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28 Northwest Arkansas Basketball Sunday, November 3, 2019 5-on-5 fine at 40 Arkansas girls basketball has grown since 1979 rule change It's been 40 years since a federal court decision altered the landscape of girls' high school basketball in Arkan- sas, but players from the state former- ly known as the Land of Opportunity have taken full advantage of today's opportunities to play at top colleges across the country and even profes- sionally. Morrilton's Shekinna Stricklen and her Connecticut Sun fell one game short of a WNBA championship just a few weeks ago. She played for the legendary late coach Pat Summit in college at Tennessee. Christyn Williams gained national attention when she became the first female athlete from Arkansas to be named Gatorade National Player of the Year in 2018 while playing for Central Arkansas Christian in Little Rock. She will begin her second season playing for coach Geno Auriemma at one of the most esteemed women's programs in the country at the University of Con- necticut. Those are just a couple of Arkansas natives who earned national attention for their skills on the basketball court. They are also named to a list of the top 25 high school girls basketball players from Arkansas in the 5-on-5 era in a Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette ballot of coaches, former players and sportswriters. Stricklen and Williams can now both be seen regularly on national television broadcasts, but Rogers High girls basketball coach Preston Early re- members when that wasn't the case. Early recalls a phone call from his father, Alvy, the day after his Arkan- sas-Monticello women's basketball team lost in the NAIA national finals in Jackson, Tenn., in 1990. He stopped in West Memphis on the way back to Monticello to pick up a newspaper to see what coverage his team had re- ceived and was not pleased. "I'll never forget him telling me they had a story about the Razorbacks' third-string running back was going to miss spring practice because he had turf toe on the front page and they got a box score on page six," Preston Early said. But that was standard for the time, when women's sports was an after- thought if it was even thought of at all. THE WINDS OF CHANGE It was groundbreaking when feder- al judge Richard Arnold ruled in favor of the plaintiff, Diana Lee Dodson, in a discrimination lawsuit against the Ar- kansas Activities Association in April 1979 (see related story on Page 1C). That decision forced the AAA, the governing body for athletics in the state, to change from the standard 6-on-6 half-court bas- ketball for the girls to the more tradi- tional full-court 5-on-5 game played by the boys. Charles Berry, the longtime and highly successful girls basketball coach at Huntsville who retired with more than 1,000 career wins, famously said when the rule was passed that it would kill girls basketball. He later admitted he was wrong about that. Gary Blair, the former Arkansas women's basketball coach who won an NCAA championship at Texas A&M, has seen the girls game rise to where it is today. According to Blair, Stricklen and Shameka Christon are the standard in Arkansas. Both earned Southeastern Conference Player of the Year honors and went on to stellar professional ca- reers in the WNBA. Christon played for Blair at Arkansas. "They did it at the highest level," Blair said. "And not far behind was Am- ber Shirey." Shirey starred at tiny Newark High School before leading Arkansas to a Southwest Conference tournament ti- tle and earning Most Valuable Player honors. She got Blair's attention while he was coaching at what was then a powerhouse at Stephen F. Austin when his team met Arkansas in the NCAA tournament. "She was like a little John Stockton out there," Blair said. "Never changed her expression and was always such a positive person." Wendy Scholtens-Wood, like Strick- len, opted to play collegiately out of state to Vanderbilt. The 6-foot-4 star from Fort Smith Southside shined brightly as well. She was a three-time All-SEC se- lection at Vanderbilt and a Kodak All-American as a senior and has the distinction of being a part of the Arkan- sas and Tennessee Sports Halls of Fame. Lanell Dawson played for longtime Hall of Fame coach John Hutchcraft in high school at tiny Guy-Perkins but was no doubt one of the best, said current Arkansas-Little Rock coach Joe Foley. "She was so athletic nobody could stay in front of her," Foley said. "She would still average 20 a game today." Dawson earned All-Southwest Con- ference honors as a freshman at Ar- kansas, but ended up being a two-time All-American for Foley at Arkansas Tech. She was Arkansas' leading scor- er as a freshman, but transferred after having academic issues. BLAZING A TRAIL Terri Conder-Johnson recalls a differ- ent time for women's basketball, playing in a small town in front of friends and family. She became a three-time All-Ameri- can at the University of Central Arkansas PAUL BOYD NWA DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE File Photo/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Morrilton forward Shekinna Stricklen shoots over Central Arkansas Christian Katie Rus- sell during a 2006 game at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock Stephens Center. See GIRLS, Page 32