Legendary Mighty Macs player remembers winning national titles for Immaculata: "We should've never won"
A big piece of March Madness history traces back to a college team in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
On Thursday, Theresa Shank Grentz was back on the court. "G-Ma," as her grandkids call her, shows she's still got it when she shoots from the free throw line.
"When we played, we had an expression: 'To play the game is great, to win the game is greater, to love the game is greatest,'" she said.
The love for basketball grew at Immaculata University. The winning and playing parts did, too.
"They'll bury us with this story," Grentz said with a laugh, her grandson, Liam, smiling beside her.
That story started over 50 years ago.
"It's a story that we should've never won. This should've never happened. This is divine providence. The older I get, the more I believe it," she said.
No. 12 remembers it well: March of 1972.
The Immaculata University women's basketball team was bound for the tournament in Illinois.
"We didn't have any money. There was no budget for post-season tournament," Grentz said.
The team sold toothbrushes to fund their trip, which proved to be worthwhile. The underdogs won the entire thing, beating West Chester and cementing themselves in the history books as the first women's college basketball national champions.
"There was this crowd of people waiting for us. I'll never forget that. When I got off that plane after winning that national championship, my life changed," Grentz said.
The story for this team did not stop there. A second title came in 1973, and a third in 1974. She remembers telling her teammates early on — many she knew from the Philadelphia Catholic League — this was their destiny.
"I said to them, listen, we're going to play four years together, we're not losing any games, and they were like OK, sounds good to us! We lost two. And I'm still ticked," Grentz said.
Great Valley will always be home for the soon-to-be 73-year-old famed player, coach and hall of famer. She says she still keeps up with the tournament.
"I do watch it. I watch it and I never put the brackets though," she said.
On the rise in popularity of women's basketball recently, she said it's players like Caitlin Clark who change the game.
"What's amazing to me now is her star power," Grentz said. "I was down last winter, playing golf in North Carolina, and here were these four gentlemen, they had just finished their round, having lunch and they're talking about Caitlin Clark and women's basketball, and I'm thinking, 'That doesn't happen!'"
Back at Immaculata, current players say the "Mighty Macs" are an inspiration.
"We all think of the legacy of the national championships in the 1970s. There's something we all think about every time we step on the court," Reese Mullins, a senior on the team, said.
The story of the Mighty Macs is one Grentz is proud to have helped write.
"We've lost a few, but we are so connected and so tied in," she said. "It's unbelievable and it continues. It's never stopped."
