Jill Hutchison

From girls’ intramural sports to national championships, Jill Hutchison began her career as a female athlete on the cusp of social change. When she played intramurals at UNM in the mid-60s, her teams wore starched white gym clothes and rode in station wagons to compete in “sports days” in Arizona and Utah.

When she graduated from UNM in 1967, Hutchison went to Illinois State University to work on her master’s degree. For her thesis, she did research that proved women could play a five-player full-court basketball game.

“We were told that women’s hearts weren’t able to handle the increased activity,” she recalls. Hutchison put heart monitors on players and discovered that women’s hearts could indeed handle the physical activity.

Hutchison became the head women’s basketball coach at Illinois State in 1970, and held that post for 28 years. Upon retiring, she was not only the winningest female coach in school history but also the longest tenured NCAA Div. I women’s basketball coach to remain at the same institution. She did take a sabbatical in 1973 to obtain her doctorate from North Carolina Greensboro.

A leader in the advent of Title IX, which became law in 1972, Hutchison was four times president of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association; her teams made 12 national tournament appearances; was on Olympic selection committees; and she is an author. Hutchison is also a member of the Illinois State Hall of Fame.