Induction Year: 2013

The 1981-82 women's basketball team was – in many ways – very much pioneers of their sport on the McMurry campus. While women's basketball began on campus in 1976-7, it was the 1981-82 team which gave the fledgling program its first dose of national recognition.

The team can lay claim to the fact that it is the first McMurry women's hoops team to reach a national tournament, reaching the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women's national championship tournament. To get there, the “McMurry Maidens” – as they were called – won the Texas State and regional AIAW tourneys.

The team won its first game at the national tournament, before it was eventually eliminated by national semi-finalist UW-Whitewater. Their efforts were even more pioneering in setting a new standard for excellence, by becoming the school's first women's basketball team to ever breach the coveted 20-victory barrier.

Their participation in the national tournament is made even more noteworthy in the fact that the AIAW – which preceded the NCAA in providing athletic competition for women – disbanded after that 1981-82 season…meaning these women played in the final tournament put on by the founding organization for women's athletics as we know it today!

Head coach Renee Hicks was the driving force behind the team. After actually coaching that first season of McMurry women's basketball in 1976-77 she left, only to return to coach the team again from 1979-82. Her final “curtain call” was indeed an impressive – as well as historic – display in guiding the “McMurry Maidens” through uncharted waters and establishing the firm foundation for multitudes of Indians and War Hawks, alike, to follow years later.