Metro's 300th Historical Marker Spotlights Pioneering Local Basketball Team

Nashville continued to make its case as one of the country's premier women's hoops cities on Thursday morning at Municipal Auditorium with the unveiling of a historical marker for the pioneering Nashville Business College women's basketball team.

Long before Title IX paved the way for NCAA-sanctioned women's sports, the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) offered the highest-profile women's collegiate basketball opportunities in the United States. Music City was a hotbed for these programs, with Nashville Business College leading the way. During the program's 20-year existence (from 1949 to 1969), NBC won 11 national championships, including eight in a row from 1962 to 1969.

"It's extraordinary how much of the story of women's sports runs directly through Nashville," said Amy McGinnis, associate commissioner for the Brentwood-based Ohio Valley Conference, which sponsored the historical marker. 

"That's why a historical marker like this matters. A marker may only take a few seconds to read, but it makes a permanent statement: This happened here. These people mattered." 

NBC's impact was felt beyond Nashville. The team's head coach, Women's Basketball Hall of Famer John Head, led the U.S. to gold medals at the first two iterations of the FIBA World Championships for Women (now known as the FIBA Women's World Cup). Seven of the nine players on the 1953 U.S. roster were affiliated with Nashville Business College.

NBC was known for gathering some of the greatest players of the era, including Hall of Famers like Nera White, Doris Rogers, Sue Gunter and Katherine Washington. Rogers was among the former players in attendance on Thursday.

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"The women of the Nashville Business College were committed and bold," said local attorney Margaret Behm, a longtime advocate for women's sports in the area. "They amazed us with their ability, tenacity and guts. They established a standard of excellence. ... They showed the world what women playing basketball can do." 

Each of the ceremony's speakers cited former Metro Councilmember Nancy VanReece, who played an integral part in the formation of the marker. VanReece is the president and CEO of the Nashville Vibe, the local franchise for the upstart women's basketball league Upshot.

Funding for the marker, which is the Metro Historical Commission's 300th since the beginning of the program in 1967, came from a legacy fund established by the Nashville Local Organizing Committee. The fund was created following the 2014 NCAA Women's Final Four, which was hosted at Bridgestone Arena, to "address gender disparities in sports and foster the next generation of female leaders."

Among those also in attendance were Vice Mayor Angie Henderson, District 17 Metro Councilmember Terry Vo, and members of the women's basketball coaching staffs at Belmont and Tennessee State.