‘The Mighty Macs’ a rags-to-riches story

Everyone loves an underdog. Especially Hollywood.

No wonder the inspirational story of Cathy Rush and her rags-to-riches women’s college basketball team was turned into a movie.

“It’s a Cinderella dream come true,” Rush said.

The movie “The Mighty Macs,” which opened Friday and stars Carla Gugino as Rush, chronicles the improbable emergence of the Immaculata College women’s basketball team of the early 1970s.

Essentially, it’s the female version of “Hoosiers.”

Immaculata, a tiny all-girls Catholic school in Pennsylvania that had no gym (it burned), no budget and ancient uniforms, won the first three AIAW (Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women) national championships from 1972 to 1974.

With each and every win, Rush, who landed the job at Immaculata in 1970 when she was 24 and had nothing more on her resume than a stint coaching a junior high team, knew that she and her players were facing major odds.

She also knew she stumbled upon something special.

“My assistant coach and I were always talking about all the crazy things we were going through,” Rush said. “She was always telling me that someone should make a movie out of it. I remember telling her that if there was a movie, I wanted Lindsay Wagner to play me.

“We would sit around and laugh about stuff like that all the time, never thinking that some day our experiences would actually be made into a movie.”

The movie is a reminder of how different women’s college athletics are now, compared to when they weren’t governed by the NCAA.

That’s why the AIAW existed, until the NCAA started crowning women’s champions in 1983.

“I remember how the women before us had to fight and struggle just to get a national tournament going,” Rush said. “Back then, it was the old six-player game. There was this amazing transformation that had to take place to go from that to the five-player game to a national tournament, to now women’s basketball is in the national spotlight.

“The difference between then and now is amazing.”

It’s fascinating to detail the differences, especially from Immaculata’s perspective. The Mighty Macs were living more humbly than most women’s teams of that early era.

Ÿ These days, national champion-caliber women’s college basketball coaches are paid more than $1 million a year.

Rush collected $450 the year Immaculata College won its first of three straight national titles. Pat Summitt, who earned her first multi-million dollar salary in 2007, was paid $8,900 when she was hired as Tennessee’s coach in 1974.

Ÿ These days, most national champion-caliber women’s teams dress to the nines, equipped with the best uniforms, sneakers, warm-ups and training gear.

Most women’s teams in the 1970s wore a standard jersey and shorts combo. The Mighty Macs were a few pegs below that. They wore old wool dresses with sashes that were found in storage, and God only knows how old they were.

Ÿ These days, most national champion-caliber women’s teams fly charter airplanes to road games.

Immaculata couldn’t afford a charter bus, let alone a school bus, which is how most women’s teams traveled then. The Mighty Macs were responsible for getting themselves to games with their own cars. Those without cars rode with teammates or parents.

Rush would stuff as many players as she could into her own van.

“Usually, we’d drive back to school right after games, but whenever we did have to stay overnight, like when we were in the (regional and national) finals, the girls would be four to a hotel room, two to a bed, just so that we could save money,” Rush said with a laugh. “Now, things are so good for women’s basketball. It’s great to see.

“But it had to start some place.”

“The Mighty Macs” takes us to that place.

Casting the Macs: Interestingly, three of the better players on those powerhouse Immaculata teams became Division I women#146;s college basketball coaches.Theresa Grentz, the former coach at Illinois, which put together some of its best seasons under her watch, was the Macs#146; best player and was teammates with Rene Portland and Marianne Stanley.Portland was the head coach for 27 years at Penn State, and Stanley won three national titles at Old Dominion and is now a WNBA assistant coach for the Washington Mystics.pbabcock@dailyherald.comENT40002667Immaculata College former basketball coach Cathy Rush, left, and former player Theresa Shank Grentz are two of the subjects in “The Mighty Macs,” a flm about the 1971-72 women’s basketball squad they were on that won the national championship. Grentz is a former head coach at Illinois.Associated Press/Matt Rourke fileENTBKW28692273This March 19, 1972 photo shows, from left to right in the foreground, Theresa Shank, Sister Mary of Lourdes, women’s basketball coach Cathy Rush and Janet Ruch after returning from winning the first-ever women’s national college tournament. Associated Press/Immaculata University fileBKWBKW22972872In this Jan. 31, 1974 photo provided by Immaculata University, Theresa Shank (12) prepares to shoot in a game against Towson State. Long before Tennessee and Connecticut, Immaculata College was the original women’s basketball dynasty. Associated Press/Immaculata University fileBKW