NWADG Basketball

2019

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and is enshrined in the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame. But playing at tiny Rose Bud High School gave her that oppor- tunity, she said. Conder-Johnson classified herself as "a late bloomer" and said if she'd been at a larger school, she might not have gotten an opportunity to play. "I was 4-foot-11 and weighed 88 pounds and I grew six inches one sum- mer," said Conder-Johnson, who current- ly serves as the executive director of the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame. "At a big- ger school, I might have been weeded out. But playing with my close friends and the community thing, those were some wonderful memories." Conder-Johnson loved her time at UCA, too, but said it was also different. When they earned their first national tournament berth in 1981, it wasn't a sure thing they would get to actually go to the tournament. "We had to go ask the president if we could go," Conder-Johnson recalled. "Nobody had done that before. They didn't have a budget for basketball. My- self and two of my teammates were our first scholarship players, period, but the faculty and staff were so supportive." Conder-Johnson and Wynne's Bettye Fiscus were billed as the top two players in the state in the early 1980s and she re- calls playing against Davidson and UAM. Fiscus went to Arkansas and enjoyed a banner career. She is still the school's all-time leading scorer and became the first woman to be elected to the Arkan- sas Sports Hall of Fame. COTTON BLOSSOM SPECIAL Arkansas-Monticello set a then-state record with 34 victories and were led by four-time All-American Tina Webb of Bryant. Early, who died in June 2018, was a pioneer in women's collegiate sports and ended his career as the winningest coach in the history of college athletics in Ar- kansas. Early's UAM girls' basketball and softball teams combined for 1,178 victo- ries, just ahead of legendary Arkansas baseball coach Norm DeBriyn's 1,161. Webb, like Early, is enshrined in the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame. But her basketball career, which also included a stint playing professionally in Belgium, Switzerland, Brazil, and Japan, might have stopped after high school if not for meeting Theodis Bealer. Bealer was a former UAM standout himself and played high school basket- ball with former Arkansas Razorback Sidney Moncrief. He also spent two years as a graduate assistant for Early. Webb, who led Bryant to its first state title as a freshman in 1982, drew interest from several colleges when she grad- uated in 1984, but decided not to play collegiately. Three years later Bealer convinced her to give it a shot. "I knew her father and I was working her out some," said Bealer, who is now retired from coaching. "I told her 'you need to be in school somewhere.'" Bealer made a call to Early, and Webb and her mother visited the campus. She made the decision to pick up basketball again at UAM and became a legend. "I told him 'Coach, I got a young la- dy here she's pretty good,'" Bealer said. "When I told him it was Tina Webb, he got excited." That set the stage for the 1990 Cot- ton Blossoms team, which would be en- shrined as a group in the UAM Hall of Fame. Rose Avery and Brenda Rhodes, Webb's teammates at UAM join her on the list of greats. Avery joined Webb on the All-Amer- ican list, twice, coming to Monticello after a stint in junior college. Rhodes played a year at Arkansas from Wilmar, a small town in southeastern Arkansas, and led the team in steals before running into grade problems and also ending up at UAM. If that group put Monticello on the basketball map, they can thank Park- dale's Perlean Davidson for paving the way. Davidson, who played only one year of 5-on-5 basketball in high school, remains the all-time leading scorer in Arkansas girls' basketball history ac- cording to AAA records. She also earned All-American honors and set school re- cords at UAM, which Webb later shat- tered. LIMITED PROSPECTS Conder-Johnson said there were a few opportunities for women to play professional basketball overseas when she finished college, but it never entered her mind. Scholtens-Wood and Sonja Tate, like Webb, both took advantage of the chance to play professionally. Scholtens-Wood played one season in Japan, after a standout playing career at Vanderbilt. But she also acknowledged playing basketball helped her get a de- gree from one of the top schools in the country. "It allowed me to go somewhere where my parents could never have afforded to send me," Scholtens-Wood said. Tate, a member of the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame, starred at Arkansas State and played several seasons in Russia, Spain and France, but she also played in the American Basketball League which eventually became part of the WNBA. Scholtens-Wood used her pro salary to help pay for law school and is an at- torney in Little Rock. Tate moved into coaching after her playing days were over to help make sure young ladies had good positive role models. She's currently the girls' basketball coach at Paragould. "I think it's important to have other females in those leadership positions," Tate said. "I had female coaches in ju- nior and high school and had Jerri Ann Winters at ASU." THE SWOOSH Fort Smith Northside has enjoyed plenty of success under coach Rickey Smith. The Lady Bears claimed their seventh state title last season, but even Smith acknowledged it all started with a group that included Tamika Kursh (now Williams). She is still the lone Lady Bear to be named a McDonald's All-American and the only one to make the NWADG'S Top 25 list. Relentless is the word Smith used to describe Kursh, who went on to star at Louisiana Tech. "Every day in practice, in games," Smith said. "Whether it was in the full- court press, scoring or going for a re- bound she had such a high motor and played with such passion." Kursh helped the Lady Bears to three consecutive state championships and a No. 3 ranking in the nation her senior season. Smith said she probably also helped Northside garner the attention that helped the school obtain a coveted Nike apparel contract. The continued success has allowed the Lady Bears to keep it for almost 20 years. The contract affords players and coaches free apparel and shoes just like many college athletic programs across the country. Northside is one of only 20 high schools in the country that are part of the elite program, Smith said. It also afforded Northside other advantages in scheduling games against other top pro- grams across the country. "They played against the best there was," Smith said. "Their only loss was to the number one team in the nation at the time. Nike liked our style of play and the athletes. They latched onto us and we're still with them 20 years later." Paul Boyd can be reached at pboyd@nwadg. com or on Twitter @NWAPaulb. 32 Northwest Arkansas Basketball Sunday, November 3, 2019 Girls v Continued from Page 28 File Photo/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Fort Smith Northside's Tamika Kursh (45) is fouled by Springdale's Benita Gregory during a 2002 game in Fort Smith.

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