Jodie Prina: The Galesburg Basketball Legend That Time Forgot

I was not worried about or frustrated by the things the boys team got and the girl team didn’t get, I was just enjoying the fact that I was finally playing on a team. The only issue was that we had to play earlier than most people and specifically parents got out of work, so we weren’t  delaying the Junior varsity and Varsity games. The gym was empty and it felt like we had no support.

Galesburg team- 1973-4

Massey- Do you have any specific memories about the games that first year?

Jodi– I only remember 1 game in particular. We were playing in Macomb, our team had two very quick guards in Julie Davis and Julie Hillier. They could steal the ball and we transitioned into a fast break so quick it could make your head swim. It sure frustrated Macomb’s team.

Massey- I have talked women who were a couple years older than you, and they are frustrated they never got to play. I am guessing that you have some frustrations wishing you had been born three years later and had more games, and a chance to go to State in basketball. Two undefeated seasons, not really challenged in games- what do you think, could you have gone to State?

Jodie– Yes, I always felt that we were  born about 2 years too soon. I’m not sure we would have won state or even got to state. Boy, it would have been something to see.

Massey- Coach Swackhamer coached everything in those early years. She did all the sports and seldom had any assistants. What was she like?

Jodie– I really didn’t have a close relationship with coach Swackhammer. I’m not sure why. I do remember being told that she had played in Missouri.  She was “the coach” for all the girls sports, but I really only played basketball.

Carl Sandburg’s 1976 State Champions

Massey- After GHS, many of you ended up playing at Carl Sandburg. You got to play close to 20 games in a season, and you had a chance to have a State Tourney, and then a National Tourney. On top of it all, you had Mary Kay Hungate as your coach, who went onto win State titles at Richwoods, and National titles at La Tech. What was the Sandburg experience like and the chance to play for Coach Hungate?

Jodie– Again, being the first team formed, it was a struggle. It was just more of the same, except Carl Sandburg was still using temporary buildings and had no gymnasium.  So we played and practiced at the old Corpus  Christi gym. That was cool because it’s where all my brother’s played their basketball games. So i was excited following in their footsteps so to speak. The women who showed up for the team try outs were really excited about just getting the chance to play.

Getting to go to Hutchinson, Kansas for nationals was a dream come true. There was a lot of buzz in the local papers and we were interviewed on a radio show.  This was a big transition from the experience we had in high school, plus we played a 19 game schedule. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. It seemed that things were changing and women’s sports were finally getting its due recognition.

Mary Kay was great, but she too was just starting out. I think she was only 2 years older than her players, so that offered us, as a team, more of a connection. She too was born a couple of years too soon to have gotten to play, but she made the most of what she was dealt. It was really great to hear of her success as a coach at a higher level.

Mary Kay’s father was the men’s coach at Carl Sandburg and he was a great supporter of the women’s team. I believe it was because of him that a team was formed at all. Not all men supported women and were threatened by women getting their chance at playing organized sports.

Massey- What advice would you have for today’s girls and women playing basketball?

Jodie– The only advice I  have for girls and women today is just enjoy whatever sport(s) you play. Be the best or strive to be the best player and teammate you can be. I’m really frustrated with the WNBA right now.  It seems they are working against each other and the successes of others. If they had gone through the struggles we had in 1972, just to get to play 10 total games in 2 years, I don’t think they would be acting the way they are today toward a player who is selling out every venue she plays and is obviously uplifting treatment and pay status of all players. We as women can do better.

Prina jump shot at U of Illinois.

 

Massey- What was your experience at University of Illinois like?

Jodie– U of I was so very different from Carl Sandburg mainly because this was my first time away from Galesburg and Champaign-Urbana was huge. The campus was 100 times larger than any place I’d been for school. No one knew me there. I felt isolated until I met the women I would be playing with. Then all of a sudden, it all shrunk down. Not only did I meet the basketball team, but I met the women who played volleyball, softball and rugby.

The treatment was almost the same as high school. The year before I arrived, basketball for women was not organized,  it was not a team, but a club. The coach of that club was a man. The year I arrived, they hired a woman to coach. Her name was Carla Thompson. That first year, we had a man for assistant coach. I learned more about the game of basketball, and I mean defense, from him than any other coach I’d ever had.

The atmosphere at U of I was one of, ” you’re getting this because we’re being made to”, not one of welcome or we’re  glad you’re here. We had the same practice issues that we had in high school. We had to practice in one of the “older” gyms on campus. We played at the same venue as the men, the Assembly Hall, but again we played earlier than the men. By the time the end of second half was done, the arena  was filled. But the first half echoed due to the fact that no one was there. You could hear every ball bounce,  every dribble made.