Home Sweet Hardwood

If you deny a woman's history, you erase her identity. For the first time, I reveal the athlete's story, from a female perspective, during forty years of rapid social change since the passage of Title IX. What makes it different from other sport biographies is the voice, of a woman who walks the talk, who dribbled the ball and tells the story. This is the book I longed to read when I was I coming of age. It is a tribute to my mother, my sisters, my coaches, my players and teammates, and all those who fought before me and along side me, so that today no female ever questions her right to be all that she can be. It speaks for the silent pioneers of the past and salutes our highflying daughters of today. So what? Who cares? Anyone coaching an athlete. Anyone playing ball. Anyone loving a game. Anyone raising a daughter. Anyone chasing a dream.

As a pioneer for women’s basketball, Pat McKinzie is the first female athletic scholarship recipient in Illinois and first female player to score 1,000 points at ISU. She is one of the first Women’s Professional Basketball League draftees and female inductees in the Hall of Fame at Illinois State. After a 1983 car accident in France ended her playing career, McKinzie began to focus her energy on coaching. With thirty years of experience in coaching, teaching, and writing, she has cultivated an impressive career from hall-of-fame coach to basketball agent, student advisor, columnist, and blogger. McKinzie has a bachelor’s degree in education from Illinois State University. She is married to a Frenchman with whom she raised two Third Culture Kids, and she currently resides in Switzerland.