In honor of Black History Month, we want to celebrate Marian E. Washington and Patricia Ferguson, two of the stars on the first college national championship team.
In 1969, West Chester State College topped Western Carolina to complete an undefeated season and win the first college women’s basketball national tournament. West Chester’s Head Coach, Carol Eckman, created and organized that first college invitational tournament because college teams had only been able to compete against business-sponsored AAU teams previous to that time. The CIAW, or Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, sponsored the tournament and served as a predecessor to the AIAW and the NCAA. The CIAW governed women’s college sports from 1969 to 1971.
The 1969 Championship was the Rams’ second consecutive undefeated season and a sellout crowd showed up to cheer the team to a 56-39 victory. You can read Marian E. Washington’s powerful account in her blog.
It started an epic run by the Rams, who finished as runners-up in the CIAW National Invitation Tournament the next two years, then made history again, competing against Immaculata in the first AIAW Championship in 1972.
For creating that first national invitational tournament, coach Carol Eckman is known as the mother of the college women’s basketball national tournament and namesake of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association’s Integrity in Coaching Award.
Eckman was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999 after posting a 68-5 record through five seasons with the Rams. She also coached at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Lock Haven State College before retiring in 1977.
Washington was one of the stars of that 1969 National Championship team. She even received an invitation to play for the U.S. National Team after winning the title, and soon became one of the first two African-American women to represent Team USA.
Bessie Stockard, who played at Tuskegee University and coached the Federal City Pantherettes to an AIAW Tournament appearance in 1975, was the first African-American woman to serve as an Assistant Coach for the U.S. National Team coaching staff. A few years later, Washington became the first Black woman to serve as a Head Coach of a team in international competition in 1983, winning silver at the William Jones Cup. She won her first gold medal in 1996 as an assistant coach on the Olympic squad.
Washington started her trailblazing career as both Women’s Athletic Director and Head Coach at the University of Kansas. As the first Black woman hired as a head coach at a predominantly white institution, Washington created a powerful program that reached the AIAW Tournament four times and the NCAA Tournament 11 times. She finished her career with a 560-363 record in 31 years.
Another important player on West Chester’s championship squad was co-captain Patricia Ferguson. She served in the US Army before attending West Chester and continued her career in law enforcement after a coaching stint at Clarion State College (now Clarion University of Pennsylvania).
Never losing that competitive spirit, Ferguson participated in the 2017 World Senior Games in St. George, Utah. She suited up for the Michigan Spirits in the 3-on-3 tournament and led her team to victory at the age of 76.
Another history-maker on that team was Linda Hill-MacDonald, who recently retired after more than four decades of coaching women’s basketball. She started her career at the high school level and became the first full-time head women’s coach at Temple University in 1980. Other coaching stops included the University of Minnesota, the University of Buffalo, and the University of South Carolina, where she served as an assistant.
She also spent time in the WNBA as coach of the Cleveland Rockers. At West Chester, Hill-MacDonald competed in field hockey, basketball and lacrosse.
