New dominance at Old Dominion

Sporting News, The, Jan 27, 1997 by Milton Kent

One of the nation's elite women's programs in the late 1970s and early '80s--in the days before the NCAA even governed women's athletics--the Monarchs have endured and now find themselves back among the very best

There's nothing like tradition to put little things like beating the No. 1 team in the country and the defending national champions within a three-week span into proper context.

That's the recent resume of the second-ranked Old Dominion women's basketball team, which knocked off then-top-ranked Stanford and last year's NCAA champion Tennessee, between December 17 and January 7. At most any other program, those two prominent accomplishments would be tantamount to hoisting a championship banner from the rafters.

Except that when the Monarchs go to practice each day at the ODU Field House in Norfolk, Va., they already see three such banners flying over their court, which serve as emblems of past glories and road maps to possible future-triumphs.

"You come in knowing that your school has won three national championships and you feel the tradition already," senior guard Stacy Himes says. "Nancy, when she does telecasts, is always talking about Old Dominion."

That's Nancy as in Leberman-Cline, one of the greatest players in women's basketball history, who led the Lady Monarchs to two of those titles nearly two decades ago. Like the rest of the women's hoop world, Lieberman-Cline has taken notice of ODU's return to prominence, which includes a 14-1 record, a 13-game winning streak and a 4-1 mark against top 15 opponents.

And just like the old days, when Lieberman-Cline, a New York native and Basketball Hall of Famer, ran the offense, their Monarchs are doing it with a flashy-point guard plunked down in the South from a strange land, namely Portugal's Ticha Penicheiro, ranked among the nation's leaders in steals and assists.

"They're a crowd-pleasing team," says Lieberman-Cline, now a broadcaster. "They remind me very much of the teams that I played for at Old Dominion. They're unselfish players trying to make each other better and enjoying playing for the fans, and people around the country are really warming up to the style of game they're seeing. It's ironic that it's my alma mater, but they are fun and they are good."

To understand-how special OLd Dominion's current march-for a championship is, a trip to the not-so-distant past is in order.

In the mid-1973s, when such current big names as Rebecca Lobo, Sheryl Swoops and Lisa Leslie were mere youngsters, smaller schools such as Delta State (Miss.), with the great Lucy Harris; Immaculata College (Pa.); Louisiana Tech; and Old Dominion battled regularly for women's basketball supermacy.

Gradually, as the effects of Title IX, which requires schools to offer equal opportunities to men and women, began to take hold, talented players found their way to bigger schools, leaving the Immaculatas and Delta States by the wayside. That exodus also helped bring on the demise of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, which ran women's collegiate athletics until it was forced out of business by the NCAA in 1983.

But Louisiana Tech and Old Dominion stuck around. The Lady Techsters won NCAA championships in 1982 and 1938 and reached the Final Four three years ago; ODU, which captured, AIAW titles in 1979 and 1980, behind Lieberman-Cline, won an NCAA championship in 1985. Anne Donovan, the most dominant center in women's history, and 1980, behind Lieberman-Cline, won an NCAA championship in 1985. Anne Donovan, the most dominant center in women's history, joined Lieberman-Cline, for the 1980 title and was a two-time National Player of the Year and Basketball Hall of Famer. Donovan was an ODU assistant coach and helped recruit many of the current Monarchs until she took over East Carolina's program last season.

As programs have come and gone through women's basketball, Old Dominion, a school of 17,000 students, has appeared in all but two of the 15 NCAA Tournaments, with a current streak of five in a row. At a time when tradition is defined by the current college athlete as what happened the year before, Monarch players are steeped in the regal nature of their program.

"It's very important that they understand that (tradition), because they are not just playing for themselves, but they're playing for everyone that has played before them in the same uniform," says coach Wendy Larry, who played for ODU from 1973 to '76. "There's that expectation, there's tradition, there is a pride, if you will, as far as the Old Dominion women's basketball program is concerned.

"Certainly it's everyone's responsibility to maintain that, and I think that has a lot to do with why this program didn't disappear. They came in here with the understanding that every year we were going to try to get to the NCAA Tournament."

Since last season, the Monarchs have proven themselves capable of more than just reaching the tournament. Last year's 29-3 record included a 67-64 win over Georgia, which went on to finish as the national runner-up; a fifth straight Colonial Athletic Association tournament championship; and a No.2 seed in the NCAA East regional.