Naismith Hall of Famer: How Theresa Grentz 'moved the needle' for women's basketball

Theresa Grentz is taking a photography course. To the surprise of no one, the 70-year-old hardwood legend has immersed herself in the task. She was processing photos of local horses at her home in West Chester, Pa. when the phone rang this past winter.

It was the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

“What are they calling me for?” Grentz thought. “I guess they want money or something.”

Grentz already had a foothold in the Hall as a star on the pioneering, three-time national champion Immaculata University women’s basketball program, which was inducted in 2014.

This time, the call was about her election as an individual.

“I was speechless,” she said. “I really thought they’d covered it (with Immaculata). I never thought in my wildest dreams of them going back to this.”

It makes sense. Hired by Rutgers in 1976 as the sport’s first full-time women’s basketball coach, Grentz led the Lady Knights (as they were then known) to a national title in 1982 and coached the 1992 U.S. Olympic women’s team to a bronze medal. She was at the vanguard of the Title IX movement, an ambassador who mentored a distinguished coaching tree that includes Muffet McGraw, Chris Dailey and Patty Coyle.

The enshrinement takes place Saturday in Springfield, Mass. Grentz’s presenters are her college coach Cathy Rush, her Rutgers successor C. Vivian Stringer, and…Charles Barkley?

“I love Charles,” she said.

They got to know each other at the 1992 Olympics and have played golf together. Earlier this year Barkley was featured in a Capital One commercial that showed a young girl choosing him for her side in a pickup basketball game. It struck a chord with Grentz.

“To me, that’s progress,” she said. “I was on the playground and believe me, I was never the one choosing sides. That was my thread between the three (presenters). All of them in some way represented advancement for girls and women.”

Grentz’s career shines a great light on that arc, and she’s got the stories to prove it.

Third choice for the job

Rutgers athletics director Fred Gruninger’s top choices for the America’s first full-time women’s basketball coach were Rush and Queens College’s Lucille Kyvallos. Neither was interested so he turned to Grentz, who had just guided Saint Joseph’s to an 18-3 record.

“Gruninger said he had between $12,000-$15,000 for the job,” Grentz recalled. “He said, ‘I’m going to pay you $13,500.' I said, ‘Why don’t you pay me $15,000 if that’s what you have?'”

Gruninger was unmoved.

“That was the mentality at the time,” Grentz said. “They gave me two scholarships. I needed three. I had recruited the twins (Patty and Mary Coyle) out of Philadelphia and June Olkowski. Every single day, I would go by his office and ask his secretary, ‘What kind of mood is the man in today?’ I was relentless.”

Eventually she caught Gruninger in the right mood and got that third scholarship. The Coyles and Olkowski became the foundation of the 1982 championship team, which went 25-7 and defeated Georgia Southern, Minnesota, Villanova and powerhouse Texas to win the final AIAW Tournament -- the forerunner of the women’s basketball NCAA Tournament, which launched that year (causing a split-title situation).

Several of those players will be in attendance at Saturday’s enshrinement.

“They were so together, and they still are,” Grentz said. “I was very blessed.”

'Gradually, we moved the needle'

Looking back, Grentz laughs at the circumstances of the 1982 title season. The team held practices at night, which was the only time they could access the RAC. On the rare occasion when she hired a videographer to tape a game, she had to borrow Rutgers football coach Frank Burns’ film projector to watch it.

“He would give it to me on a Friday night and I could have it all day Saturday, but I had to have it back in his office Sunday morning,” she said.

When her players got shots up, Grentz and her assistant coaches did the rebounding.

“We didn’t have shooting machines; we didn’t have managers, either,” she said.

The first wave of women’s basketball coaches, she said, worked together to improve conditions. They shared salary and budget information to help each other prod their administrators for better conditions.

“Gradually, we moved the needle,” Grentz said. “You do the best you can at the time. That was my time. We had great success, we filled the RAC, people loved watching those kids play -- they’ll always be kids to me. And our kids loved the fans. They really did.”

As the 1980s rolled on, with Rutgers men’s basketball imploding and football stagnating along, Grentz’s program became the athletic department’s calling card. A Temple-Rutgers doubleheader at the RAC in 1988 told the story. Temple coach John Chaney brought the nation’s No. 1 men’s team into town, but as Grentz recounts it, “They decided if the women played first, then everyone would come for the women’s game and leave for the men. So they switched it.”

Chaney was incredulous, and he let Grentz know when they crossed paths that day.

“John said, ‘You know Theresa, I can’t believe this. I finally get my stinkin’ team -- well, he didn’t say stinkin’ -- to be No. 1 in the country and I’ve got to come here and play the first game of this doubleheader?” Grentz said.

“I said, ‘John, you’ve got to love life.’”

Still rooting for Rutgers

In 19 seasons at Rutgers Grentz posted a record of 434-150 (a .743 winning percentage), went to nine NCAA Tournaments and six AIAW Tournaments, captured eight Atlantic 10 titles and never finished worse than four games over .500. She left for the Illinois job in 1995.

“I had such a great time at Rutgers, but it’s like everything else, there comes a time when it’s time for you to go,” she said. “I had asked (Gruninger) for some things for the program, pushed it, pushed it, and I was hitting my head against a wall so I said, ‘No problem, it’s somebody else’s turn.’”

Today she is wowed by Rutgers’ state-of-the-art practice facility and the resources poured into the sport.

“If you have that much, you’d better be pretty damn good,” she said.

Grentz said she roots hard for both Rutgers and Illinois and maintains a long-standing friendship with Stringer. She also appreciates the job Steve Pikiell has done -- “I love watching the men’s team; those guys play old-school basketball,” she volunteered -- and scoffs at the much-discussed idea of expanding and overhauling the RAC (now Jersey Mike’s Arena).

“They call it the Trapezoid of Terror because it is,” she said. “In big arenas you can’t make that kind of noise. You can hear yourself sneeze, and that’s not good.”

Assist from Pete Carril

Grentz won 681 collegiate games, but like all the best coaches, she never stopped learning. For years she studied Pete Carril’s Princeton offense.

“I had most of it, but I couldn’t get the last pieces, so one day I just called him up,” she said. “He said, ‘I know who you are. When do you want to meet? How about for breakfast tomorrow?’”

So a bowtied Carril hosted Grentz for an extended chalk talk session.

“He explained the whole thing and gave me some of his tapes,” Grentz said. “He did say afterwards, ‘Whatever you do, don’t tell your men’s coach what I just told you.’”

She consented, and then used Carril’s principals to topple Tennessee.

Theresa Grentz never got to choose the sides in the playground, but her trailblazing enabled the next generation to do it. That's why she's getting enshrined in Springfield.

“There will always be obstacles,” she said. “Do you look at them as stumbling blocks or stepping stones? I chose to use them as stepping stones.”

Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. He is an Associated Press Top 25 voter. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame: Theresa Grentz earned enshrinement