Those Championship Seasons

An interview with the woman who put Dartmouth women's basketball on the map

Chris Wielgus, the 30-year-old head coach of the Dartmouth women's varsity basketball team, is a winner. During the past four years, her teams have captured a record-equalling quartet of Ivy League championships. Wielgus recorded her 100 th coaching victory at Dartmouth when the Big Green defeated Marist College in the annual Dartmouth Invitational Tournament back in November. During the past seven years, her teams have won more than 63 percent of their games. This season will be Wielgus' last at Dartmouth. She will be rejoining her husband, Chuck, who resigned as recreation director of Woodstock, Vt., during the fall to become executive director of youth programs in Hilton Head, S.C. "I love Dartmouth. We'll miss Dartmouth a lot," Wielgus said during an interview in her Alumni Gymnasium office.

Wielgus is a native of New York City and attended Catholic schools there. She was graduated from Springfield College in 1974 with a degree in physical education. She played basketball for Springfield as a freshman and sophomore. "But I didn't play much," she conceded. During her junior and senior years, she coached at the high school and junior high school level in the Springfield area. Wielgus also coached in the New York area following her graduation from college. In 1975 she married Chuck and moved to Woodstock, where she taught physical education at Woodstock Union High School and coached the school's field hockey team. Dartmouth was looking for a part-time coach for its women's basketball team, which had compiled a 1-8 record in 1975-76 during its fourth year of existence. The 23-year-old Wielgus, who had about two years of coaching experience, applied for the position. "I interviewed and I got it," Wielgus said. What she got wasn't much. "The part-time pay was horrendous," she said. "But I just wanted the experience. What they wanted was to put a warm body behind a desk, but they didn't even have a desk. We had nothing. I just came and coached." Wielgus' players knew that they had cramped quarters in their tiny locker room, so they measured the surface area of the room. "They each had a tile and one-half to change in," Wielgus said. "The whole experience was unusual." Wielgus was hired just for the winter term. The women's team had a schedule of ten regular season games and the three-game Ivy League tournament. "I raided the field hockey team to get players for the winter term," she said. "A lot of kids showed up. There must have been 35 to 40 kids. But at that time, participation was really important." That 1976-77 team posted a 5-8 record.

Things got a little better during the next year. Wielgus was hired to be a full-time College employee. In addition to her basketball duties, she became the assistant coach for the field hockey and lacrosse teams. She even got a desk. "Each year the school changed its mind about what it wanted," Wielgus observed. "Because I was here fulltime, I started actively recruiting and that was a,big turning point." Her 1977-78 team had a 9-8 record, only the second winning mark in the sixyear history of women's basketball at Dartmouth. Her recruiting efforts also paid off. "That was the year we got Gail Koziara and Linda DeRenzo. I recruited both of them. But a lot of o.ther kids came and filled the ranks for us and changed the make-up of the team considerably." Koziara and DeRenzo, both members of the Class of 1982, arrived on campus in the fall of 1978 and helped change the fortunes of the women's basketball team. Koziara, a center, alone holds 22 of the 25 game, season, and career individual records. Wielgus' 1978-79 team posted a 17-7 record. The team didn't win the Ivy championship that year, probably because the freshman Koziara broke her foot and was unable to play in the title series. With Koziara and DeRenzo leading the way, Dartmouth swept three straight Ivy titles in the next three years. The team was 16-9 in 1979-80, 20-9 in 1980-81, and 14-9 in 1981-82. The streak continued last winter even after the graduation of Weilgus' talented duo. The 1982-83 team had an 18-8 record and was 11-1 in the Ivy League. After clinching its fourth consecutive Ivy title, Dartmouth made its first appearance in the NCAA Tournament.

When Wielgus first arrived at Dartmouth, the women's basketball team traveled to games by van. Now they travel to games by bus, or by plane for distant trips. Wielgus remembers when the players sold sandwiches and food at a state high school swimming meet, held in Hanover, to pay for their expenses to play in a Christmas tournament in New York. The women stayed in parents' homes in the New York area during their stay there. Now they stay in hotels. "Our budget is on a par with the men's team," Wielgus said.

"And we're treated with respect. As we became more successful, people supported us more. We're highly visible now, and I think that's a big plus. Each year we got more and more encouragement. Dartmouth is doing an awful lot for its women." As the success of the team has continued, so has the recruiting potential. "People are interested in us," Wielgus said. "When we talk about Dartmouth women's basketball, they know we're talking about a legitimate program. The College has a great reputation that makes for a viable product to sell."

Wielgus declined to say what Dartmouth team was her best or who was her best player during her eight years. "I have no favorite team," she said. "And you can't coach in the Ivy League and be successful with one star. Gail [Koziara], for example, was our first highly visible player and very talented, but there were plenty of other talented players around Gail. The center is only as good as the guards getting her the ball. And I also can't tell you which championship meant the most to me."

Dartmouth has launched an aggressive national search to find a successor to Wielgus. "For selfish reasons we are sorry to see Chris leave, said Athletic Director Ted Leland, "but we understand her desire to move forward in her personal and professional lives. Not only was Chris our most successful coach, but she made an extremely positive contribution to many athletes who will be forever in her debt, as well as to our basketball program and to all women's athletics at Dartmouth. Chris showed everyone the way."

Wielgus hasn't decided what she will be doing in South Carolina. "I don't know," she said. "I'm just trying to get through the season with the least bit of interruption." Wielgus is expecting her second child in April about six weeks after the end of the basketball season. She and her five-year-old son Chip plan to rejoin Chuck during the middle of March. She said the decision to leave Dartmouth did not come easily. "I'm going to miss it," Wielgus said.

"It was a really difficult decision to make. Both Chuck and I have turned down a lot of jobs in the past eight years, but of all the offers we've had, this was the best. I'm going to miss coaching, and I'm going to miss Dartmouth. It's been a very big part of my life. I'm really going to miss the athletes and the interaction with the people at Dartmouth, so I'm leaving with mixed emotions. But I think there are other sides of me that I would like to explore. The goals have been reached; now there will be a redirection to other challenges. I don't think success will be based on hardware trophies anymore."