Honoring A Trailblazer and An Icon

Former Eagles Coach Cathy Inglese talking to Brittanny Johnson.

Every Boston College women's basketball player from the late 1990s and early 2000s knows the story of the office light.

They all saw it during late night walks back to the dorms. They would cross campus and turn by Conte Forum. There, up on the fourth floor, was the unmistakable glow of an office light. Without even asking, they instantly knew which coach it belonged to, and they knew exactly who was burning the midnight oil in that room. It was always their head coach, Cathy Inglese.

It was typical of the coach to rarely take a night off. There was always something else to study, so she chose to commit her time to reviewing film. Those minutes could prepare a team for the next stage with a silent, self-construct demand built into personal expectations. It commanded respect and attention, and it helped make her an absolute agent of change for New England women's basketball.

"She demanded excellence and always wanted to get everything out of everyone mentally, physically, and emotionally," Aimee (McGuire) Coen '98. "That's how seriously she took her job. She always demanded the most out of everyone, especially herself. That's just how she was. She wasn't an easy coach to play for, because she asked and expected so much. But she always knew how to get the most out of her players."

The work ethic generated magnetism, especially to like-minded recruits hunting for a basketball challenge. McGuire was the first Eagle recruit to verbally commit to Inglese at Boston College, having first sought to play for the coach at Vermont.

"I committed before my senior year (of high school) started," she said. "Cathy recruited me at Vermont, so BC wasn't even on my radar as a high school student-athlete. She had such a great reputation with back-to-back undefeated seasons (at Vermont), and she really just impressed me, even through my recruitment, in quickly meeting her. She could give you the breath of her commitment and passion for the game. You could feel her willingness to work hard to win, and I just wanted to be a part of a program under her leadership."

BC poached Inglese from Vermont after consecutive berths in the NCAA Tournament ended in back-to-back First Round exits by a combined seven points. It built her reputation as a coach and led her directly to a program in need of a fuel injection. The Eagles played in the Big East but lagged significantly behind the conference's top tier.

"We were terrible up to that point," Kerry (Curran) DeShazo '94 said. "We had the all-time leading scorer in Big East history (in Sarah Behn), but we only won four games in the conference. I was stuck doing things the old way. We ran a flex offense, and we were team-oriented on the floor, but we weren't team-oriented. We always just let a couple of players try to carry the load."

It was a situation compounded by BC's infrastructure. Conte Forum was less than 10 years old, but the main floor wasn't the primary home court for women's basketball. That team played in adjacent Power Gym, and only select games graced the main hardwood next door. It was the product of a different time in sports, but Inglese believed it built a significant barrier to the team's success. So she hammered the wall, and Conte Forum officially became BC's permanent women's basketball home in her first year.

"We used to play two or three games at Conte Forum, as long as the schedule lined up," Curran said. "My senior year was Cathy's first, and I think we played one preseason game (elsewhere), and she got all of our home games (into the main arena). It took a few years after that, but that was really the start of the turnaround."

BC immediately improved to a fifth place finish in the Big East in Inglese's first season, but she understood the incremental process involved with the program's build. The Eagles played in a conference with UConn, Seton Hall, and Notre Dame. Miami won two championships in the early 1990s. Rutgers was in the league after posting a decade's worth of 20-win seasons in the Atlantic-10.

"A team like UConn was at the top so it felt like we were in a different division," McGuire said. "They beat us one year by 52 points. We were 6-21 during my freshman year, and somehow Cathy just kept perspective for us. She kept making us better every day, and we never focused on where we were in the standings. We just kept working as individuals and as a team. She always rewarded players who worked the hardest in practice with a hustle award, in a positive way."

The Eagles won 10 games in 1995-1996 and improved to 18-10 with a 13-5 record in the BIg East in 1996-1997. In 1998, BC beat Notre Dame for the first time in 15 years, 78-76. It created a thunderclap that carried over to the next year, when the Eagles beat the vaunted Connecticut Huskies, 78-66, en route to its first-ever NCAA Tournament berth.

"We started getting out of the bottom of the league," McGuire said. "Then we beat Notre Dame at home. All of a sudden, the rest of the Big East took note of Boston College."

"I came back as a graduate assistant," Curran said. "And as a coach, I would feel guilty if I didn't come back to the office after my night school classes. That's how passionate she made us feel about basketball. I already knew it from one year as a player, but I saw it to a different extreme when I coached with her. I learned how hard she worked. She didn't pressure anyone to come back, but that's why she was successful."

It was the exact building block for the program's awakening. The late-1990s turned into the elite level success in the 2000s, and BC won the Big East conference tournament in 2004. In 2006, the Eagles, by now in the ACC, advanced to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time in program history.

Joanna Bernabei-McNamee was an assistant coach that year for a Maryland team seeded second in the Albuquerque Regional. They were the best-remaining team, though, by the time the tournament converged on New Mexico, the result of Boston College's upset win over Ohio State. The win over the Buckeyes forced the Terrapins to take notice of their ACC rival in case they advanced past third-seeded Baylor.

"Everyone on our team was sick during that weekend (of the Regional Final)," Joanna Bernabei-McNamee said. "I remember scouting Boston College, and they had taken us to overtime earlier that season. That team was always so well-prepared and tough, and it made them so difficult to play against."

Unfortunately, BC lost to Utah, and Maryland, with a decimated roster, survived to advance to the Final Four in Boston. The Terps won the national championship at TD Garden that year, creating one of the greatest what-if moments in women's college basketball.

There likewise was no way of knowing Inglese wouldn't return to the NCAA Tournament. BC went to the WNIT two years later, but the coach resigned following the season. Her fingerprints remained on Sylvia Crawley's WNIT berths in two of the next three seasons, but a postseason drought ensued shortly thereafter. Inglese became head coach at Rhode Island but couldn't recapture her magic. In 2017, she returned to the game after a three-year absence as an assistant at Fairleigh Dickinson, moving over to Hofstra last season before her untimely passing.

"We always knew we would be the most-prepared team in the country," Curran said. "It didn't mean we won every game, but we always knew what was coming. She spent hours breaking down film and analyzing every possible matchup. She always looked at what we could do. It was relentless."

It's how Cathy Inglese built a legacy remaining intact in Chestnut Hill. From a basketball standpoint, she built Boston College into a basketball powerhouse. She helped lead the Eagles to the national tournament for the first time ever and attached a ranking in a poll where it never previously existed. It happened because her belief never wavered and always spilled over to her players.

"She could be hard and tough but she always adjusted to her personnel," Curran said. "It was a different flavor. She probably ran sets with us that she didn't run with her successful Vermont teams. The biggest difference with Cathy was that she was always willing to adapt to her 15 players."

A legacy is more than just on-court success, though. Inglese is a basketball icon because she was a trailblazer for Title IX rights. She respected everyone but refused to back down from her passion. It kindled an explosive fire in a sporting world devoid of social media and YouTube. It built BC women's basketball with no television network at a time when limited exposure denied national notice.

"I worked in development and did color commentary for the broadcasts after I graduated," McGuire said. "I got to know Cathy in a different role as a 'colleague' and got to see her completely different perspective. I was really lucky because she had a sense of humor, and she was incredibly valuable to the university as a whole. She was one of the more prominent females and voices on campus, and she was never shy about using her voice for women."

Boston College beat Notre Dame on the road on Thursday night, the same Notre Dame coming off of two national championship game appearances with one victory. The Fighting Irish sent five players to the first two rounds of the WNBA Draft after last season, including Arike Ogunbowale. Ogunbowale became a household name when she hit the game-winning shots over both Connecticut and Mississippi State in the 2018 Final Four, hanging a banner at Purcell Pavilion.

There's more than a little bit of irony to the victory. A win over Notre Dame loudly announced Boston College's presence to the Big East when Cathy Inglese first came to Chestnut Hill. Thursday night was the last game before the Eagles honor Inglese in their Alumni Game on Sunday against Virginia. The BC jersey is adorned with a black patch in memory of their former coach.

And somewhere in the basketball heavens, Cathy Inglese was already reviewing the film.

Boston College will host Virginia on Sunday at 2 p.m. from Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. The game can be seen via ACC Network Extra on ESPN's online streaming platform.

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