The AP women’s basketball poll turns 50 today. Its story starts here, at The Inquirer

While most of America is running to stores or shopping online on Black Friday, today’s date marks a golden moment in the history of women’s college basketball.

On Nov. 28, 1976, The Inquirer’s annual college basketball preview included a story with a headline proclaiming, “Move over guys, here comes another Top 20 poll.”

Just below was a graphic of Delta State’s center Lusia Harris, the consensus national player of the year, overlooking the Top 20, complete with an added national preview.

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And thus, under the stewardship of this writer, inside the Inquirer offices was born an institution that led to seismic change in terms of national attention on women’s basketball. Two years later, at the request of the College Sports Information Directors of America, the Associated Press began running those first-of-their-kind weekly rankings. This season, the poll celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Just as the 50th anniversary of the Title IX landmark federal legislation bringing equal opportunity to women in collegiate sports was celebrated in 2022, so too will the poll’s 50th anniversary be celebrated all season.

Technology helped spur the poll’s growth, from the pre-NCAA era to 1981-82, when the organization started sponsoring women’s championships. (Before then, women’s championships were held by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women.) This writer handled the tabulation operation through 1993-94, which is when Connecticut began an appearance streak that totals 610 times through this week.

Until 1994-95, coaches did the voting because writers were at a minimum nationally.

Fifty years ago, the poll was created using typewriters and $70 calculators that today cost a couple of bucks. It evolved from telerams, faxes, floppy discs, and Radio Shack TRS-80 calculators to giant hard drives, laptops, Blackberries, and, ultimately, smartphones and iPads today.

Early on, a sports media relations professional at North Carolina State called looking for information, but I wasn’t keeping records. An hour later, legendary Wolfpack coach Kay Yow, a voter, called to lecture me on the importance of preserving history.

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Fortunately, Colleen Matsuhara, who phoned in then-Cal Fullerton coach Billie Moore’s vote from out West, was keeping tabs, so the first six missing weeks from the records were restored. Today, that has evolved into a spreadsheet of all polls, among other records, and this is now the 889th week of the poll.

Two people most excited about the poll creation were based here — this writer’s Temple classmate, Dick “Hoops” Weiss, the acclaimed men’s writer, and Mike Flynn, who, until recently, ran national AAU powerhouse, the Philadelphia Belles.

Way back I said one day to them, “You think I’m going to do this the next 50 years?”

They nodded in the affirmative.

A few years after Philadelphia hosted the Women’s Final Four in 2000, Geno Auriemma’s UConn squad was back in town to face Villanova. Over at the hotel where his Norristown posse were hanging out, Auriemma’s brother noted that perhaps some decisions would have to be made in the near future.

Two days later, UConn signed another No. 1 recruit, so he wasn’t going anywhere.

I saw his brother again shortly after that and quipped that one day someone is going to say they came to Storrs, Conn., because they like Geno’s grandfatherly ways.

Geno’s birthday is March 23, right in the middle of March Madness. Decades later, the date gets noted at an NCAA Tournament news conference, and now-WNBA standout Paige Bueckers shouts out, “Yeah, we call him Grandpa.”