NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — WRSU-FM (88.7), the Rutgers student radio station serving Central New Jersey, announced today it will re-broadcast the 1982 AIAW Women's Basketball National Championship Game between the Texas Longhorns and the Rutgers Lady Knights in its entirety at 6 p.m. on Monday, March 28 — exactly 40 years to the day that the game took place at The Palestra in Philadelphia. Rutgers won what would be the last-ever AIAW Women's Basketball Championship, 83-77.
The full WRSU broadcast was aired for the first time since 1982 five years ago, on Rutgers Day 2017, as part of a documentary written and produced by WRSU General Manager Dom Savino (SAS '18) with the assistance of Broadcast Administrator Mike Pavlichko (RC '00) as part of the 35th Anniversary tribute to the team. This special features interviews Coach Theresa Grentz, star players Mary Coyle, Patty Coyle, Patty Delehanty and Chris Dailey, as well as sports writers Paul Franklin and Mel Greenberg.
The WRSU broadcast from 1982 features WRSU's Jim Berman (RC '82) and Jeff Gerstenblatt (RC '84) handling the play by play, as well as post-game interviews with then-Rutgers University President Dr. Edward Bloustein and Athletic Director Fred Gruninger, as well as Nancy Mitchell, who was instrumental in the formation of women's athletics at Rutgers. There are also post-game comments from Theresa Grentz and Chris Dailey, as well as a portion of the original Knightline that followed the game, which was hosted by WRSU's Jon Newman (RC '82) and Geoff Sadow (RC '84).
Then, from approximately 8:30 p.m. until 10 p.m., following the original postgame coverage, Geoff Sadow will pick up where he left off 40 years earlier, hosting a special edition of Knightline live from the WRSU studios along with Jim Berman and Dom Savino, with Jon Newman joining remotely. Rutgers Athletics Hall of Famers Theresa Grentz, Patty Coyle and Mary Coyle also are scheduled to be in studio as part of the panel. June Olkowski, the co-captain of the team and the first player in Rutgers women's basketball history to have her number retired, will be joining remotely. Also scheduled to call in will be Hall of Famer Jennie Hall as well as Mary Pat Nespoli, who captained the Lady Knights from 1983-85.
Fans are invited to call in and share memories of the 1981-82 season by calling (732) 932-8800. Listeners outside of the Central New Jersey area can listen online on WRSU.org.
"We're excited to rebroadcast this game… again," said WRSU Broadcast Administrator Mike Pavlichko. "We found the AIAW tape almost by accident in the Winter of 2017, and figured since it was 35 years later, we had to do something with it. At the time, we only had a cassette of the second half. We planned to air just that as part of a "From the Archives" series we run occasionally, then we thought maybe we could do a few interviews, too. So we started with Mary Coyle-Klinger, who's just up the road at Rutgers Prep. She put us in touch with her teammates and Coach Grentz. Then we tracked down the first half of the game, and it blew up into a full-scale project with Dom Savino doing all the interviews and writing the whole thing, and – of course – he just knocked it out of the park. And it led to something bigger: a video documentary produced by Geoff, Jim and Jon."
This is one of several tributes to this Rutgers championship team. This Fall, the 1982 Rutgers women's basketball AIAW Championship team will be honored before a special event at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center. That event will feature the premiere of the film, "Forgotten Champions: How an Underdog Rutgers Squad Made Women's Sports History", as well as round table discussions on the team, the season, and also the 50th Anniversary of Title IX. The film is Co-Executive Produced by Rutgers and WRSU alums Jon Newman and Geoff Sadow.
More details on the event and the "Forgotten Champions" film itself will be released at a later date.
