Swish Appeal - The 2013 Women's Basketball Hall of FameBasketball is basketball.https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/49391/swish-fave.png2013-06-11T11:00:05-04:00http://www.swishappeal.com/rss/stream/41796172013-06-11T11:00:05-04:002013-06-11T11:00:05-04:00WBHOF Interviews with the four players inducted
<figure>
<img alt="Jennifer Rizzotti led UConn to its first national title in 1995 and is now a coach at the University of Hartford. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/pkJz496aVSpWcnaRcaUS7j3IcJw=/0x46:1100x779/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/14569431/usatsi_4583643.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Jennifer Rizzotti led UConn to its first national title in 1995 and is now a coach at the University of Hartford. | Photo by Andrew Synowiez.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The 2013 Women's Basketball Hall of Fame ceremony featured six inductees, including four former players who offered their thoughts on the moment in brief interviews.</p> <p class="pgh-paragraph">KNOXVILLE, TN - The 2013 Women's Basketball Hall of Fame ceremony featured six inductees: coaches Gary Blair and Jim Foster and former players Peggie Gillom-Granderson, Jennifer Rizzotti, Annette Smith-Knight and Sue Wicks, offered expansive answers. We begin with the coaches inducted.</p>
<p class="pgh-paragraph" id="paragraph1">The inductees were interviewed one-on-one by Swish Appeal and asked three questions - how did they get in the WBHOF, what did the honor mean to them and who had the greatest impact on their basketball career. Yesterday <a target="_blank" href="http://www.swishappeal.com/2013/6/10/4415418/womens-basketball-hall-of-fame-2013-gary-blair-jim-foster">we posted the responses from the coaches</a> and today we look at those from the players.</p>
<p class="pgh-paragraph"></p>
<div class="read-more">
<b>More</b>: <a href="http://www.swishappeal.com/2013/6/10/4415418/womens-basketball-hall-of-fame-2013-gary-blair-jim-foster" target="new">Interviews with Gary Blair, Jim Foster</a> <a href="http://www.swishappeal.com/2011/8/1/2308645/ring-of-honor-retrospective-sue-wicks" target="new">New York Liberty Ring of Honor retrospective for Sue Wicks</a><a href="http://www.swishappeal.com/2013/6/10/4415576/womens-basketball-hall-of-fame-2013-ncaa" target="new">Full WBHOF storystream</a>
</div>
<h4>Peggie Gillom-Granderson: "I appreciate how far women's basketball has come."</h4>
<h4></h4>
<p>Gillom-Granderson is the all-time leading scorer for Ole Miss with 2,486 points and was a Wade finalist in 1980. Her sister, Jennifer Gillom, was inducted into the hall in 2009.</p>
<p><i><b>How did Gillom-Granderson earn her nod to the WBHOF?</b></i></p>
<p>"I don't know," she said with a big smile. "I played basketball. I played the game that I love and coached. I guess people reward you for what you did, and you don't know what you did really."</p>
<p><i><b>What did the recognition mean to her?</b></i></p>
<p>"I got the call from Eddie Clinton (a WBHOF board member) June 12, 2012, at 9:17 a.m."</p>
<p>"I told my husband, ‘Oh, my gosh,' and that song, a little girl has a dream, that is the first thing I said, that little girl is me. That's my dream," Gillom-Granderson said. "I was on the (WBHOF) board the first time I heard that song and that's what I felt. That is how I still feel. I am still dreaming.</p>
<p>"I appreciate going to a van and eating a ham-and-cheese sandwich and an apple after the game. I appreciate how far women's basketball has come.</p>
<p>"I am among the best. I have been in this hall but there is something different every time. There is a different feeling. I have a letter - you know how you hide something from yourself - from Margaret Wade, a personal letter. I've got it. It's well protected. I can't find it."</p>
<p><i><b>Who had the greatest influence on Gillom-Granderson?</b></i></p>
<p>"I had a brother, George, go to school at Ole Miss," she said. "I had six brothers, and there were three older than me. George got a scholarship at Ole Miss."</p>
<h4>Jennifer Rizzotti: "Playing at UConn defined my adult life"</h4>
<p>Rizzotti led UConn to its first national title in 1995 and was a two-time Kodak All-American and 1996 Wade Trophy winner.</p>
<p><i><b>So how did Rizzotti earn her nod to the WBHOF?</b></i></p>
<p>"I was born in the right year," she said. "That is the best answer I can give. You're talking about two years after the adoption of Title IX. I came after so many women paved the way for me to have this opportunity, and I got recruited by Geno Auriemma.</p>
<p>"I got to play for one of the best women's basketball college programs in the country, win a national championship and play with great teammates who made me look really good. And then on top of all of that I graduated when two professional leagues were starting in the United States. I always say I was blessed by my timing."</p>
<p> </p>
<div class="sidebar">
<a href="http://www.swishappeal.com/ncaa/2013/6/10/4413744/ncaa-womens-basketball-uconn-tennessee-jennifer-rizzotti">
<h2>Rizzotti on the UConn-Tennessee rivalry</h2>
<img src="http://cdn2.sbnation.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/14512687/dsc_0096.0_standard_709.0.jpg"></a> <span>Rizzotti offers her thoughts on the significance of the UConn-Tennessee series.</span>
</div>
<p><i><b>What did the recognition mean to her, especially since Auriemma and teammate Rebecca Lobo are already in the hall?</b></i></p>
<p> </p>
<p>"It means so much because playing at UConn defined my adult life, the people that I met and the foundations that I set in terms of relationships for the last 20 years has been about my decision to go there," Rizzotti said. "Geno is one of my best mentors and taught me so much about the game of basketball. Rebecca is one of my best friends and taught me about courage and humility. I am honored to be inducted after those guys because they are two of the closest people in my life."</p>
<p><i><b>Who had the greatest influence on Rizzotti?</b></i></p>
<p>"It would be Geno. There would be no rival there," Rizzotti said. "I think my parents taught me the most about being a competitor and being hard-working and being a good person, but as far as who influenced my basketball career, from day one it was him.</p>
<p>"He taught me how to be a leader as a young player and at that time even how to be a coach, which I never knew I wanted to do. He taught me how to use my drive and my competitiveness in the right way. He channeled all of my energies. He trusted me, and he believed in me. For everything I have accomplished in my career and for me being in the Hall of Fame, it is certainly due to him."</p>
<h4>Annette Smith-Knight: "I had a lot talent, but it was raw talent."</h4>
<p>Smith-Knight led Texas to the 1986 national title and is the school's all-time leading scorer with 2,523 points. She earned Kodak All-American honors in 1984.</p>
<p><i><b>How did Smith-Knight earn her nod to the WBHOF?</b></i></p>
<p>She took the question literally and cited her statistics before letting loose with a laugh.</p>
<p><i><b>What did the recognition mean to her?</b></i></p>
<p>"I said, ‘Wow,' and the first thing I did was call my dad (Jim Smith) - my mom (Dorothy Smith) is deceased; she passed away three years ago - and my sisters and brothers, and they were excited," she said. "There were six in my family and four of us got basketball scholarships. So I think they were more excited than I was."</p>
<p><i><b>Who had the greatest influence on Smith-Knight?</b></i></p>
<p>"My brothers and Jody Conradt," Smith-Knight said. "We played every day. We even got in trouble for playing every day because we had strict rules. When you come home, you do your homework first, you do your chores. But, of course, we didn't do that. We ran to the court. We would get spankings.</p>
<p>"I had a lot talent, but it was raw talent. I didn't know how good I really was because I didn't have the proper training but once I got there and working under her and her assistant coaches I was able to do a lot more than what I knew I had in me."</p>
<h4>Sue Wicks: "I had a vision of what greatness was"</h4>
<h4></h4>
<p>Wicks, the 1988 Naismith Player of the Year, holds school records at Rutgers for points scored (2,655), scoring average (21.5 ppg) and rebounds (1,357).</p>
<p><i><b>How did Wicks earn her nod to the WBHOF?</b></i></p>
<p>"That is a great question," she said. "I have to be honest, in a review of my career, I think I played extremely well at times. I had great seasons. I had a great career. But I don't think there was anything that changed basketball or that was a watershed moment or that was a landmark. I just played.</p>
<p>"You could talk about Nancy Lieberman or Carol Blazejowski or Cynthia Cooper, that was a moment you could remember, she did that, she changed the game, Rebecca Lobo, Tennessee teams, Geno, a different level."</p>
<p><i><b>What did the recognition mean to her?</b></i></p>
<p>"It means a lot," she said. "I just played and was part of women's basketball."</p>
<p><i><b>Who had the greatest influence on Wicks?</b></i></p>
<p>"I think, as a young girl growing up, there weren't a lot of role models," Wicks said. "It wasn't televised. It wasn't that they weren't playing. It wasn't that they weren't doing great things. I just didn't see them, so I was a fan of men's basketball.</p>
<p>"Cheryl Miller. That was it. Then, I had a vision of what greatness was. I aspired to that. The first glimpse, even if it was a small clip on television of seeing Cheryl Miller, I was blown away. I had something to dream about. When I got to Rutgers, I had Theresa Grentz, one of the best players of all time and one of the greatest coaches. She never even mentioned that she was a three-time All-American, player of the year and national champion. She was just there coaching me. She had a lot of charisma, the way held herself, I idolized her.</p>
<p>"When I was a professional in Europe, players I would see, the way they held themselves, the pride that they had, the way that they played in total obscurity most of the time, I modeled myself after them. Along the way I would find someone who had a quality I really admired and I would try and emulate them."</p>
https://www.swishappeal.com/ncaa/2013/6/11/4416474/womens-basketball-hall-of-fame-2013-player-interviews-jennifer-rizzottiMaria Cornelius2013-06-10T17:00:07-04:002013-06-10T17:00:07-04:00WBHOF interviews with Gary Blair & Jim Foster
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/A2ZrXcsGXEOm4j180OR1IbwwVgM=/2x0:3997x2663/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/14540769/20130310_ajw_sz2_402.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>USA TODAY Sports</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="http://espn.go.com/womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/9357981/women-basketball-hall-fame-inducts-six" target="new">Women's Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony took place this past Saturday</a> with six inductees, including two coaches who Swish Appeal had a chance to get interviews with. For more on the event, visit <a href="http://www.swishappeal.com/2013/6/10/4415576/womens-basketball-hall-of-fame-2013-ncaa" target="new">our storystream</a>.</p> <p><b>KNOXVILLE, Tenn.</b> - The Women's Basketball Hall of Fame added its 15th class this past weekend, a stellar group that included two coaches and four former players. The six inductees had assigned seats scattered across one exhibit area of the hall, but they often weren't sitting in them when reporters approached - they were standing at the wall reading about past honorees and seminal moments in the women's game.</p>
<p>The inductees were interviewed one-on-one by Swish Appeal and asked three questions - how did they get in the WBHOF, what did the honor mean to them and who had the greatest impact on their basketball career.</p>
<p>The inductees, coaches Gary Blair and Jim Foster and former players Peggie Gillom-Granderson, Jennifer Rizzotti, Annette Smith-Knight and Sue Wicks, offered expansive answers. We begin with the coaches inducted.</p>
<h4>Gary Blair "made all the right steps"</h4>
<p>Blair, the head coach of Texas A&M, can drain the batteries of a reporter's tape recorder, and he didn't disappoint.</p>
<p>That was in contrast to his speech during the induction ceremony, during which he was brief - and funny.</p>
<p>Blair thanked his family profusely, especially his wife, Dr. Nan Smith-Blair. He said her birthday is April 1, and he has missed so many celebrations because he is at the Final Four, which coincides with the coaches' annual meeting. Blair has gotten two teams to the Final Four - Arkansas in 1998 and Texas A&M in 2011 when he won the national title. His wife accompanied him for those trips.</p>
<p>She told him: "If you were any damn good, we would celebrate together."</p>
<p>"That is why she has doctor in front of her name, and I have coach," Blair said.</p>
<p><i><b>How did Blair earn his nod to the WBHOF?</b></i></p>
<p>"Surround yourself with good people, get into women's basketball sort of by mistake waiting on a basketball job and make the best decision of my life to stay with women's basketball," Blair said. "I am a product of Title IX. I am one of the first men who got a chance to coach women back in the inner city of Dallas. I made all the right steps - Louisiana Tech, Stephen F. Austin, Arkansas and Texas A&M, it doesn't get any better."</p>
<p>"I'm a builder. Now, can I sustain it? Can I keep this thing going? We need to get back to the Final Four. We need to have a few more All-Americans, and I need to learn how to coach better in big games."</p>
<p><i><b>What did the recognition mean to him?</b></i></p>
<p>"It's everything. When Sue Donohoe (vice president of the hall) called me last summer and told me, I just broke down," Blair said. "This was never one of my dreams at all. My dream was taking my team here (to the hall) when we played Tennessee and showing them what the history of the game was all about.</p>
<p>"It never even entered my mind that I could be up here with people like Leon Barmore and Pat Summitt and Geno Auriemma. Those are the ones that are the great, great coaches. I'm the grinder. I'm the hard worker. We're going to grind it out. We're going to play defense. We're going to scrap. And we're going to be the best that we can be. I think I've helped the game grow. This is our platform, and we're still in the growing stages of women's basketball.</p>
<p>"We need to start putting more butts in the seats and to do that you've got to be creative in marketing. The marketing director starts with the head coach. That is who the head coach has to be to help sell our product."</p>
<p><i><b>Who had the greatest influence on Blair?</b></i></p>
<p>"It wasn't any of my family because none of them are athletes. My granddad played baseball so that's why I learned baseball," he said. "I am a student. I read five newspapers a day. I don't use the Internet or any of that stuff unless someone pulls it up for me.</p>
<p>"Bob Schneider coached at West Texas State and Canyon High School, Dean Weese with the Wayland Flying Queens, Jan LaHodny, a great high school coach. She could have been the best Texas A&M coach they ever had. Leon Barmore at Louisiana Tech, he taught me preparation. He gave me a great break in my life from being a high school coach to becoming an assistant coach.</p>
<p>"And Sonja Hogg, she was the first lady of women's basketball, she changed the way people dressed in this game, she changed what a press conference was all about. She had the flair. I used to kid her that she was the Dolly Parton of women's basketball. And it worked. All three of us are in the Hall of Fame now."</p>
<h4>Jim Foster's key: "Survive a long period of time"</h4>
<p>Foster has won at least 200 games at three different schools - St. Joseph's, Vanderbilt and Ohio State - and the 1993 USBWA Coach of the Year will now take the helm at a fourth one, Chattanooga.</p>
<p><i><b>How did Foster earn his nod to the WBHOF?</b></i></p>
<p>"Survive a long period of time," he said. "I just finished my 40th year of coaching, 35 in college. I am now at my fourth university, and I have had a lot of good players, and I have had a lot of good assistant coaches. When those kind of combinations happen, the results are usually pretty good."</p>
<p><i><b>What did the recognition mean to him?</b></i></p>
<p>"That is the hardest question for me to answer because I don't have a feeling about it yet. I have to experience something," Foster said.</p>
<p>The phone call about his selection came from Carol Callan, a WBHOF board member.</p>
<p>"Carol Callan has been a good friend for 25 years," Foster said. "It turned into more of a discussion and went in a lot of different directions. It was more of an intellectual exercise than it was an emotional reaction. I am sensing it is going to be a very neat experience."</p>
<p>It was for Foster. His young grandsons attended the ceremony, and he got emotional during his speech.</p>
<p><i><b>Who had the greatest influence on Foster?</b></i></p>
<p>"I was pushed in the direction of coaching at a very young age," Foster said. "I had coached four teams by the time I was 16. We got rid of our eighth-grade CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) coach halfway through the season and the parish priest said you're now a player-coach.</p>
<p>"A couple of years later I was coaching two teams in different parts of Philadelphia. The GI Bill was my scholarship. I was attending Temple and coaching at St. Joseph's. Jack Ramsay is the modern day father of St. Joe basketball. When you are around someone like him, whenever I had those opportunities, you jump at it. I was named the coach the same year <span>Jim Lynam</span> was named the men's coach, and Jim is someone I have leaned on heavily over the years. Geno (Auriemma) was my assistant at St. Joe and then Muffet (McGraw) so I've had some pretty good people to talk basketball with."</p>
<p><i>For more on the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame induction, stay tuned to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.swishappeal.com/2013/6/10/4415576/womens-basketball-hall-of-fame-2013-ncaa">our storystream on the event</a>. <br></i></p>
https://www.swishappeal.com/2013/6/10/4415418/womens-basketball-hall-of-fame-2013-gary-blair-jim-fosterMaria Cornelius2013-06-10T08:00:07-04:002013-06-10T08:00:07-04:00Return of UConn-Tennessee series as likely as ever
<figure>
<img alt="One of the two gifts Holly Warlick presented Geno Auriemma at the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame was a pair of stemmed wine glasses with Mason jars affixed." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JAh7l2RJjCTLI7TOmm5FNgx-ZsE=/54x0:1045x661/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/14509303/dsc_0096.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>One of the two gifts Holly Warlick presented Geno Auriemma at the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame was a pair of stemmed wine glasses with Mason jars affixed. | Photo by Maria M. Cornelius.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Connecticut Huskies and Tennessee Lady Vols haven't played one another since 2007, but the likelihood that the series could return sees greater than ever.</p> <p>KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - The Women's Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony opened with a tribute to the Wayland Baptist Flying Queens, a program that won four AAU national titles and 131 games in a row from 1953 to 1958. The rowdy group of former players in attendance were told to stand - those that could, emcee Debbie Antonelli joked - and received sustained applause.</p>
<p>Prior to the ceremony, Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma and Tennessee Coach Holly Warlick hosted a reception - tickets to the sold-out event cost up to $200 for the 300-plus attendees - to benefit the hall.</p>
<p>The two greeted each other warmly, another indicator that tension between the two programs has waned after Pat Summitt ended the series in 2007 because she suspected recruiting violations at UConn, and she wanted a level playing court against a rival coach she considered a true peer.</p>
<p>The likelihood that the series could return seems greater than ever, and both coaches said they would be thrilled to meet at the Final Four in Nashville next April.</p>
<p>Warlick has a well-developed sense of humor, and she presented Auriemma with two gifts at the reception - a bottle of "Volunteer," wine and two stemmed wine glasses with Mason jars affixed because, as she said, "everyone knows we're rednecks here."</p>
<p>Warlick sampled the wine over the weekend at an early birthday party for Summitt - she will be 61 on June 14 - who was in attendance at the induction ceremony and received sustained applause.</p>
<p>"I promise you it's good wine," Warlick said of the Cabernet from the Napa Valley. As far as those Mason jar wine glasses, Warlick laughed and said, "I've had them. I thought it would be funny to give them to him."</p>
<p>Former UConn player and current Hartford coach Jennifer Rizzotti would love to see the return of the series.</p>
<p>"It was amazing," she said. "It always seemed that the magnitude of the game was so grand. It was for a number one ranking in the country. It was for a national championship or a Final Four game to get to a national championship. That is what makes a rivalry heat up as quickly as that one did in 1995 and 1996. It was awesome to be a part of it and fun to watch it.</p>
<p>"I watch as much college basketball as anyone, but I never missed the UConn-Tennessee game, and I know there is a lot of people who would say the same thing. If people are still talking about it, then it probably means it needs to come back. It's nice to see that there have been some other great rivalries that have sprouted up in the meantime, but you are talking about two programs that have some of the best coaches and some of the best players and if you're a women's basketball fan, you want to see them play each other."</p>
<p>The Lady Vols have a hole in their schedule after Baylor declined to renew the series. Texas A&M also is looking for another non-conference foe.</p>
<p>"Unfortunately, our schedule is full," said Rizzotti, the head coach at Hartford. "I would play the game as long as they'll come to Hartford. Next year I am going to have to call both of them and see if they'll come."</p>
<p>It would be somewhat amusing if Tennessee were to start playing Hartford before UConn.</p>
<p>"I don't how Geno would feel about me playing Tennessee," Rizzotti said, before adding, "I am sure he wouldn't care. He would play it, so I don't think he would care if I played it."</p>
<p><i><a target="_blank" href="http://espn.go.com/dallas/womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/9357783/women-basketball-hall-fame-inducts-six">Click here</a> for more on the induction ceremony. </i></p>
https://www.swishappeal.com/ncaa/2013/6/10/4413744/ncaa-womens-basketball-uconn-tennessee-jennifer-rizzottiMaria Cornelius