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| Marianne and me |
She was just 12, swinging from a flagpole that overlooked a four-lane highway outside of Philadelphia. When told by a passerby, “You can’t do that,” Marianne Stanley’s response was this.
“Watch me.”
So typical of this woman, whose sense of self and confidence catapulted her into heights well above even her wildest dreams.
What an honor it was for me to induct this women’s basketball legend into the Hampton Roads Sports Hall of Fame on Oct. 21 at Scope in Norfolk.
For her, it was an evening of catching up with many from Old Dominion who remember well the three teams she coached to the national championship, the last one in 1985. She looked around Scope with a gaze that suggested she was replacing all the folks in suits and ties for players with numbers, recalling that surreal experience when ODU hosted a loaded Russian national team and took a halftime lead into the locker room.
It was December 1979. Dr. J’s Virginia Squires had never sold out Scope, but Stanley’s Lady Monarchs did that night.
“Being back here in Scope brings back a flood of memories,” said Stanley, wiping away tears.
If you’ve seen “The Mighty Macs,” a feel-good film about Cathy Rush’s success at Immaculata College, you have some sense of the background Marianne hailed from. She grew up seeking out pickup games on the streets of Philadelphia against guys who towered over her. They weren’t welcoming until they realized this:
“I could pass and I could play defense,” she said.
She enrolled at Westchester State, but never attended, realizing late that the curriculum didn’t match her interests. As much as she loved sports and competing, she did not want to be pigeon holed as a physical education teacher. Instead, she went to Immaculata and majored in sociology and thrived as a point guard in a sport that was in its infancy. Theresa Grentz was among her teammates and she doesn’t put any qualifiers on calling Marianne the best point guard of all time.
ODU alum Wendy Larry played against Marianne when Immaculata visited the Fieldhouse. “She was just so aware of where the ball needed to be,” said Wendy, a graduate assistant to Stanley for the ’85 championship
In four years at Immaculata, the Macs advanced to four national championships, a feat that Diana Taurasi fell one game shy of. The next year, Marianne was an assistant to Cathy Rush and the Macs reached the Final Four.
“We were pretty damned good,” she says.
Winning was something Marianne knew about, so she wasn’t daunted when, at 23 years of age, she interviewed with ODU athletic director Jim Jarrett over breakfast at a Marriott.
real solid, but I had a lot to learn.”
success early and then had to learn how to deal with not being so successful.”