Bambie first...
Mighty Mac forever

By Colleen Boyle Sharp
For the Times

It’s been 36 years since the miraculous Mighty Macs of Immaculata University stormed college basketball and took the first Women’s National Championship.
There was no player recruiting, no scholarships — just 11 women who loved to play basketball together and had the drive to win. Although most of the Mac team was represented by players who came from the Catholic League Southern Division, it was Maureen Mooney, All-Catholic for St. Hubert High School, who would prove that the Northern Division also had talent.
"Maureen was a natural athlete," said longtime companion Ed Holt. "Her father Leo played basketball for Villanova and her mother and aunt, Helen and Peg Dailey, were both star players for Hallahan’s basketball team. It was just in her blood."
A leader on the court, Mooney made varsity her freshman year at St. Hubert. Sharonmarie Biacini, now a math teacher at Archbishop Ryan High School, played four years with Mooney in the Philadelphia Catholic League, in addition to a CYO summer league.
"She played to win and she was very competitive, but she was always about the team," said Biacini. "I tried to go around her to take a shot (in a summer CYO game) . . . she threw out her hip to block and I landed out of bounds. Her mother, who was a basketball official, came over and helped me off the ground. She shook her head, smiled and said, ‘You should have known better.’"
Upon graduating from Hubert in 1969, Mooney took her talents to Immaculata College and played basketball for the Mighty Macs. It was during her freshman year that a change came to the outdated rules that restricted female players to half-court and three dribbles. Women were now playing five-on-five games like men’s teams.
With the arrival of coach Cathy Rush in the 1970-’71 season, things really started to turn for the Macs. Young and well ahead of her time in her approach to the sport, Rush added men’s strategy, like picks and presses, and opposing women’s teams didn’t know how to neutralize the aggressive Macs.
"They were the best of the best," says Pat Berry, the athletic director at St. Hubert.
Berry, a former teammate of Mooney’s, recalls a phone call from coach Rush, who wanted to know if the newly formed women’s team at LaSalle, one that Berry helped organize, would scrimmage against Immaculata.
"They came in there and it was just lay-up practice, they killed us," recalled Berry. "I knew who these girls were; I had played against them in high school, so I wasn’t surprised. They were the best the area had to offer, and Maureen was one of them."
During the ’72 season, Mooney and her teammates quickly adapted to Rush’s more aggressive style, and in the process the Mighty Macs blossomed as formidable opponents. Undefeated in the regular season, they were invited to the Mid-Atlantic Regionals played in Towson, Md.
As Mac fever spread, so did their fans.
"I remember with every win the crowds kept growing," said Sister Marian William Hoban, former Immaculata president.
"Not only were our sisters from Immaculata attending games," she said, "but we had sisters from neighboring schools and New Jersey joining us."
In Towson, Immaculata would win the first three games, but the finals brought a jolt to Mac-mania — the Macs absorbed an embarrassing 70-38 loss to West Chester University, a team they’d beaten handily during the season.
But Immaculata did finish among the top two at the regionals, a performance that earned the Macs an invitation to play in the first Women’s National Basketball Championship in Normal, Ill.
"We were shocked," recalled former Mighty Mac Janet Ruch Boltz. "We weren’t even really sure what a national championship was, we were just happy we were getting to play more basketball."
Seeded 15th out of 16 teams, it seemed unlikely to many that the Macs would go far. The Macs, however, had a different plan.
"We knew we were going to play and we were going to win and that was the bottom line," said Theresa Shank Grentz, a longtime friend of Mooney’s.
It would be Mooney, the captain of Immaculata’s team, who’d set the tone in the first game, scoring 20 points. The Macs cast aside higher-seeded South Dakota State and moved on. In that next game, the Macs put the pressure on Indiana State and held on to win by a basket. Then came the big one, Mississippi State College for Women. In an improbable semifinals showdown, the Macs upset the top-seeded powerhouse, 46-43, and found themselves in the national spotlight of playing for the first championship of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women.
Phone chains started to get the news home. The Macs were in the championship.
On March 19, 1972, in the big game played at Illinois State University, Immaculata again faced West Chester, but this time the outcome was different. A 52-48 victory made the Mighty Macs the nation’s big story.
"Maureen played excellent defense against West Chester," said Boltz. "She was very aggressive and was able to take their best shooter out of the game."
With the help of three-time All-American Grentz, who alone scored 26 points, the Macs never let up on West Chester. There was no turning back. History had been written.
Though the Macs earned two more consecutive championships, in 1973 and ’74, the ensuing collegiate trend toward recruiting and offering big scholarships hindered small Immaculata’s ability to compete. The school never relived those glory days. But it will always be known as the team that won the first women’s national basketball championship.
Mooney, who averaged 12 points per game, scored an impressive 215 during Immaculata’s 1972 season. The following year, as a senior, she played when the Macs won again, proving that Immaculata was no fluke.
What was the chemistry?
Grentz, who retired last spring as head coach of the University of Illinois women’s basketball team, credits the Macs’ success to teamwork.
"We truly loved playing basketball together," she said. "When you put us on the floor, it didn’t matter who we played, where we played or when we played . . . as long as we were together, we were a team and we were going to win."
When Mooney’s basketball career ended in 1973, she walked proudly from the game with two national championships. But she also knew she’d been part of something much bigger.
In the Mighty Macs’ 25th-anniversary program, Mooney wrote, "I think it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that none of us expected, and we were all so very lucky to have been part of it."
Maureen Mooney died in February 2005, at age 53. Although the championship banners that hang in Alumnae Hall will always represent her mark on women’s basketball, the friendships she forged will leave the more indelible fingerprints.
"I can honestly say that there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of Maureen Ann Mooney," said Shank Grentz. "She was a talented basketball player, but more than that, we shared an incredible friendship."
Now, family, friends and fans of the Mighty Macs can relive the team’s history. Filming began last summer on the film Our Lady of Victory, which is still in post-production and awaiting a scheduled release date.
Several of the Macs, including Grentz and Janet Boltz, have small roles in the film. Dressed as nuns, the former teammates recently spent the day laughing and reminiscing during breaks in the shooting.
"Maureen would be very pleased with the movie," said Holt. "Even though she was easily embarrassed when attention was drawn to her, she was so very proud to be a Mighty Mac. Maureen knew she was part of something unique.
"It was always about the team, with the Macs . . . it was all for one and one for all." ••