Basketball Hall of Fame’s ongoing snub of winningest high school coach reeks of sexism
.JPG "Former Granbury girls’ basketball coach Leta Andrews, the sport’s winningest coach in the country, said the Basketball Hall of Fame called her on Monday to inform her that she is not a part of its Class of 2022.")
Leta Andrews is too kind, sweet and decent to say it, but since I’m none of those this isn’t an issue.
The fact that Leta Andrews will not have a spot in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in its Class of 2022 is old-school sexism.
If Leta Andrews was male she would not only be in the Basketball Hall of Fame, but she would have a statue in front of the building.
The Hall of Fame, and its secret group of voters, treats women and their contributions to basketball more like an annoying younger sibling who refuses to get lost.
There is not any justifiable reason why Leta Andrews does not have a spot in the Hall of Fame.
She has more wins than any other basketball coach in the United States. One would think that ought to do it, but somehow it doesn’t.
And it doesn’t because Leta Andrews is a woman. There is no other reason.
On Monday morning, Andrews received a call from the Naismith Hall of Fame to say that she did not receive the required number of votes to join its Class of 2022.
“Well, I’ve just given up. I’ll put it that way,” Andrews said when reached by phone on Monday afternoon at her home in Granbury.
Monday was not the easiest of days for the woman forever known as Ms. Andrews. Monday was the four-year mark of the death of her husband.
“I wilted for a little bit, but I told [my daughter, Sissy], ‘You know how happy I’ve been in my coaching career. And the success we tasted, those are the memories I will hold on to forever and ever,’” she said.
Andrews, 84, was one of nine finalists for the Hall’s proposed Class of 2022. Had Monday’s phone call included good news, her weekend plans would have been to be at the NCAA’s men’s Final Four in New Orleans where she would have received her first public welcome into her sport’s highest honor.
Every candidate has a case. Anyone who lobbies for their coach, or their friend, for induction is upset if it doesn’t happen.
And in Andrews’ 47-year coaching career, she won 1,416 games, the record-holder for any coach in the United States.
The record she broke belonged to former Dunbar boys’ coach Robert Hughes, who is a member of the Hall of Fame.
“I guess it’s hard for [the Hall of Fame] to reach down in Texas to do something,” she said. “I don’t even know who the voters are. No one knows the labor I put in. But I’d go back and do it all again. I enjoyed every day of it. I have a truckload of memories.”
Long before Andrews was wrongly excluded from a deserved spot in her sport’s highest honor, no major sports hall of fame needs an overhaul more than the basketball version in Springfield, Mass.
The game of basketball was born in Springfield, Mass., and the location of its Hall of Fame is terrible. Springfield is centrally located in the middle of Just Keep Driving.
As a tourist destination the Basketball Hall of Fame is a strange cocktail of overpriced and disappointment.
The Hall of Fame is almost as bad as its voting procedures, which are these vague, secretive papal-like rules where the powers that be don’t want to reveal any of it because they don’t want to lose control.
All of it needs to be re-done, but they won’t do it.
As a result, some deserving people have been denied their spot, and their moment.
People like Leta Andrews did more for basketball than Bill Self, Jerry Reinsdorf or Scottie Pippen — all of whom are Hall inductees.
Leta Andrews is a founder of basketball for women, not just someone who scored a lot of points and won some championships.
Andrews created a basketball game for generations of girls, who passed the game down to their children and their children.
Today we think nothing of the fact that women play major college basketball on TV, and that there is a professional league.
There is a direct correlation between a Leta Andrews and all the women who play basketball today.
The problem is Ms. Andrews is a woman, and the Basketball Hall of Fame voters are clueless as to the significance of not only her achievements, but what she created.
Andrews did say the Hall of Fame told her that she will be on the ballot again in 2023.
Basketball Hall of Fame, be better.
When you call her one year from now it had be better to tell her that she’s going to make the short trip to Houston for the 2023 Final Four and then, finally, Springfield for the Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinement.
If you don’t, it only makes you look like a sexist pig.
