Delta State’s women’s basketball legacy endures even as national spotlight has faded

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CLEVELAND, Miss. (AP) — A sparse crowd drifted into Walter Sillers Coliseum for Delta State’s first women’s basketball game in 1973.

It was a 4 p.m. tipoff against Holmes Community College, announced only in the local paper in rural Cleveland, Mississippi. There were no tickets, no concessions or buzz. Just a handful of curious women's basketball fans with no clue what this team led by a former high school coach named Margaret Wade could be.

“We had no expectations because, see, the coach came from the high school, and she had never coached college ball," said Dot Bright, a 1962 Delta State graduate who still lives just a few blocks from the school. "So we thought, 'Oh, OK. It’s all in the family. We thought it was just little hometown people.”

What Bright and a few others saw that day was the beginning of something bigger. Within a couple of years, Delta State became one of women's basketball's early powerhouses. The Lady Statesmen were the first No. 1 team when the women's college basketball poll debuted 50 years ago and won three straight national championships in the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) from 1975-1977.

The Lady Statesmen will be recognized during “The AP Top 25 Fan Poll Experience” being held Thursday-Saturday at Arizona State’s First Amendment Forum in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The poll has served as a road map for the rise of the sport, though a lot has changed since the NCAA took over in 1982.

The women's basketball spotlight has since shifted elsewhere as money reshaped the sports landscape and large programs with big budgets — like the powerhouses in this weekend’s Final Four including UConn and South Carolina — began to dominate.

In Cleveland, Delta State's rich legacy still resonates.

“People still support it," Delta State athletic director Mike Kinnison said. "While we’ve had some ups and downs with it, it’s still a good program. That's still very important to me that we keep that tradition and keep that history and heritage out front.”

Reminders of that history are scattered across Delta State's campus. The basketball court is named after coach Lloyd Clark, who led the program to three national titles in 1989, 1990 and 1992 after its move to the NCAA's Division II. The jerseys of star players including women's basketball pioneer Lusia Harris are hanging in the gym. A “Hall of Fame” room of photos and trophies is set up in the athletic building chronicling those dominant days.

Current Delta State coach Tracy Stewart-Lange makes sure prospective players are aware of the program's legacy when they arrive on campus.

Stewart-Lange, who just led the Lady Statesmen to an 18-11 record in her fourth season, stops recruits by the stadium's concourse to see a replica of the Wade Trophy given each year to the best player in women's basketball, which is encased near the front door, as well as a display of Delta State's national championship trophies under Wade and Clark.

Even Delta State football coaches bring up Wade, Clark and Harris when selling recruits on the school.

“You try to give them little snippets of, ‘Guys, this is where you are now,’” Stewart-Lange said. “'Don’t take it for granted. Step into those shoes and shine and push it forward. Get it back to the top.'”

Wade, who had coached at nearby Cleveland High School years before taking over at Delta State ahead of the 1973 season, had a roster that included the future Hall of Famer, Harris, who became one of the greatest women's players ever.

But publicity was scarce that first year. Former sports information director Langston Rogers recalled that many local and regional papers mostly ran box scores — until the wins and crowds became impossible to ignore.

The Lady Statesmen went undefeated in 1974, upsetting Philadelphia powerhouse Immaculata to win the AIAW national title and quickly building national credibility with wins over teams like Ole Miss and Auburn. They eventually drew thousands to venues like Madison Square Garden and UCLA's Pauley Pavilion, a rarity in women's hoops during that time.

Demand at home far exceeded the 3,000-seat Walter Sillers Coliseum, so portable bleachers were brought in and students sat along stage railings to squeeze inside.

"Everybody in Cleveland knew us and knew our names," said Debbie Brock, starting point guard from 1974-78. “You would drive up to the Sonic — and we didn’t have many restaurants or anything then — but I’d go to the Sonic, and the man would say, ‘Great game tonight.’”

Kinnison, athletic director since 2019, is trying to recapture those times.

After the NCAA replaced the AIAW as the governing body for women's college sports, Delta State and other small colleges faced a major challenge to stay competitive on a national scale.

Recruiting advantages and national media attention have since dwindled, and for a while it was hard to bring in the same caliber of coaches.

“People don’t jump up and down when they find out they’re moving to the Mississippi Delta,” Bright said. “It’s hard to recruit here. I think the coach we have now, Coach Lange, she is doing an awesome job ... We have a very good record this year, some of the best since Lloyd Clark.”

Bright, 82, still never misses a game though they're much quieter than they were 50 years ago.

Stewart-Lange runs into people around the Cleveland area who talk of their memories from those days. That gives her hope that local support can still remain even as the national spotlight has faded.

“I do feel like the undercurrent is there within the community,” Stewart-Lange said. “It’s been done before. And it can be done again.”

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AP Top 25 Fan Poll Experience: https://apnews.com/https:/apnews.com/projects/arizona-state-fan-poll-experience/

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness