PLAINVIEW, Texas- The Flying Queens of Wayland Baptist University were inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Before the days of NCAA Women’s basketball, the Flying Queens won 131 consecutive games from 1953-58 and 10 AAU National Championships overall (1954-1957, 1959, 1961, 1970-1971 1974-1975).
“I mean that’s unheard of,” said Rick Cooper, WBU Athletic Director. “To coach long time and go that long without suffering a bad game or having a loss is extraordinary.”
The Flying Queen teams were led by former WWII pilot Harley Redin. Redin and five other players had been enshrined in the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, but never his entire teams..
“I was lucky to have players that had been good in high school and they wanted to keep playing so that’s the reason they came to Wayland,” Redin said.
The now 100-year-old still likes to joke about one of his former players, Marsha Sharp.
“She was short but she was slow,” Redin said.
Cooper, a former WBU athlete himself, said he believes the honor is well overdue for a “group of very special insightful trailblazers.”
Over 100 former players, families, and university staff traveled to the 2019 enshrinement ceremony.