The Lady Buff basketball players from the ‘80s will have the opportunity to reunite on Nov. 3. Growing up, I heard stories about Milligan’s basketball team from my mom, Karen Barker Williams, who played in the mid ‘80s, and the people and friendships she talked about made me want to attend Milligan.
One of my favorite stories that my mom tells about her time on the basketball team involved running suicides. The team was running a ridiculous amount of suicides after already running “The Milligan Mile”: 20 trips up the stairs at Steve Lacy Fieldhouse, 20 trips up the hill beside the stairs, 20 sprints and then having a two-hour practice. The coach was nowhere near letting them end practice. When my mom’s roommate, Kelly McDuffie, stepped up and said, “Double or nothing–if I make 10 free throws then we’re done. If I don’t, we’ll run double,” the coach agreed. Mom and her teammates were ready to kill McDuffie when she made that deal. And McDuffie went on to make all 10. Her teammates all swarmed her. The coach told them to get out.
A few of the other ladies who were on my mom’s team were Kristi Robinson Bailey, Michelle Reiner Cohea, Wendy Garber, Cynthia Garner, Sharon Butler Jewett, Wendy Johnson, Sue Fitch Lipinski, Judie Mason and Lori Gibson Mills.
It has been 30-plus years since these women have gotten together on the basketball court to play for Milligan. But their friendship extends past playing basketball in college.
Some of the ladies coming to the reunion gave me some advice for the current women’s basketball team, and they shared some of their own favorite memories from when they played.
Kristi Bailey played from 1983-87 as an elementary education major. She is currently completing her thirtieth year of teaching and plans to retire at the end of this school year.
Her favorite memory is from her freshman year at their first travel tournament.
“The team tricked me into jumping out of the van and running around it before the light changed. The whole team was supposed to do it but, about halfway around the car, I looked and they were all sitting inside the van laughing their heads off, including the coach,” Bailey said.
Another teammate that a lot of students will know is Dr. Lori Gibson Mills, professor of psychology. Mills played from 1984-88. She also played volleyball.
Her advice to players now is, “Invest in the friendships you make during college and on your team.”
“One of my memories is being ‘initiated’ by my teammates,” shared Mills. “I was the only freshman on the team, and they kept telling me all year that they were going to initiate me. It was the last week of classes in the spring, and I thought they had forgotten about it, but they came to my room and told me to put on old clothes. They took me outside and tied me to the flagpole in the Hart Hall courtyard and painted me from head to toe. Then, they had girls from Hart throw food out their windows to them (that had been in their refrigerators all year). They smeared it on me. When they finally untied me, I chased them all the way through the dorm.”
Mills’ husband also attended Milligan, and her son, Gibson Mills, is currently a sophomore.
Another player who is known at Milligan is Kelly McDuffie. McDuffie is co-founder of Get Real Ministries and partners with Mills’ cross cultural psychology class to minister to the homeless in downtown Atlanta. McDuffie played from 1982-84 as a health and physical education major with a minor in biology. She recently retired from 30 years of teaching at Banks County High School in Baldwin, Ga.
Her advice to players is, “Don’t waste your opportunity. Not everyone has the chance that you have, and you will never pass this way again. So give it your all.”
When asked about her favorite memory she said, “Honestly, we were so much like family and we hung out on and off the court so our memories were made daily.”
The player closest to my heart is my mom. She played from 1982-86 and also played softball. She majored in health and physical education with a minor in biology and currently works at First Baptist Church in Jonesborough.
Her advice to current players is, “Enjoy your time at Milligan. Cherish the friendships you make there and make the most of the opportunities you have while you are there.”
Williams recalled one of her favorite memories: “When we had to come back early from Christmas break for practice, we were not allowed to stay in the dorms. We had to stay in the building that is now the (business office). But to us it was the house from Amityville horror.”
Her second favorite memory was from her freshman year. They played six or seven Division One schools, like Appalachian State and Marshall University. With only one loss to Marshall, Milligan’s women’s team was a force to be reckoned with. They went on to win the Volunteer State Athletic Conference tournament.
Sharon Butler Jewett played basketball from 1983-87. She also played softball. She was an English and secondary education major. She teaches sixth grade Language Arts in Cary, N.C.
Her advice to players is to “take time to enjoy where you are, and don’t always think about the future and what you need to do. Don’t wish your life away.”
Jewett had two favorite memories. Her first one was during a game when Jewett was trying to fight through a screen, and the other player would not get out of her way. It turns out the other player was her teammate, Karen Barker, my mom. They both shoved each other out of the way and kept playing. Her second favorite memory was beating East Tennessee State University her senior year.
“The best memories are not about the games but about the people,” Jewett said.
The women are not only teammates. They have become lifelong friends who are still a part of each other’s lives. Trust me, I know. These ladies have been a part of my life as well.