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Basketball

How has the sport of women’s basketball developed?

On the college scene, legendary C. Vivian Stringer (1948–) became the first woman’s basketball coach to advance to the Final Four from two different colleges. She coached the women’s team at historically black Cheyney State University in 1982 and led the team to the NCAA tournament in Philadelphia. In 1983, while at the University of Iowa, she led her Hawkeyes to a place in the NCAA Final Four. In 1995 she moved to Rutgers University and became the country’s highest-paid head woman’s basketball coach. She went on to record six hundred victories by 2000. In 1999 Carolyn Peck (1966–) became the first black woman to coach a team to the women’s NCAA national championship. She coached the Purdue Boilermakers to a 62–45 win over Duke and to its first NCAA championship. Women have become referees as well; for example, in 1997 Violet Palmer became the first black woman referee in the NBA.



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