Marian Washington’s recently released autobiography, “Fierce: My Fight for Nothing Less,” features several key moments at which Washington pauses the narrative of her life to reflect on the process of recounting it.
In one early chapter, Washington writes about living on a bus with her family growing up in West Chester, Pennsylvania, then takes a moment to consider the gravity of discussing her circumstances in such a matter-of-fact way.
“Over the years I probably could count on one hand the people I’ve told about living in a bus,” she wrote. “I didn’t want anyone to judge my life, and if it couldn’t be understood in all its ups and downs, I didn’t want to talk about it at all.”
This approach defines much of how Washington tells the story of her life in “Fierce,” which takes readers through her upbringing in West Chester, her survival of sexual violence, her experiences raising a child as a young teenager, her time as an athlete representing the United States internationally and — most familiarly to local readers — her assiduous efforts to shape women’s sports at the University of Kansas, including in 31 years as the KU women’s basketball coach.
That meant a lot of plumbing the depths for Washington, who said it was hardest to reflect on her early life and her time at KU.
“Very difficult, I have to tell you,” she told the Journal-World in a recent interview. “My daughter helped me a lot in (the) way of encouragement. It was important that I found a co-writer who I could be comfortable with and be open with.”
“Fierce,” penned by Washington and the longtime sports writer Vicki L. Friedman, came out Aug. 6 from Ascend Books. Washington said she’s received plenty of positive reception in the weeks since, including from her players, many of whom receive the spotlight in the book’s second half.
“I think that probably the most important individual is my daughter,” Washington added. “I wanted to be sure that she was comfortable with me sharing my childhood life, and she was gung-ho. She definitely wanted to have it out there.”
Josie Washington-McQuay features prominently throughout the book, not only in the sense that raising her shaped Washington’s life but also in that Washington-McQuay has her own first-person chapter at the book’s conclusion.
“My mother is my ride-or-die,” Washington-McQuay writes. “My best friend. My heart. I’m her road dog. Her bodyguard. Her protector. Her one and only daughter.”
Washington-McQuay could also have said she was her mother’s young recruiting assistant. In the book, Washington writes that she first heard about eventual KU legend Lynette Woodard from her daughter.
“After watching Lynette play in a game (in the 5A state basketball tournament), Josie made a beeline for her,” Washington wrote. “‘You have to play for my mom!’ she insisted … My daughter grew up around talented women so she recognized how skilled Lynette was.”
Woodard, who wrote the book’s afterword, plays a central role in one particular portion of the book in which Washington attempts to correct the record.
Preserving history
“One of the biggest reasons I decided to write my story,” Washington writes near the end of the book, “is because I feel strongly about preserving history, and it must be accurate.”
The idea of “preserving history” takes on a number of meanings throughout the book, beyond Washington’s personal upbringing.
Washington devotes a chapter to the NCAA’s treatment of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, a previous governing body for women’s sports whose records the NCAA does not officially recognize. Washington writes that she first became aware of the issue when Jackie Stiles was pursuing the NCAA scoring record during the 2000-01 season, and “at some point, I realized they weren’t talking about Lynette’s record.”
Woodard’s 3,649 career points from 1977-81 predate the NCAA, and her story returned to the forefront when Iowa’s Caitlin Clark passed the NCAA’s official record (3,527 points, by Kelsey Plum) in February two weeks before clearing Woodard’s AIAW mark.
In the book, Washington calls for the NCAA to unify its record books, noting that its separate “pre-NCAA” record book is just nine pages long and bizarrely omits the name of Carol Eckman, who was the head coach of Washington’s West Chester State team that won the first women’s national basketball championship. She called that omission a “disgrace.”
“What really saddens me, and has made it very important for me to continue trying to enlighten people,” Washington said, “is that we had women that did some incredible things in our game. We had coaches that coached without pay, we had those athletes that were tremendous athletes that didn’t get the celebrated recognition that we have today.”
She continued.
“You have, now, young coaches out there that are making great salaries that may not even know who started the national championships for college women. And that name is Carol Eckman … Every young woman that is playing this game, every father, every mother supporting their daughter playing this game, they should know how all this got started, and it wasn’t the NCAA that did it.”
Challenges and reconciliation at KU
Washington’s desire to set the record straight also extends to her time at KU, and particularly a stretch as the director of women’s athletics charged with starting the Jayhawks’ women’s sports program ahead of the official implementation of Title IX. She depicts an adversarial relationship with then-AD Clyde Walker, describing his “iciness that leaves me cold 50 years later,” and with a group of women in the athletic department “who weren’t used to seeing a female in a leadership role, especially when it pertained to athletics. Add to that I was Black and all of them were white.”
“It was never about the University of Kansas per se,” she says now. “It was about the individuals that had positions that impact me, women’s athletics and how we were going to grow. That is what I hope will be clear in my book, is that there were individuals that did not care for women’s athletics, did not support women’s athletics, and my battle was to try to get through all that and keep women’s sports growing, and it was not easy.”
Her women’s teams were “submerged” into the broader athletic department in 1979, but having accomplished plenty during her five years leading women’s sports at KU, she writes, “We had a lot to be proud of.”
“All of the sports had excellent coaches and each had assistants,” she wrote. “We had a trainer and a strength training room. We had uniforms that weren’t hand-me-downs, and warmups. We were giving women scholarships. We had a locker room so our players didn’t have to leave Allen Fieldhouse covered in sweat to shower in their dorms. We traveled by vans, not cars, and every so often, we flew.”
Washington remained as KU’s women’s basketball coach and earned the Jayhawks 560 wins with 11 NCAA Tournament appearances, seven league titles and six conference tournament championships. She stepped aside at the end of the 2004-05 season, citing health issues, which years later she found out were related to Lyme disease. She describes frustration that, as she puts it, her replacement Bonnie Henrickson got “tools to be successful that I was denied,” including more nonconference home games and trips to the WNIT when the Jayhawks didn’t make March Madness. Also, in later years, she became concerned that “the history was being twisted a bit” at KU by allowing “a former professor” she does not name to adopt the label of “mother” of KU sports and claim the title of past director of women’s athletics at KU, which she calls “insulting to me.”
Washington stressed, though, both in the book and an interview, that any animosity toward people at the university is in the rear-view mirror, especially after a reconciliation effort led by AD Travis Goff and deputy Nicole Corcoran.
“(Goff) was so different than any of the other people I had worked with,” Washington said. “So it made it very easy for me to come back into the athletic department and feel at home. (Women’s basketball coach Brandon) Schneider opened the door to me, their players have been just so sweet and gracious. So everything was there, they named the suite (at Allen Fieldhouse) after me which was very, very nice.”
Washington still lives in Lawrence for part of the year, when she’s not in Florida.
“My youth was spent here,” she said. “I spent more years here than any place in my life. I’ve had so many wonderful people who became friends of mine, people who were fans who supported me when I didn’t have a way to promote the sport, very little money to even have programs for our teams, but they would be in the stands. There’s so many great people here in this community, and I feel very much at home every time I come back.”
Recently, a young mailman greeted her as “Coach,” and “it just made me feel at home again.”
“I will probably, until I can’t, always try to be here,” she said.
Washington was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2004. She has in back-to-back years been a finalist for the Naismith Hall of Fame but has yet to receive that honor.
Kansas standout Lynette Woodard, left, and then-coach Marian
Washington sit on the KU bench. Woodard holds the women’s record
for points scored in a fieldhouse game — 44.
Adam Buhler/Journal-World Photo
J-W File Photo