March 9, 2006
By Shelly Schmidt
Redbird On-Line Insider Reporter
Illinois State University was Pat McKinzie's first choice in 1975 and McKinzie was Illinois State's first choice to be the first female basketball student-athlete to receive an athletics scholarship. Now, 30 years after her freshman year, the relationship may be long distance, but the love affair continued between McKinzie and Redbird basketball.
The Redbirds fell upon a gold mine in 1975, when it discovered women's basketball player Pat McKinzie ... or was it the other way around, as McKinzie seems to think.
"In the mid 1970s, choosing a college was simple," said McKinzie. "Illinois State had the best women's basketball program in the Midwest and the best women's coach in the country, Jill Hutchinson."
When Sterling High School decided to begin to allow girls to play sports, McKinzie was a junior. From a coaching family, she played as many sports as she could at Sterling.
"I played all seasons," McKinzie said. "Volleyball, basketball, track, softball, but basketball was always my favorite."
And it showed. McKinzie holds eight Sterling high school records in scoring and rebounding. Her teams won two NCIC Championships, she was captain and MVP and she received the 1st Roscoe Eades Award for best female athlete. Her place in Sterling history was cemented, and eventually she became charter inductee to Sterling High School Hall of Fame and first female athlete from Sterling High School to receive a full athletic scholarship to college, and much more. Sterling High School was just the beginning for McKinzie.
According to McKinzie, she perfected her game by "osmosis." McKinzie's father, Jim McKinzie was co-coach of the first Illinois High School Association Girls Championship basketball team, and her grandfather, Ralph McKinzie, is the legendary 'Coach Mac' of Northern Illinois and Eureka College football fame. The elder McKinzie coached President Ronald Reagan in the 1930s and was still coaching college football five decades later. Pat believes her passion for sports was inherited.
So, McKinzie was as eager to play for Illinois State as pioneering Redbird women's basketball coach Hutchison was to coach her.
"Pat was a tremendous competitor and the most skilled kid of her time," Hutchison said.
Hutchison and McKinzie still keep in contact and Hutchison spoke of McKinzie's passion for the game, just as McKinzie did.
"A game played for pure joy. As essential to my well being as the air I breathed," McKinzie said.
But Hutchison knew McKinzie learned more than just basketball from basketball.
"Pat had an appreciation what basketball and competing taught her about life," said Hutchison.
McKinzie's 1,473 career points set the standard at Illinois State. In the three decades since, just four Redbird players have scored more. She teamed with 1976 USA Olympian Charlotte Lewis to lead Illinois State to three Illinois Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (IAIAW) state championships--the rough equivalent to today's conference championships in the days before the NCAA welcomed women's sports into the fold
These accomplishments didn't come easily for McKinzie, who said she challenged the gender barrier every day by demanding, "I got winner," in a gym full of men.
Playing for ISU was a great stepping stone for McKinzie, who was drafted into the first women's professional basketball league, the WBL, and played one season on the DC Metros. The Metros folded five months later, which left McKinzie feeling as though she had missed out.
"We lived on broken dreams and shattered promises," McKinzie said.
However, McKinzie does acknowledge the fact that the WBL helped pave the way for the present day WNBA.
"When I saw my first WNBA game, 25 years after the WBL folded, I cried. It is amazing how far women's basketball has come, both in the level of play and exposure to public," McKinzie said.
Changes to the game, the players, the coaches and technology put the game under an evaluative scrutiny McKinzie never saw as a player. To her and her teammates, winning was the only statistic that mattered.
"In the 1970s, the three-point shot was non-existent and blocked shots weren't recorded at all," McKinzie said.
Perhaps basketball has been robbed of its simplicity, but that hasn't kept McKinzie, or her family, away from it. Before going on to coach varsity girls' basketball, McKinzie did a little globetrotting when she became the first American to play on the first division team in Asnieres (Paris) France, and later in Marburg, Germany. While on the teams she was able to travel and play in seven different European countries.
During McKinzie's second season playing for Germany her competitive basketball career ended after a car accident.
"Sports taught self-discipline, perseverance and acceptance of defeat; lessons far more valuable off the court than on, when after my accident I had to fight to regain use of my fingers, arm, and leg," McKinzie said.
The auto accident ended her playing career, but not her passion for the game. McKinzie began coaching in Europe, first at the American School of Paris and now at the International School of Geneva, Switzerland. She has coached international high schools to victory in five straight European Championships from 1999-2003. McKinzie's coaching style reflects her Midwestern USA roots.
"Indebted, to those coaches who believed in me at a time when no one believed in girls, today I instill fundamentals of the Heartland; discipline, tolerance, integrity and respect, into young athletes from all four corners of the world," McKinzie said.
As McKinzie has inherited coaching skills from her father and grandfather, her children have developed her traits of great motivation and athleticism. Both her son and daughter play basketball in Switzerland. Her son's team won the Swiss National Championship for age group under 15 and her daughter made it to the Division III Final Four her freshman year at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.
McKinzie, a small town girl from Sterling, Ill. who became an ISU legend before heading to Europe, sees basketball's global connection of people and life.
"Teams force us to connect 'man to man.' Teams give us a sense of belonging. The round ball mimics our globe. What goes 'round comes round in life and love and basketball," McKinzie said.
