Earlier this week, IDS had a chance to talk with former IU women's basketball Bea Gorton.
Gorton coached at IU during what the program considers "the greatest era in women's basketball" that saw IU go to an AIAW Final Four and a pair of Elite Eights.
The team is coming back to IU this weekend to be recognized with Final Four rings and an AIAW Final Four banner to be hung up at Assembly Hall which you can read about here.
Not all of the conversation got into the story, but you can read more of what Gorton had to say below.
IDS: What does it mean for you as a coach to have around 25 former players and staff members coming back to celebrate the accomplishments of a team from 40 years ago?
Gorton: "That says a lot. I think it says a lot about the kinds of friendships that were formed by the players. In sports, the kinds of friendships that are formed are long lasting. There's a lot of remembrance of the games, but the things that tend to stand a long time in your memory are the friendships that are formed through the years of the games, the daily practices, the trips for travel and all of that. I think what you're seeing is being drawn out by that effort that players are making to come back and spend time together and their willingness to set time out of their schedules to take the time to come back."
IDS: What was recruitment for the team like?
Gorton: "There was no recruiting, that's for sure. Not in the sense of any means that is currently known today. What we did was just work hard to get players that were on campus and made them aware that there were open tryouts for anyone women that were interested in playing basketball. So that was the approach that we used. The first year, we did not have to do any cutting of players that came to tryouts. Next year was when we began to cut back the number of players that could be on the roster because of the number of women that came to try out for the team was more than we could handle and keep on the roster. We were fortunate that there were a lot of talented athletes on campus. It was a means of letting them know about the program and as we grew, word got out about the team and interested players began to come and try out for the team. That's how the team got built, homegrown talent on the campus."
IDS: What stands out the most in your mind when reflecting back upon your years coaching at IU?
Gorton: "There are a lot of memories about the facilities that we worked in because we started first in the women's physical education building and we actually used the courts that were facilities that were teaching facilities. The courts were not even the regular dimensions. Then we moved up to the student recreation center and played up at the second floor and had both games and practice up there. Then we moved up to the track and field facility that was adjacent to Assembly Hall and was a raised court and they had a current around it because the track and field facility was a dirt facility because all kinds of dust was raised because of the team's practicing up there. Then finally we moved to assembly hall and got to practice there and use the visiting team's locker room. So there's that perspective to see all that growth."
IDS: You have mentioned the friendships and the travel. Could you talk about that more? What was it like on a gameday?
Gorton: "The biggest memories are the friendships, the people that made it all so worthwhile. There's a lot of fun things about trips, but one thing you don't miss as a coach after a lot of years is the traveling because the coach was the driver. I would drive to games and as soon as we got there we'd have to go and find the facility for the visiting team and then prepare the players for the game, have shootaround and then the game itself. Then I'd turn around and be the driver of the vans that come back home. Then you'd pray for safety in travel. We were really fortunate with safety on all of the trips that we made. Then the special memories are the travel when we qualified for the regional and national tournaments because the IU foundation plane provided travel for us for the tournament that was in New York when we made the Final Four and out to Manhattan (New York). So those were really special, special events for us. For some of the team players it was the first time they had ever flown on a plane. So there are many special memories over those years for us as a team."
IDS: How important do you feel it is for the players of today to reflect on and remember teams like your own that truly paved the way for women's athletics?
Gorton: "I think it is important because it was really a foundation period of women's athletics in each of the sports. The governing body was the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). It was a period of time when there was no scholarship and yet the women worked daily at their craft, just as hard as the athletes do today. And it paved the way for the current program. Title IX came to be during that era and it opened the door for more women to participate in athletics and it was, I think, the beginning of what would become a scholarship era that provided tremendous opportunity for women to get a college education because of the athletic skills that they have that they never would have had an opportunity to get a college education without the scholarship. That was the beginning of a whole avenue for a college career and education and I think it's important to know that if you look even across the whole US that there's a whole base of both small school and large school that started without scholarships under the offices of AIAW that had their own governing body, started a state tournament structure that set into a regional tournament and then finally to the national tournament and had national champions. So there is a history and I think it's always good to look back and have that perspective that it kind of paved the way for athletes of today and have that knowledge of those before. Athletes today, I think ought to say thank you for those former athletes that paved the road for them."
IDS: What do you make of the way Curt Miller's current IU team is doing? (Note, this question was asked before Wednesday's loss to Wisconsin and Friday's loss to Purdue.)
Gorton: "Very exciting, very exciting. Coach Miller has done just a great job. I'm very excited to see and hopeful that this is the beginning of a really successful season for them. It's a young team with a little bit of senior players mixed in and so coach miller's been very successful and it's already showing in how he's been able to turn the program around and go the right direction. Im only excited for the team and I'm very hopeful they'll be successful during the season and be able to play well and get their best result yet in the Big Ten tournament when it comes to the end of the year"
