When Mary (Coyle) Klinger recently won her 600th game coaching the Rutgers Preparatory School girls’ varsity basketball team, her thoughts, as they often do, turned to Theresa Grentz, her coach when Klinger played basketball at Rutgers. During the 1981–1982 season, Grentz, who coached the Lady Knights for 19 seasons (434-150) and was the nation’s first full-time women’s basketball coach, led the team to the national championship of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women with an 83–77 upset of Texas. Klinger DC’82, who is also the athletic director at Rutgers Prep, starred on the team with her identical twin, Patty Coyle DC’82. Their roles on that unforgettable team are part of the upcoming documentary Forgotten Champions: The Story of the 1981–1982 Rutgers Lady Knights, which is being produced by Geoff Sadow RC’84, Jon Newman RC’90, and Jim Berman RC’82, three alumni who covered the team’s memorable season for WRSU. It is scheduled for release in the fall or later this year. For further information, visit forgottenchampions.com.
Story originally appeared in Rutgers Magazine.
