Joliet’s Cathy Boswell to enter Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame

Women’s basketball legend Cathy Boswell, a 1979 Joliet West graduate, was selected as one of five to be named to the 24th Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame Induction Class on Saturday. The announcement was made during halftime of ABC’s broadcast of the Phil Knight Legacy Championship Game between Iowa and UConn.

The members for the Class of 2023 are Boswell (veteran player), Donna Lopiano (contributor), Lisa Mattingly (official), Carolyn Peck (coach) and Lindsey Whalen (player). In addition to the announcement of the Class of 2023, the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame announced its recipient for the Trailblazers of the Game Award and its recipient of the For the Love of the Game Award. The 2023 Trailblazer of the Game recipient is the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association. The 2023 For the Love of the Game Award goes to the Dust Bowl Girls.

The Class of 2023 will mark the 24th class of Inductees to be honored by the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, which held its grand opening and inaugural induction in 1999. The Class of 2023 will be inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, receiving their coveted Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame Trophy and Baron Championship Induction Ring on Saturday in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Boswell was a two-time WBCA Kodak All-American and two-time Wade Trophy finalist during her time at Illinois State University, finishing her collegiate career with 2,005 points and 1,054 rebounds. She led the Redbirds to 90 wins, an NCAA Tournament berth in 1983, a 15th-place finish in the AIAW National Tournament in 1981 and two WNIT bids (1980 and 1982). Boswell was a member of the 1984 women’s Olympic gold medalist USA basketball team and competed internationally for 14 years, earning seven most valuable player awards, one league MVP title, a player of the year award and five league championships.

For Bowell, it all started in Joliet, and it was a golden era for Joliet girls basketball. Not only did Boswell star for Joliet West, but Pam Gant, who went on to win an NCAA championship at Louisiana Tech, was playing for Joliet East. Chris (Prieboy) Quigley, who played at College of St. Francis and whose daughter Allie was a member of the WNBA championship Chicago Sky, while her other daughter Samantha currently is the head women’s basketball coach at Southern Illinois-Edwardsville, played for Joliet Central.

In fact, Boswell and Gant were nearly teammates in high school.

“I almost played with Pam in high school,” Boswell recalled. “I grew up on the east side, but my parents moved to Shorewood, so I went to Troy Junior High and then to West for high school. She stayed at East, and with Chris Prieboy playing at Central, our games were packed. Sometimes, we surpassed the boys with our crowds.

“I remember we had a small gym at West, called the girls’ gym, that we practiced and played in. Our coach, Jo Streit, went to our superintendent and said we needed a bigger place to play. The superintendent agreed and said we needed the same space to play in as the boys. We didn’t know it at the time, but that was Title IX starting us right in the face. It was exciting to be right on that cusp of when Title IX came around.”

During the first year of Illinois’ high school girls basketball competition, Joliet West advanced to the state tournament, which was held at Horton Fieldhouse at Illinois State. The next year, the tournament moved to Champaign, and West won the state championship, finishing with a 29-2 record.

“I still love the Horton Fieldhouse gym,” Boswell said. “Sometimes ISU will play a men’s or women’s game in there as a throwback type of game. If I am able to catch it on TV, I get chills seeing the old gym.”

Boswell graduated in 1983 with a degree in Park and Recreation Administration at 20 years old, then embarked on her overseas career. Before that, she played in sports festivals. She was named to the Midwest team in 1979, and the next summer she played in a summer festival in Syracuse, NY.

“From the festival in Syracuse, I was selected to play for the national team. We played in Split, which was then in Yugoslavia. That was when I got the idea of what I wanted to do. They had leagues where women could play professionally, and I got to travel.”

There was no WNBA when Boswell was coming through the ranks, but there was the Women’s Basketball League.

“I remember when the Chicago Hustle played,” she said. “I bought magazines that featured women playing sports. It gave me something to dream about. The first basketball poster I had was of Julius Erving. I didn’t know there were females such as Charlotte Lewis, her jersey hangs in the rafters at ISU, and it was there before mine, Lucia Harris, Pat Summitt. God rest all their souls.

“We need to pay homage to people like that, because they stuck with it despite all the inequality. Those leagues were barely hanging on. It was hard for someone to sponsor a team for more than a season.”

After playing overseas, Boswell was asked to come back to America and play in the fledgling American Basketball League at the age of 33.

“That was another attempt at a women’s professional league in America,” Boswell said. “I was happy to be able to play some professional games on American soil.”

Boswell still is around the game. She coaches boys basketball at San Pasquale High School in San Diego and also women’s basketball at Mira Costa Community College in San Diego.

She was inducted into the Hall of Fame after being nominated twice.

“Last year, I got a call in San Diego and they told me I was nominated,” she said. “To me, it was an honor just to be nominated. This year, I was in the car when I got the call. I pulled over and they told me that I had gotten in, and that it was well-deserved.

“I feel like it happened the way God wanted it to. I am happy to be recognized and inducted. I am a retired player. I feel fulfilled, and being inducted is the cherry on top. It’s hard to describe the feeling. I feel it will help me to help others. We are in the middle of a big movement for women. It’s a perfect time for me and players from my era to get out there and tell our stories and hopefully inspire some of the young kids now to greater things.”

Through all of her travels, Boswell still feels at home in Joliet.

“Joliet always feels like home to me,” she said. “My parents always felt that family being close and getting an education were important. They both have their degrees, and my mother has her doctorate, so they let us know how important education was as far as getting opportunities in life. Our faith has always been very important to us, too.

“There’s still a mural down by the train station in Joliet, and there’s a girl playing basketball with pigtails. That’s me. There’s another under the bridge on the way to the the ballpark that has George Mikan, Tom Thayer, Pam Gant and myself. My mom told me that the only one that’s left that you can see much of is me. We need to get those paintings back, because Joliet has produced so many great athletes. Players like Jesse Barfield, Larry Gura, Mike Alstott, Jeff Reed. Jeff sat behind me in English class at West. We need to keep their stories alive to inspire the younger kids.”