Day 4 of our Northeast Trip took Executive Producer Brenda VanLengen and the Real Media crew to Queens College, where the 1973 AIAW Championship was played. That court is now named after legendary coach Lucille Kyvallos, who we spoke with, just feet away from her signature on the floor.
Pictures from the first three days of our trip can all be found on the If Not For Them gallery page.
Lucille Kyvallos took the helm in 1968 and helped develop Queens College into one of the nation’s premier programs. The Knights were ranked in the Top 10 for six straight years during her career and were the first women’s basketball team inducted into the NYC Basketball Hall of Fame.
We also talked to her former player Gail Marquis who was a two-time All-American at Queens College. She was a freshman on the 1973 team that reached the championship game, where Queens College faced Immaculata. That game started a storied rivalry that both she and Kyvallos talked about. In 1974, Marquis hit the game-winner to break Immaculata’s 35-game winning steak and she still remembers the exact play they ran. We heard about that too, plus the day when the two teams met in the first women’s college game played at Madison Square Garden.
We will spend the final day of our trip with Donna Lopiano, who was the first Director of Women’s Athletics at the University of Texas. That put her in the middle of the Title IX debates. Stay tuned to this page for more updates about If Not For Them and follow our new social media accounts too. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at @IfNotForThem. Promo videos are available on our YouTube channel If Not For Them; Brenda VanLengen, Exec Producer.
