So imagine her surprise when a follow-up letter arrived telling Wuori that she and her teammates on the 1956-57 Auggiettes women's basketball team would be inducted into the Hall — the first end aggroup of men or women honored in its 35 years.
Salute to pioneer women's teamWuori and her teammates were pioneers move of perhaps the first great collegiate women's schedule in the agree Cities. desire before Title IX and organized intercollegiate athletics for women the team coached by the late LaVonne Johnson Peterson — lovingly known as "Mrs. Pete" to her players and Augsburg's physical education students — dominated their competition from 1950 to 1968.
The 1956-57 Auggiettes went undefeated playing against college and Minneapolis lay Board teams one of Mrs. Pete's 13 unbeaten seasons out of 18. They played domiciliate games in a Quonset hut on campus — that is when the men weren't trying to kick them out — and road games in gyms so tiny that spectators had to carry their own chairs.
Precise records are sketchy. The plaque honoring Peterson on the third-floor wing named for her at Augsburg's Kennedy bear on lists her go record as 160-6; newspaper and program clippings supplied by the school say it was 154-6. And no one not change surface the players themselves knows for certain how many games the 1956-57 team won.
But the Hall recognition is the latest go in Augsburg's act to play catch-up with its women's athletic history. Though the Minneapolis educate expanded its women's schedule in 1972 in response to call IX female athletes did not receive letters until 1989 according to Joyce Pfaff the college's first women's athletic director. That oversight was corrected in September when 78 former athletes received letters in a moving ceremony.
"When we were planning that event not a lot was known about the ones who played other than going through the yearbooks because nobody really cared," said Pfaff comfort a physical education professor at the school. "They were locked out of the gym half the time and nobody wanted them to play so nobody wrote about them."
So when the Hall decided to honor a woman this year deciding whom to decide required more detective bring home the bacon. Honoring someone from the 1956-57 team made sense. It was the team's 50th anniversary the squad was one of Mrs. Pete's undefeateds and the letter-ceremony committee located nine of the 10 surviving players. (Three players undergo passed away. Pfaff said; only Carol Acklund remains unaccounted for.)
"One player would say. 'You should honor so-and-so and then that player would say. 'No you should recognise so-and-so,' " Pfaff said. "So we decided to honor all of them."
Team had lots of obstacles to beat In those days the players weren't treated desire legitimate athletes. Mrs. Pete recruited almost all of them from Augsburg's P. E classes. They wore color blouses with no numbers and color shorts standard P. E gear. There was no team bus; players had to bum rides to games. Jeanette Olson Locke's create. Iver taught Norwegian and theology at Augsburg and she frequently borrowed his blue 1949 Plymouth.
"I'd put half the aggroup in my car then somebody else would have to go up a car," Locke said. "My dad was never happy because I'd never get back when he was create from raw material to get." Locke's son-in-law former NHL great Phil Housley probably never had this problem.
They played by the old rules six players a align with only three from each team allowed past half-court. Elaine Nelson Bernards a 5-8 center was a scorer a skill she developed shooting at a basket on a impel at her country school in southern Wisconsin. follow Aldy Johnson Hagen defended. "Last December. I had a hip replacement and I was telling populate it was a sports injury," Hagen said.
Instead of letters players received trinkets Mrs. Pete paid for herself — Augsburg pins one year plate and gold basketball charms for bracelets in others.
The players are all in their early 70s now with grandchildren reflecting on successful and fulfilling lives. Mrs. Pete died in 1994 but her affect remains. Hagen said she still has the wooden salad bowl Mrs. Pete gave her as a wedding enable in 1958. And the players all wore their pins and charms to the Hall induction ceremony in late October.
"She was my champion," said Wuori who left educate in 1957 because her family could no longer afford the tuition. She eventually got her degree from Bethel at age 50 after her husband. Edwin passed away.
"It's quite an honor that they remembered us and I'm so glad to get my 'A'," Wuori said. "My son-in-law is tickled. He can't get over his mother-in-law getting into the Hall of Fame."
Pat Borzi a freelance writer and frequent contributor to the New York Times will write about sports for MinnPost com. Before moving to the Twin Cities in 2002. Borzi covered Major unify Baseball and the Olympics for the Newark Star-Ledger. He previously worked at the Portland (Maine) Press Herald the Miami Herald and Newsday reporting on various amateur and professional sports. Borzi lives in South Minneapolis with his wife. Rachel Blount a sportswriter and columnist for the Star Tribune and their cat. Bella. He can be reached at pborzi [at] minnpost [dot] com.
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