After the Tennessee Lady Vols defeated Rutgers to win their seventh NCAA basketball championship – and first in nine years – I became curious to see how the newspapers might have covered the team during head coach Pat Summitt’s first year in 1974-75.
Listening to some of today’s oft-repeated stories about how Coach Summitt had to sweep the playing floor in those days and how the first game drew only about 50 fans, I had assumed that women’s basketball at Tennessee began with her tenure.
So I was surprised to look in the UT media guide and learn that Tennessee actually had women’s teams dating back to 1903. The first coach listed was a man, Leo Theodore Bellmont, who went 0-4 in 1905.
Also, a woman named Margaret Hutson coached Tennessee to a very impressive 60-18 record in the four years prior to Coach Summitt’s arrival.
Current UT women’s athletic director Joan Cronan preceded Coach Hutson, going 8-4 in 1969 but slipping to 0-6 in 1970.
And Nancy Lay coached the team from 1960-68 – although the UT media guide has been unable to document her exact wins and losses.
When Coach Summitt arrived as the coach at Tennessee in the fall of 1974, she had just turned 22 the previous June 14, following a career as a standout player at UT-Martin. She had attended Cheatham County High, which borders Nashville’s Davidson County on the western side.
Coach Summitt recalled in the media guide that she was actually a graduate student during her first year at UT, when she was still known as Pat Head. Besides working on her master’s degree, she was also teaching four classes and was dreaming of possibly making the 1976 Olympic basketball team.
So, coaching basketball took only part of her focus. She likely had no idea she would stay at Tennessee for so many years and be considered the most successful pioneer in the evolution of the women’s modern game.
Perhaps the best recruit she and the other women coaches at that time had was the Title IX section of the Education Amendments of 1972. The law, which actually did not go into effect until the summer of 1975, eventually allowed equal scholarship and team opportunities for women’s sports at schools that received federal funds.
One aspect that may have originally hindered her was that Tennessee high school girls’ teams were still playing 6-on-6 basketball. In that format, three players for each team had to stay on each half of the court and play either defense or offense.
Coach Summitt’s first game as coach occurred on Saturday, Dec. 7, 1974, against Mercer University.
On the front page of the next day’s sports page was a big story about Coach Ray Mears’ UT men barely losing to Big 10 powerhouse Michigan, 78-74, at Ann Arbor, despite 34 points from Vol freshman Bernard King.
Women’s basketball was still a long way from receiving equal billing, so buried on one of the back sports pages was a brief story about the UT women losing to Mercer, 84-83, in Coach Summitt’s inaugural game.
The story did not mention Coach Head/Summitt, nor did it state that only about 50 fans were there or that she had to sweep the floor.
It did say that Mercer had two players from nearby Sevierville, who combined for 44 points. The leading scorer for UT was guard Nancy Bowman, who had 21 points, even though she was only 5-2 in height.
The leading rebounder was Freda Delozier. Others on Coach Summitt’s first team were Sue Thomas, Gail Dobson, Jackie Watson, Marcie Garner, Diane Brady and Suzanne Barbre.
The tallest player was the 5-10 Dobson. She was trying to replace the graduated 5-11 Gloria Scott, who had qualified to play against the Russian national team the previous spring.
Coach Summitt’s first game against Mercer was played at what was then known as Alumni Memorial Gymnasium on the UT campus next to Neyland Stadium. Although the Lady Vols’ home would become Stokely Athletics Center beginning in 1976, this was their home gym when Coach Summitt began.
Built in the 1930s and also featuring a swimming pool, Alumni Gym hosted four Southeastern Conference men’s basketball tournaments in its early days. It was later converted into a performing arts facility and recently unveiled a massive organ built by the Ooltewah firm of Richards, Fowkes and Company. Today it is called the Alumni Memorial Building.
To give longtime Vol sports fans some perspective, Coach Summitt’s first game at Alumni Gym was about a week before Coach Bill Battle’s football team defeated defensive stalwart Randy White and Maryland, 7-3, in the Liberty Bowl in Memphis.
Another interesting footnote to Coach Summitt’s first game was that future player and current assistant coach (and new Mercedez-Benz owner) Holly Warlick scored 18 points as the Bearden High girls easily defeated Maryville the day before.
In the article promoting the team’s second game against Middle Tennessee State, Coach Summitt was mentioned for the first time.
UT won by an easy score of 69-32 to give Coach Summitt her first victory. The article on the game, which also included an action photo of the players in tube socks, referred to UT as the Volettes, not the Lady Vols.
That year’s team also played UT-Chattanooga three times. The first was on Jan. 25, when Coach Summitt’s squad won, 77-73, at the neutral site of East Tennessee State University. The Lady Vols actually played two games that day, winning the second one over ETSU, 85-72.
Last names listed in the box score as playing for UTC in the game were Cable (who had 31 points), Levi (18), Lane, Narrimore, Callahan and Brannon.
Coach Summitt’s squad also went on to defeat UTC twice in the post season. In the state division district tournament on Feb. 22, Tennessee won, 90-78. And in the state league championship tournament in Jackson, Tenn., on Feb. 28, the Lady Mocs lost, 112-88.
That was evidently the only year UTC played Coach Summitt three times. The Lady Mocs have also never beaten Coach Summitt. The closest they came was on Feb. 28, 1976, when UTC lost a heart breaker, 67-66, in Coach Summitt’s first visit to UTC as coach.
In Coach Summitt’s first season, Tennessee did not play any other SEC or major college. She did play Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Memphis and North Carolina State in her second year, defeating all but NCSU.
Her inaugural team, which finished 16-8, played primarily other colleges from within the state.
But now Coach Summitt conquers the nation!
John Shearer
Jcshearer2@comcast.net