved the sport on those early teams. RIP Coach Summit.
The Men's Team in 1976
Seeking to avenge the controversial loss to the Soviets in the 1972 Olympic gold medal game, the USA, coached by University of North Carolina legend Dean Smith, never had the chance to gain revenge, but nevertheless, recorded a perfect 7-0 slate and returned the Olympic basketball gold back home. After collecting a 6-0 mark, including an early 112-93 victory over Yugoslavia, the U.S. faced the Eastern Europeans for the second time. Adrian Dantley scored 18 of his game-high 30 points in the first 20 minutes to help the U.S. open up a 50-38 halftime advantage. Yugoslavia came no closer than 10 points in the second half as the USA reclaimed the Olympic gold with a 95-74 decision. Scott May and Mitch Kupchak each accounted for 14 points in the win.
| HEAD COACH: Dean Smith, University of North Carolina | ||||||
| ASSISTANT COACH: Bill Guthridge, University of North Carolina | ||||||
| ASSISTANT COACH: John Thompson, Georgetown University | ||||||
| MANAGER: Joseph Vancisn, National Association of Basketball Coaches | ||||||
| ATHLETIC TRAINER: Troy Young, Arizona State University |
Players
Tate Armstrong 6-3 170 20 October 5, 1955
Quinn Buckner 6-3 203 21 August 20, 1954
Kenny Carr 6-7 225 20 August 15, 1955
Adrian Dantley 6-5 209 21 February 28, 1955
Walter Davis 6-5 190 21 September 9, 1954
Phil Ford 6-2 170 20 February 9, 1956
Ernie Grunfeld 6-6 225 21 April 24, 1955
Phil Hubbard 6-7 194 19 December 13, 1956
Mitch Kupchak 6-10 229 22 May 24, 1954
Tom LaGarde 6-10 214 21 February 10, 1955
Scott May 6-7 218 22 March 19, 1954
Steve Sheppard 6-6 209 22 March 21, 1954
Tate Armstrong 6-3 170 20 October 5, 1955
Quinn Buckner 6-3 203 21 August 20, 1954
Kenny Carr 6-7 225 20 August 15, 1955
Adrian Dantley 6-5 209 21 February 28, 1955
Walter Davis 6-5 190 21 September 9, 1954
Phil Ford 6-2 170 20 February 9, 1956
Ernie Grunfeld 6-6 225 21 April 24, 1955
Phil Hubbard 6-7 194 19 December 13, 1956
Mitch Kupchak 6-10 229 22 May 24, 1954
Tom LaGarde 6-10 214 21 February 10, 1955
Scott May 6-7 218 22 March 19, 1954
Steve Sheppard 6-6 209 22 March 21, 1954
1 comment:
Great post of interesting history! Thanks!
Diane Lederer Allen
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