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There she sits in her office, pondering the LSU Women’s Basketball season opener against Villanova and her mind is anywhere but on basketball. In fact, it’s all anyone wants to talk about. Finally, she relents. Yes, she says, there are squirrels in my attic. And there it is, the elephant in the room no one can ignore. It may sound funny until she relays the story of one invasive squirrel falling through the vent above her stove, sending her house guest into hysterics. Squirrels are fine, she admits, as long as she’s watching them from her porch. Falling out of household appliances is another story altogether. And the worst part is, she has two recruits and their families visiting this particular weekend, and as is her way, she will cook them dinner at her house. Talk about a potential deal-breaker. But if rogue vermin are the worst obstacle she faces this year, it will be another great season for a woman who compiles records faster than she can recollect them. It’s not quite as lonely at the top LSU’s tough 78-60 loss to the University of Texas in the Elite Eight® deprived Gunter of her first trip the Final Four, leaving a sour aftertaste after a season that ultimately resulted in a final No. 3 national ranking for the Lady Tigers. “The season started with 15 wins in a row, then we lost to Arkansas, and then we came back on another run,” Gunter said. “Those four teams that beat us, we beat them somewhere else. We were one game away from the Final Four but we played an exceptional Texas team. It was an unbelievably gut-wrenching loss. “That was the first team that I thought was good enough to win the national championship. But in every sense of the word, it was a banner year.” Despite the fact that her hopes of a Final Four appearance were delayed for at least another season, Gunter found redemption elsewhere. After years of lackluster attendance figures for Lady Tigers’ home games, 15,217 fans literally “packed” the Pete Maravich Assembly Center (PMAC) to watch No. 3 LSU play No. 2 Tennessee. And although the game ended in a narrow loss for LSU, to see fans standing in the aisles and huddling in any open space they could find was welcome recompense for a woman who years earlier had to move her team to another university’s gymnasium while Big Bird and the rest of the touring Sesame Street cast occupied the PMAC. “I always dreamed that before I retired, I would see this place sold out,” Gunter said. “The girls didn’t want to tell me. I was back in our dressing room area, and I usually come down to the court about six minutes before the game. I asked how it looked and they said, ‘pretty good, Coach Gunter.’ I walked down and looked out at that crowd and the only thing I could think was, ‘Wow. My God, it’s finally happened.’” A Journey of 1,000 Traveling Calls Growing up as an only child, Gunter was addicted to sports. From the age of four, she loved the game of basketball, trying to equal the prowess of her two older male cousins by practicing on the goal that most assuredly, stood out on the family farm. If you’re wondering why basketball, stop. The simple answer is, there was nothing else to do in Walnut Grove. Everyone played basketball. If you were going to be popular, you better play basketball. Or at least learn to dribble. She played right on through to Nashville, Tennessee, where she helped lead Nashville Business College to two Association of American Universities national championships in her four years on the team. She was also a member of the 1960–62 United States team that played against the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. Four times they played the Soviets and four times they lost. “(At Nashville), we practiced at the downtown (YMCA),” Gunter said. “That’s why today, when the kids complain, I tell them to get over it. Charter flights and $150 shoes, get serious. “(Playing against the Soviets), it was very heated. We played them in Madison Square Garden and lost in overtime, and then we played them in Washington, D.C., Cleveland, and Nashville. It was very strange, but you realized that just because their government was communist, it didn’t mean they were. They were cool kids. They played hard. “They were subsidized, that was the only difference. They were put in (basketball) camps at an early age when they showed ability. That was like their living. They were fun. It’s not fun to get your rear end beat by them, but goodness, they were big and strong.” Seven years later in 1979, the effects of Title IX began to be felt on college athletics, strengthening their cause. The game began to skyrocket as scholarships were more readily available and budgets were expanded for women’s athletics. The NCAA soon saw how fast the game was growing and took over sponsorship. The rest as they say, is history. “I’ve been very fortunate,” Gunter said. “People will call me on the history of women’s college basketball, and I say sometimes that I feel like I am the archives. It’s unbelievable to be a part of this game for four decades. “I think we’re also at a time that we have to be concerned with keeping (the game at its present level). The WNBA is struggling now and that concerns us because we need that league to survive.” One of the first signs that the game had really begun to take off came at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. For the first time, women’s basketball would be played at the Olympics. Gunter was an assistant coach on a team that was led by then UCLA head coach Billy Moore and included future Tennessee coach Pat Summit and Ann Meyers, who signed a free–agent contract with the Indiana Pacers in 1979 and became the only woman to tryout with a NBA team. After six weeks of training camp, the team headed to Canada where 20 teams would qualify for four spots. No one thought the U.S. team would qualify, but they did. Then no one thought they would medal, yet they went home with the silver. Four years later, Gunter was slated to be head coach of the U.S. team at the 1980 Games in Lake Placid, New York, but never got her chance after President Jimmy Carter boycotted the games due to the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan. “We went a whole summer not knowing what was going to happen, then we had to go to Bulgaria to qualify,” Gunter said. “We won the qualifying tournament, got back and found out that Mr. Carter had decided not to participate. I don’t fault him; I just felt bad for the kids because they wouldn’t be able to go.” The godmother of women’s basketball arrives Over the next several seasons, the wins would continue, the rankings would improve and Gunter’s legacy would grow. In her third year, she led LSU to its first women’s title, beating Florida for the Women’s National Invitational Tournament title. Two years later, she became the winningest coach in LSU women’s basketball history, surpassing Jinks Coleman. In 1991, LSU won its first SEC Tournament title, defeating eventual national champion Tennessee 80-75 in the finals. But in 1992, the Midas touch began to tarnish. The Lady Tigers had dipped to 16-13 overall and 4-7 in the SEC. The next season LSU was stung by its first ever losing season with marks of 9-18 and 0-11 in the SEC, and the following year, LSU bottomed out at 7-20. “There were a couple years where we recruited good players, but not good people,” Gunter said. “There were four or five quality players I let go. And you can’t play the SEC without a full deck, we just got smashed. “After 1995, there were all kinds of rumors that I was going to be fired. I got back from the SEC tourney and had an appointment with (former athletic director) Joe Dean. I called and asked if I could meet with him. We made some changes. (Assistant coach) Pokey Chatman said, ‘Coach, we’re going to turn it around.’ And we did. We packed our bags and for two weeks we looked at a bunch of junior college players, looking for a quick fix.” Those players, Elaine Powell, Pietra Gay, and Toni Gross, would be All-SEC selections and help win 46 games over the next two years. Since then, Gunter says, things have been on an upward climb. No autographs please Gunter has won nearly every individual coaching award in existence. Maybe even a few that don’t exist, she couldn’t tell you. This season marks her 40th year of coaching, more than anyone else in the history of the game. Her 981 games coached put her third all-time as does her total of 681 wins. Her 21 20-win seasons make her fourth all-time and lest we forget, she did help start the game itself. What does it all mean? She’ll get back to you on that. “That doesn’t mean I’m not appreciative in any way. But the only game I’m thinking about is the next one. I think that’s how you survive so long in this game. I’ll tell you this, nobody we play cares about all that stuff.” In 2003, Gunter was elected into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. She was even part of the legislature as Senate Resolution 96 passed unanimously. The resolution called for the commending and congratulation of Sue Gunter for her induction into the Hall of Fame. It was with great pride, the documentation stated, that the Senate recognized “this outstanding athlete who has brought honor to her community and to the State of Mississippi.” “That was really special because that’s home, that’s where it all started,” Gunter said. “Everything I had done was outside of the state, but you never forget your roots. It was a wonderful tribute to our family and a very special event.” When all is said and done, Gunter will be remembered as a great coach, a great role model for the game, and more importantly, a gracious and charismatic individual in her own right. But for the moment, she’s not going anywhere. There’s still a Final Four to be won—and a squirrel to be caught. “If I walked away tomorrow and never coached another game, I’ve spent my life doing something that I love,” she said. “Most all of my (players) have graduated and doing things like that make you proud. It would be wonderful to go to the Final Four for LSU because the program is at that point. “I may not be the one to get us over the hump, but it’s going to happen. When it does, if I’m not on the bench, I’ll be the happiest person in the arena.” Contact Josh Duplechain | LSU
University Relations Related Links LSU Coaching Legend Sue Gunter Dies at 66 |
How can a 30-4 record, an SEC tournament title, a No. 1 seed in
the NCAA tournament and a spot in the Elite Eight® be a disappointment?
The answer is, it’s not, but it can be. 
At last census, the population of Walnut Grove, Mississippi, was
394 people, the second most-populated city in Leake County.
There is one bank and three highways there. Then there’s the
Kansas City Southern Railway, which runs through Walnut Grove, whose
biggest employer is Choctaw Maid Farms Inc., “one of the fastest
growing poultry processing companies in the southeast.” Sixty
miles away is Jackson International, the nearest commercial airport,
which oddly enough has no international flights. The Mississippi
town has been mistaken as the same Walnut Grove that Laura Ingalls
used as the basis for Little House on the Prairie, but it’s
not. It is, however, the birthplace of Sue Gunter.
After college, Gunter and a group of women looked at the opportunities
for women to play basketball after high school. It didn’t
take them long to see that there weren’t very many. There
were no scholarships, no budgets for women’s basketball and
the group decided to come up with a solution. Things began to take
off in 1972 in the form of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics
for Women, an organization put together by a group of women
educators, including Gunter.
After stops at Middle Tennessee State, where she went undefeated
in her two seasons as coach, and Stephen F. Austin, Gunter arrived
at LSU in 1982. In her first season, she led the Lady Tigers to
a 20-7 record, a No. 20 ranking in the Associated Press poll and
a first-place tie for the SEC Western Division crown. She was named
National Coach of the Year by Basketball News and chosen top coach
in Louisiana by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association.
“(Publicity) is not my thing,” Gunter said matter-of-factly.
“It’s good for the team, for the school, but if you
asked me right now how many wins I have, I have no earthly idea.
I know what we did last year. We have a great staff, great players.
