In any other year early-April would be a time for reflecting on the Elite 8 and looking forward to the Final 4, but this year is not like any other year. Instead, we will spend the week reflecting on champions of the past, from a famous coach who won the 1947 NCAA title as a player to a Hall of Famer who led her team to a perfect 34-0 season in 1986. HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel continues our 8-part series with Sonja Hogg, who talked about winning the last AIAW tourney in 1981 and winning the 1st NCAA women’s tourney in 1982.
You were a PE teacher at Ruston High School when you interviewed for a position in the Louisiana Tech PE department: how did you end up creating a women’s basketball team at the school despite never having played the game yourself in high school or college? I was teaching at the high school when a position in the PE department became available: I put my name in the hat because that was a dream of mine. I was hired to teach at my alma mater of Louisiana Tech and President F. Jay Taylor asked me to drop by his office. I showed up and he said that 3 young ladies had asked him about the prospect of creating a women’s basketball team. I said that was a wonderful idea and he asked me if I would consider starting the program from scratch. I almost stopped in my tracks and told him that I had never coached the sport, but I knew it was needed and I said I would get this thing rolling until he could find someone else to take over after a couple of years. We did not have scholarships so Dr. Taylor gave me $5000 to start the program. I had about 68 women show up for tryouts including some great high school basketball players. I ordered some fabulous custom-made uniforms and some Converse tennis shoes. I was told to have my players act like nice young ladies and that I should schedule our games on different nights than the men’s games. I met Leon Barmore at a Bob Knight coaching clinic where I was the only women among approximately 300 men. I went up on stage to conduct a demonstration and I received a standing ovation! I was so young and stupid that I did not realize I should not have been taking on so much responsibility and trying to do everything. I later asked Dr. Taylor for an assistant and he was our #1 fan: he let me hire Leon and we went 20-8. I give a lot of credit to Leon as well as assistant coach Gary Blair.
You created the nickname “Lady Techsters”: how did you come up with it, and how did people like it? The school mascot is a Bulldog…but in 1974 I did not feel that “Lady Bulldogs” would be appropriate because down in the South lady dogs are commonly referred to as “bitches”. I kept trying to come up with a nickname and noticed that an elderly newspaper columnist would refer to all of our alums as “Techsters” so I decided to try “Lady Techsters”. The name stuck and everyone liked it. When our AD heard me use it on the radio he almost drove right off the road!
In the 1981 AIAW tourney title game you beat Tennessee by 20 PTS to finish the season at 34–0: what was it like to face Pat Summitt with a title on the line, and what did it mean to you to win a title? That was a phenomenal season: we were rolling pretty well. Pat and I became good friends in the 1970s so we decided to schedule a game against each other every year. Pat had not won any titles at that time so it was not as big a deal as if we had played them a couple of decades later. Tennessee kept pressing us and we just kept beating their press down the court: Pat stuck with it the entire game and we ended up leaving everything out on the floor. Every time Tennessee came to play us I would send our own bus to transport Pat’s team from the airport and I gave her an extra car to use. The night before we played our president would invite both teams over to dinner and give her a special bottle of perfume…and then after we played Pat would come over to my house to wash the Tennessee uniforms! By staying independent and not joining a conference we could invite all of the powers in women’s basketball to come play us: USC, Old Dominion, etc. There were some years when people would actually scalp tickets to attend our games, which was unbelievable. I do not care how many titles Coach Geno Auriemma wins: there will never be another Pat Summitt in terms of promoting the sport and speaking to young coaches. There are not many coaches now who give so much of themselves: I could not hold a candle to her.
In the 1982 NCAA tourney title game you beat Cheyney State to win the 1st-ever NCAA women’s title: how big a deal was it at the time? There were actually 2 national champs that year as Rutgers beat Texas for the AIAW title in Philly. We had lots of fans who came to our title game. Cheyney State coach Vivian Stringer is still 1 of my good friends. Our fans did not expect us to win by single-digits: our team was so loaded that they thought we should have won every game by 30 PTS! People are surprised these days when players go to UConn knowing they will not get as much playing time as if they went elsewhere but they just want to accomplish their goal of winning a title. The stability of Pat’s and Geno’s coaching staffs also helped them a lot.
In the early 1980s you had a 54-game winning streak: did it reach a point where the fans just expected you to win every time you team stepped onto the court? They just about did. We started our tear after going undefeated in 1981. We did not lose any players from the previous year and we added a great freshman shooter in Pam Gant. As we got close to breaking Coach Margaret Wade’s record at Delta State (51 wins in a row), I called her up because I had always wanted our program to emulate hers. I invited her to come to our gym and be my guest when we were scheduled to break her record and she said that she would. We flew her down here and gave her a plush green chair to sit in right at half-court. We broke the record and Miss Wade said some words after the game: it was a wonderful affair with lots and lots of press. She spent the night here due to some bad weather and I got to have breakfast with her the next morning: I look up to her so much. After we lost to ODU by 2 PTS on the road to break the streak it helped us refocus on trying to win a title. My hotel phone was blowing up because the media thought that it was the end of the world but the players needed a little kick in the butt. It was like an instant replay of ODU’s own situation a few years earlier: they won the AIAW title in 1979, we beat them by 2 PTS during the regular season the following year, and then they ended up winning their 2nd straight title in 1980.
From 1982-1985 you were co-head coach with your former top assistant Leon Barmore: what was it like to be a co-coach, and what made you 2 so effective (you went 90-9 during your 3 years as co-coaches)? Leon and I go back a long, long time to when we were college classmates. He was coach of the boys’ team at Ruston High School and there was not a girls’ team at the time so I got to know him pretty well. No women’s basketball team in the state of Louisiana had a full-time assistant back then so I give all the credit to Dr. Taylor for giving us his full support: he was our #1 fan. We originally hired Leon as a “coach of women’s sports” and he was later assigned to me. He was a bit of a “fish out of water” because he had never coached women before but we worked very well together. I elevated him from assistant coach to associate coach and we just kept on winning. Wins and losses meant a lot to him: on the men’s side you will get fired if you do not have a higher number on the left side as compared to the right side. LSU offered Leon a job to become their head coach but he did not want to go to a big football school with big expectations: it was just not in his nature and he told me that he wanted to stay right here. I tried to surround myself with smart people and we named him co-coach so the wins could also go on his record: he was already doing the Xs and Os. When I 1st got there I was teaching full-time along with everything else: to think that I could do everything at once was just stupidity!
In the 1983 NCAA tourney title game Kim Mulkey missed a shot at the buzzer in a 2-PT loss to USC: did you think the shot was going in, and where does that rank among the most devastating losses of your career? We probably should have tried to get the ball inside at the end of the game but I am so proud of everything that Kim has accomplished as both a player and coach. Cheryl Miller was a freshman who set all kinds of records and USC also had the McGee twins so the Trojans dominated the sport for the next 2 years. You never like to lose but you have to respect your competition.
In 1994 you were hired as coach at Baylor: why did you come out of retirement? I just decided to get back into the college game after 9 years away from it. It was tough to get this program up to respectability: it was arguably harder than starting the Louisiana Tech program from scratch. We did not have a single video machine on which to watch tape but at least we had basketballs/water bottles! After retiring from coaching I stayed at Baylor to do some fundraising and it has been a wonderful ride to see Kim develop her program here. I eventually convinced Leon to come here as Kim’s assistant: I told him that he could just focus on coaching and work with Kim without having to worry about recruiting.
In 2009 you were inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame: where does that rank among the highlights of your career? It is probably the pinnacle. It shocked me because I had been off the floor for such a long time. I raise funds for every area of the university and have had the chance to meet so many great people. These have been the best years to be a Baylor Bear in a long time and things are kicking on all cylinders. I recall the exact day that it happened: I called Pat Summitt to wish her a happy birthday on the morning of June 14, 2008. She called me back later that afternoon: I thought she was just going to say that she got my message. When she and Coach Billie Moore congratulated me on getting elected I was just in tears. You start to think about how you got there and I began reflecting on all of my great players/assistants. 2 weeks after the induction I got inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and on the drive to Louisiana I called my ex-husband to thank him for his support. It has been a great run with great family/friends. I like working with young people but it is also rewarding to work with the older folks to help them realize their dreams. The people who support us here at Baylor are diehard fans.
When people look back on your career, how do you want to be remembered the most? I would like to think that I had an impact on Title IX and helped paved the way for a lot of other people. I think back to the pioneers like Miss Wade as well as the coaches from my era like Summitt/Kay Yow. Back in the day we would go recruit against each other in the morning and then go out to dinner together at night: I doubt that still happens today. You can be enemies during a game but we were all friends off the court once the game was over. We are mostly dinosaurs now but there are still a few young ones left! I feel like a trailblazer to remember where we were then and see where we are now. I hated to lose a recruit but I never took it personally. I tried to be kind and had a love of people. I enjoyed every aspect of whatever career I had at the time: my glass was always half-full.