I met the REAL Cathy Rush

Growing up in North Carolina, I was aware that several colleges from the state had strong women's basketball teams, and when I started attending NCState as a freshmen, the Wolfpack Women were a fixture in the national top 20 throughout my college career. I attended almost all of the home games and would travel to several away games each year. We had legendary coach Kay Yow and NCState was always a threat to make noise on the national scene.

Of course, women's basketball didn't get much media attention and I wasn't really familiar with the history of the early years in the women's game...which makes my encounter with Cathy Rush kind of sad, in retrospect. If I could have a do-over, I would have appreciated it more and been more inquiring...and might have even asked for her autograph.

It was in 1987...at the NCAA Tournament East Regional in Fayetteville, NC. NCState had advanced to the Sweet 16, and would face Rutgers in the second game. Defending national champion Texas was also at the East Regional, and blew out James Madison in the first game. Rutgers was then coached by Theresa Grentz, who was center on the Immaculata national championship teams covered in "The Mighty Macs".

During halftime of the NCState/Rutgers game, the older lady sitting next to me started up a conversation and complimented me on my enthusiasm for my team. The woman was Cathy Rush...although I would not know who she was for several more years. She never told me her name...but did say that the Rutgers coach was one of her players when she coached college basketball several years earlier. Looking back, I will always consider this an opportunity wasted...but I was only 20 years old and hadn't yet developed a true appreciation for history.

Rutgers beat NCState that day, ending our season. I did go back to Fayetteville two days later to watch Rutgers play Texas for a spot in that year's Final Four, and was pleased that the older lady was there again...and I cheered loudly for Rutgers, which was up by 8 points at one time before Texas came roaring back to win. I drove back to Raleigh and resumed my normal college life and eventually graduated and with time, this encounter faded into the recesses of my mind.

During the spring of 1994, on the 20th anniversary of Immaculata's three-peat, USA Today ran a fantastic article on Immaculata, with several pictures. There were pics of Marianne Stanley and Theresa Grentz, (who was named Theresa Shank when she played for Immaculata) and one with Coach Cathy Rush talking with her team during a timeout.

I was in a restaurant eating breakfast when I read that article and literally spilled my coffee when I saw that picture. SHE WAS THE WOMAN I HAD SAT NEXT TO IN FAYETTEVILLE BACK IN 1987! It was only then that I grasped the importance of who that woman really was and for the last 20 years, I have lived with regret that I didn't ask her more questions about Immaculata, the nuns who used to beat buckets with spoons and what it was really like before the big schools started dedicating resources to the women's game.

With the advent of Internet, I was able to fill in the missing pieces and have a decent grasp on the history and development of the women's game. I went to see "The Mighty Macs" when it was released to the theaters; it remains the last movie I paid to see in a theater and I was satisfied they stayed close to the true story. It was nice to see Theresa Grentz and some of the other Immaculata players make their cameo appearances (as nuns).

But I will always wonder what it would have been like to have a cup of coffee with a trailblazer like Cathy Rush and listen to her stories from the Immaculata days. Looking back, getting to sit next to her for a few hours, and it's hard to believe it's been almost 30 years, is one of the great high points of my life...though I did not grasp the importance at the time.

Wow...didn't mean to type this much! Kudos to anyone who read the whole thing!