Theresa Grentz

Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer, the only person to lead three different programs to NCAA Final Fours, received her sport's highest honor last night through induction to the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. Stringer achieved the Final Four feat first with Cheyney, then Iowa, and a year ago with Rutgers, when Philadelphia was the host city. Theresa Grentz, a center on Immaculata's three-time national champions in the early 1970s who preceded Stringer at Rutgers and now is at Illinois, was also among the 10 honorees.

Kristen Foley, a women's basketball star and two-time team captain at Rutgers in the mid-1980s, was named head coach of Drexel yesterday. The 27-year-old native of Peabody, Mass., will succeed Lillian Hass, who is to retire next month after 29 seasons with the Dragons. Hass compiled a 264-178 record. It will be the first head coaching job for Foley, who has been at her alma mater since 1989 assisting Theresa Grentz, also the coach of the 1992 U.S. Olympic women's basketball squad.

Two questions have to be asked after Cathy Rush was finally elected Monday to the Basketball Hall of Fame: What took so long? And who's next? The coach of the three-time champion Immaculata University women's basketball team was also nominated in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2005. It shouldn't have taken that long to recognize her accomplishments. Under her guidance, the Mighty Macs won three Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women championships from 1972 to 1974.

Theresa Grentz, who led Rutgers to four Atlantic Ten women's basketball titles and nine consecutive NCAA tournament appearances, ended a 19-year career with the university yesterday by resigning and accepting a head- coaching job with Illinois. Terms of the contract were not announced, but sources said Grentz's base salary at Rutgers was one of the highest in the sport, at an estimated $105,000. At Illinois, Grentz will be expected to rebuild a program that ranks in the cellar of the Big Ten. "It's a long time since I've been introduced as a new coach," said Grentz, adding that she had to consider the effect of moving her family - her sons Karl, 17, and Kevin, 9, and her husband, Karl.

As one of college basketball's most tempestuous offcourt seasons draws to a close, black and white coaches say they've resolved their differences with the NCAA and are ready to work toward a common agenda. "The healing has begun," said Southern California's George Raveling, a key leader of both the Black Coaches Association and National Association of Basketball Coaches, at a news conference yesterday in Charlotte, N.C., the site of this year's Final Four. That era of good feeling was ushered in by a 15-point agreement mediated last month by the U.S. Justice Department's Community Relations Service, after coaches threatened to boycott college games in January.

You can touch that dial all you want. If you're looking for a live telecast of the complete women's basketball gold-medal game Friday, the NBC Olympics TripleCast is your only recourse. "If that's true, I'd say I couldn't believe it," said Theresa Grentz, the U.S. women's coach. "I'd find it heartbreaking. "Maybe we haven't educated the right people. It's certainly entertaining enough. " Still, NBC will include the women's game - with the United States involved if it beats the Unified Team in today's semifinal at the Palau d'Esports - in its Friday 90-minute late-night package, which airs at 12:35 a.m. The men's gold-medal game is scheduled to be televised in its entirety Saturday.

Fourteen people, including Chester High boys' basketball coach Alonzo Lewis, will be inducted tomorrow into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame at the 17th annual Sports Hall of Fame induction banquet. The ceremonies, hosted by the hall's Delaware County chapter, will be held at September's Place in Springfield. Lewis, who also was a standout player for La Salle College in the late 1950s, is happy to be among the group that includes former pro football players Billy "White Shoes" Johnson, Alan "The Horse" Ameche and Mike Evans; former Penn coach and Eagles president Harry Gamble; and Theresa Grentz, coach of the U.S. women's basketball team in the 1992 Olympics.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - The call was supposed to come to Cathy Rush's home in Sarasota, Fla., between noon and 3 p.m. Rush, who coached Immaculata University from 1972 to '77, had been through this - waiting for the thumbs up or thumbs down from the Basketball Hall of Fame - five times before. The phone rang at 11:45 a.m. Rush remembered thinking, "Who could that be?" It was John Doleva, president and CEO of the Hall of Fame. "I couldn't wait any longer," Doleva said when Rush, who said she still gets choked up thinking about that moment, picked up the phone.

Big East player of the year Jeff Green said yesterday there is a "70-30" chance he will return to Georgetown for his senior season. Green and fellow junior Roy Hibbert submitted their names as early-entry candidates for the NBA draft last week. Neither has hired an agent, so both could return to fulfill their oft-stated goal of playing 4 years with the Hoyas. "Right now, 70-30 - 70 coming back," Green said. "It depends on whether I'm ready. I still have a lot of things I need to work on to play at that level.

Duke freshman J.J. Redick can no longer say he hasn't had a hot streak this season. He hit his last eight shots last night and scored a career-high 26 points as the third-ranked Blue Devils beat visiting Dayton, 85-74, giving them a 7-0 start for the third consecutive year. Dahntay Jones added 15 points, Casey Sanders had 13 and Chris Duhon came up with two big defensive plays late for the Blue Devils, who jumped to a big lead and then held off a rally by the Flyers (7-3).

WASHINGTON - The string of notables with local ties to the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame expanded Monday night with the announcement that Ohio State's Jim Foster, the former coach at St. Joseph's, and Rutgers all-time great Sue Wicks are part of the six-member 2013 induction class. The class, whose ceremony will take place June 8, 2013, at the Hall in Knoxville, Tenn., was announced during halftime of the ESPN2 telecast of the U.S. women's Olympic team exhibition game against Brazil at the Verizon Center.

With the 40th anniversary of Title IX coming Saturday, the Daily News asked legendary Immaculata College star and women's basketball Hall of Famer Theresa Grentz to provide a guest column about her experiences. Grentz was a three-time All-American on the Mighty Macs' national championship teams in the early 1970s. She would later coach at Saint Joseph's, Rutgers and Illinois, winning 671 games and only having two losing seasons in her 32 years as a college coach. Grentz coached Team USA to a bronze medal at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and coached the 1990 Goodwill Games and World Championship teams.

To know C. Vivian Stringer is to be affected by her. That's what some of the women who have followed the Rutgers women's basketball coach said yesterday when word of Stringer's induction into yet another Hall of Fame reached them. "She's a strong, strong person," said Cathy Rush, who coached against Stringer. "She always knows what she wants," said Theresa Grentz, who both played and coached against Stringer. "She's absolutely a great role model and a great person," said Lurline Jones, the winningest high school basketball coach in Philadelphia Public League history.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - The call was supposed to come to Cathy Rush's home in Sarasota, Fla., between noon and 3 p.m. Rush, who coached Immaculata University from 1972 to '77, had been through this - waiting for the thumbs up or thumbs down from the Basketball Hall of Fame - five times before. The phone rang at 11:45 a.m. Rush remembered thinking, "Who could that be?" It was John Doleva, president and CEO of the Hall of Fame. "I couldn't wait any longer," Doleva said when Rush, who said she still gets choked up thinking about that moment, picked up the phone.

The way Theresa Grentz tells it, she and her Immaculata basketball teammates - and bear in mind this was the '70s - stumbled upon that day's practice plan. Grentz, 56, cashing in on about 35 years of perspective since that day, joked that what they should have been worried about was all the running their coach, Cathy Rush, had penciled into the day's schedule. What they noticed instead was that Rush, with Army-like precision, had allotted practice time - very little if Grentz remembers correctly - for "water.

Two questions have to be asked after Cathy Rush was finally elected Monday to the Basketball Hall of Fame: What took so long? And who's next? The coach of the three-time champion Immaculata University women's basketball team was also nominated in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2005. It shouldn't have taken that long to recognize her accomplishments. Under her guidance, the Mighty Macs won three Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women championships from 1972 to 1974.

The Philadelphia Sports Writers Association will honor Immaculata College's three-time national women's basketball champions of the 1970s at tonight's annual awards banquet in Cherry Hill. Immaculata won titles from 1972 to '74 in the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. The AIAW predated the arrival of the NCAA women's tournament in 1981-82. Our Lady of Victory, a movie about the first title under Mighty Macs coach Cathy Rush, is in postproduction. A release date has not been set. Theresa Grentz, the star center of the Mighty Macs, will speak tonight on behalf of her former teammates, many of whom will be in attendance.

When former Immaculata standout Theresa Shank Grentz stepped down in April after 12 seasons as the women's basketball coach at Illinois, she left her options open on what she might do next. "I know there is still something out there for me, whether it be as a collegiate or professional coach, a position in the academic world, working with women's issues, or possibly even politics," Grentz said in announcing that she was resigning. There was speculation that Grentz, who as a player led Immaculata to three straight national championships in the early 1970s, might succeed former Immaculata teammate Rene Portland as coach at Penn State.

Temple coach Dawn Staley was named the head coach of the 2007 U.S. women's basketball team for the Pan American Games. A three-time Olympic gold medalist, Staley is an assistant for USA Basketball's women's senior national team. "I'm pretty excited about this," Staley said. "I've done a lot with USA Basketball, and to be in the position to be a head coach on any USA team is quite an honor. " Staley, a 1988 graduate of Dobbins High, has been involved in USA Basketball since 1989 as a player, coach and committee member.

Big East player of the year Jeff Green said yesterday there is a "70-30" chance he will return to Georgetown for his senior season. Green and fellow junior Roy Hibbert submitted their names as early-entry candidates for the NBA draft last week. Neither has hired an agent, so both could return to fulfill their oft-stated goal of playing 4 years with the Hoyas. "Right now, 70-30 - 70 coming back," Green said. "It depends on whether I'm ready. I still have a lot of things I need to work on to play at that level.