At 84, the Hall of Fame needs to induct this Texas, and basketball, legend now
.JPG "Retired Dunbar coach Robert Hughes was finally inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017. Former Granbury girls coach Leta Andrews is again a Hall finalist. The Class of 2022 will be announced the first weekend of April.")
Leta Andrews is done raising her hopes to the point she had no idea that she was a finalist again.
The former Granbury girls basketball coach didn’t even know she had made the cut until a few of her former players reached out to let her know that she’s on the list.
Over the weekend, the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame released its nine finalists for its class of 2022; it features Andrews, Manu Ginoboli, Hugh Evans, Michael Cooper, Marques Johnson, Bob Huggins, George Karl, Tim Hardaway and Marianne Stanley.
“I’ve never actually heard from anyone [at the Hall of Fame]” Andrews said when reached by phone on Monday evening at her home in Granbury. “My girls [her former players] are the ones who told me. They all said, ‘You’re going get in this time, Ms. Andrews.’”
She has done this before, many times, so she knows the routine. No need to raise expectations. No need to make travel arrangements.
Alas, it is also time.
Leta Andrews has suffered the “Robert Hughes Treatment” by the Hall for long enough.
Like the former Dunbar boys basketball coach who had to wait far too long before his induction into the Hall in 2017, Andrews deserves her moment to wear her orange jacket in Springfield, Mass.
She would love to celebrate such a moment, but, in her mind it’s OK if it does not happen.
If the Basketball Hall of Fame is ever going to induct the woman known to her flock of former players not as coach but as “Ms. Andrews,” do it now.
Ms. Andrews is 84, a widow, and while she has plenty of energy and gets out to serve Meals on Wheels, and food to first responders of Hood County, she needs to be a part of the Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2022.
She should go in while she’s young enough to enjoy the entire weekend.
She won’t know if she made it this time until the first weekend of April, when the honorees will be announced at the NCAA men’s basketball Final Four in New Orleans.
“I have all of these great memories of the players I coached and worked with, and that’s what matters,” she said. “So many of my former players still ask me to teach their girls how to shoot a basketball.
“So, I show them the right way how to shoot a basketball.”
Don’t bother looking for the criteria for what a candidate needs to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
The Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. is the tiniest of mom and pop shops that opened with the best of intentions, and is still run like a mom and pop shop for what is now a global, billion-dollar sport.
The difference is that this mom-and-pop loses hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, and no one seems to have a clue who votes on candidates, or how the process is actually conducted.
The Basketball Hall of Fame voting process is a secret wrapped in a Dan Brown novel, a labyrinth of Lewis Carroll-confusion.
Every finalist for the Hall has a good case, and there is no way to appease everyone. Not every one should be in the Hall of Fame.
Yet Leta Andrews should be in the Hall of Fame.
Along with Pat Summitt, Jody Conradt, C. Vivian Stringer, Tara Ann VanDerveer and a few other women, Leta Andrews built the sport of basketball for women in the United States.
The only difference is the voters, whomever they are, are not familiar with the name Leta Andrews the way they are a Pat Summitt, Jody Conradt and the rest.
The voters don’t need to know the name as much they need to just take five minutes to familiarize themselves with her resume. Then there is no discussion.
There’s not enough space on the Internet to list all of the achievements Andrews has amassed over her 47-year career.
In 2005, she became the winningest coach in the history of girls basketball in the United States.
In 2010, she became the winningest coach in the history of basketball in the United States, surpassing the record that had been held by Hughes.
Andrews retired with 1,416 wins, a state championship, state final fours and everything else a coach on her level could possibly achieve.
It took Hughes far too long to get in the Hall, and Andrews’ case has followed a similar trajectory.
Like Coach Hughes, Ms. Andrews has waited long enough. Right this wrong, because Leta Andrews deserves to be in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
