“It was exciting. We were on a college campus!” Check once told me. “I never thought of Central State as a black school. I thought of it as the school with a pool. It was a special place.”
First impressions, as they say, are lasting.
That was evident years later when Check returned to CSU, first to play her senior season of college basketball for the Marauders, and then, more than a decade after that, to begin a Hall of Fame coaching career and later become a successful athletics director at the school.
Save for those old dive-in-the-pool days, she made her biggest splash as the coach, compiling a 387-109 record over 17 seasons, taking her teams to the NAIA tournament a record 13 times, advancing to the Elite Eight twice, the Sweet Sixteen three times and being named NAIA coach of the year in 1993.
“When she coached she didn’t care if you were blue, green or orange and we didn’t care what color she was either,” said Sheba Harris, a three-time All-America selection and 1,000-point scorer for Check’s teams who, since 2009, has been the Lady Marauders coach.
“When it came to Coach, all that mattered to us was that she was an individual who respected us and believed in us. You could tell she had a passion for what she did and that made us want to have that same passion. It never once was about color.”
Check agreed when we spoke on the subject in the past: “It wasn’t an issue. I wish people saw past color. I tried to respect all my players and their backgrounds. What happened with us was not about race relations — it was human relations.”
In these retrograde times, when certain politicians traffic in ethnic insensitivity, racial discord and outright hatred, Check and CSU offer a story that is tonic for such toxicity. Their longstanding relationship is one of many examples of America being great all along.
And that will be further evidenced this weekend when CSU hosts the first annual Theresa Check Tip-Off Classic at the Beacom/Lewis Gym on campus.
The Lady Marauders face Salem International University at 7:30 Saturday and Ohio Valley University on Sunday, at 3.p.m. In the other games, Kentucky State faces two West Virginia schools: Ohio Valley at 5:30 p.m. Saturday and Salem International at 1 p.m. Sunday.
“Coach Check is an icon, a real legend here, ”said Harris, who came up with the tournament idea. “We really wanted to give back to someone who has a lot of history in our gym. She has banners hanging up. She’s in seven halls of fame around the country. She’s done a lot for this university and the game of women’s basketball.
“Having a tournament in her name is the least we can do.”
An ‘amazing’ coach
After starring at Cedarville High School, Check went on to play three seasons of basketball at Adelphi University on Long Island.
When she ran low on funds, she returned to Greene County and played her senior season at Central State, where her dad, Jay Check, was a professor and she could get a tuition break.
As soon as she graduated, she was asked to take over the program after the popular coach was let go.
Although she would be coaching her former teammates, many of whom were about the same age as she, Check didn’t flinch and ended up leading the Marauders to the first winning record in program history.
After that came a 10-year detour — coaching at Alter High and then Western Illinois University — before she returned to CSU for a long run as coach and then the AD who saved a floundering athletics department.
She said her enduring bond with the school was built on a couple of cornerstones:
“First was the fact that my dad taught there and the place meant so much to him,” she said.
“And then there are the students. I just have a heart for these kids. They never cease to amaze me with their effort and their energy.”
While her dad had a special affinity for the school, so did her late mother, Livia, who lived many years as a kid in Romania, served as a WAC in the Philippines in World War II and then, after raising five daughters and later retiring to Florida, embraced the young CSU women.
She’d send them oranges. She bought shoes for players, made sure they all had over-stuffed Christmas stockings, Valentine’s Day candy and chocolate bunnies at Easter,
“Playing for Coach Check was amazing,” said Harris, whom Check had recruited out of Cleveland’s John F. Kennedy High. “She wanted nothing but the best for us and gave a lot of us an opportunity.”
Over 17 years, all but two of Check’s athletes got their degrees. And that, along with opportunities that followed for the women — who became everything from teachers and coaches to business leaders, politicians and mothers – is what makes the coach most proud.
While at Central State, Check turned down other job offers, took pay cuts to help the financially struggling school and put money back into CSU.
Now retired, she broadcasts Alter girls’ basketball games and teaches two or three classes a semester at the CSU satellite location in Dayton and the main campus in Wilberforce.
“I like coming back to campus because I see a lot of old friends,” Check said. “It’s like going home.”
Stays involved
I talked to Check on Thursday just before she walked into the Health and Wellness class she teaches twice a week at the CSU-Dayton location on Germantown Street. On Mondays and Wednesdays she runs a Principles of Coaching class on the main campus.
“Coach Check continues to stay involved with the school and our program,” Harris said. “She comes to our games, visits with me in the office and she just had me talk to her coaching class.
“Whatever she’s doing, you see the love she has for this school. In return we try to give it back to her.
“That’s why I hope this tournament really takes off. We’ve got people already lined up to play next year. People know her name and what she’s done and I think this could get bigger and bigger.”
All these years later, Theresa Check is still making a splash at Central State.
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