C. Vivian Stringer
By Diana Hutcheson
Edited by Vishal Jariwala
Abstract
Edenborn, Pa, is a small coal mining patch town in a German Township of Fayette County, Pennsylvania. If you are not from Southwestern Pennsylvania, you may not be familiar with what a patch town is. So, let me explain. A patch town is a settlement built by the mine companies near their coal mines, to provide housing for the miners that worked for them. Edenborn was a close, tight-knit community made up of various ethnic backgrounds where everybody looked out for one another. When it came to being a coal miner, your life depended on the person next to you.
"Everybody knew everybody in the community. You could not get away with anything without getting caught. But when you did something good, the whole town was proud of you" (Tokish). This is where the renowned basketball coach, C. Vivian Stringer grew up. Her given name was Charlene Vivian Stoner. But she has always used Vivian as her first name. Vivian credits her upbringing in a coal mining patch town as a big part of what made her who she is today. Vivian rose from a coal mining patch town through the professional and personal hurdles to be inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2009.
Vivian’s father worked in the local mine. Her family did not have much money but she never realized that they were poor until she left the area after high school. Vivian was the eldest of six children. Being the eldest child, her parents placed extra responsibility on her to be a role model to her younger brothers and sisters. “My parents always taught my brothers and sisters and me to think of ourselves as ‘less than.’ They told us that if we worked hard, didn’t look for excuses, and never gave up, we could do whatever we wanted to do, and become whatever we wanted to be” (Stringer 15).
Having grown up in the 50's and 60's, the idea of racial segregation was still apart of society. Vivian’s first encounter with such beliefs came when she tried out for the high school cheerleading squad. Her passion was athletics, especially basketball. At that time, there were no girls teams. So she figured the closest she could get to the court was by being a cheerleader. Her tryout went extremely well. In fact, she was told that her tryout was the best of all.
Despite that, she did not make the squad. The team consisted of all white girls. Vivian accepted the decision because she did not want to make trouble. But her father urged her to take a stand. She relented and appeared in front of the school board to protest. With the full support from her community at the board meeting, the board added her and a black friend of hers to the squad (Stringer 34).
It was a goal of her father to have his children go to college and not make a living carrying a coal bucket. Vivian received an academic scholarship to attend Slippery Rock University. She was the first person in her family to go to college. At Slippery Rock, she finally got to be involved in sports and also met her husband, Bill Stringer. She became so involved with Bill and sports that her academics suffered. Eventually, she lost her scholarship.
She felt deep shame because she knew what this meant for her family. Vivian did not have a job and knew that her family would not have the money to help her. She turned to her sister, Verna, who also attended Slippery Rock and was saving money by working two jobs. Verna gave Vivian money to pay for her classes. She never told her parents about losing the scholarship. In fact, she intercepted the letter the school sent home. Vivian brought her grades up, resulting in the dean’s reinstatement of her to the school. She eventually went on to get her master’s degree.
After college, Vivian accepted a teaching position at Cheyney State College. This is where she got started in coaching. She volunteered to coach three sports including basketball. At twenty-two years of age, Vivian was the youngest coach in the country, in a college that seriously lacked funds to support their athletic programs. They only had one leather ball to run practice with. The teams were transported to games in an old green bus that belonged to the university’s maintenance department. No scholarships were available to help in recruiting. But those obstacles did not prevent Vivian in building the coaching program into one that was respected nationally.
Cheyney went from being a small, Division III school to the one that played in the first ever women’s Final Four in 1980, but eventually losing to Louisiana Tech in the national championship game. Nevertheless, Vivian's career was going in a way that she could have never dreamed. Her personal life was equally gratifying. She was married to the man of her dreams, and had two children, David and Nina. But all that changed, when her fourteen month old daughter was diagnosed with a severe case of spinal meningitis. She would never walk or talk again. Nina would need specialized care for the rest of her life. Vivian was devastated. It heart-wrenching for her to picture her daughter not being able to run or laugh. Eventually Vivian turned to her passion, basketball to help her get back up and continue.
Through the years, Vivian had always received coaching offers from major universities but Cheyney was the only place, where she felt at home. The changes were taking place in college basketball that, however, was going to prevent small schools like Cheyney from competing nationally against higher division schools. To her, it felt like she was being squeezed out from competing against the national powerhouses. Vivian’s hand was being forced. It was time to move on. And so she ended up taking a coaching job at the University of Iowa (Stringer 124).
Unlike Cheyney State, the University of Iowa provided her with resources. She now had the funds and facilities to run her program like never before. The university medical school could give Nina the best care she could ever need. Bill also took a position at the university. It was around this time she became pregnant. It was a surprise to her because they had not planned on another child, especially at a time when she was starting a new position. But the university embraced her pregnancy. She had her third child. A baby boy, who was christened Justin (Stringer 139).
Everything started to fall into place. The basketball program grew steadily. Unlike Cheyney, Iowa had so much more to offer to potential recruits: scholarships, top notch facilities, and a rabid fanbase enabled her to attract some of the best talents in the country. But once again tragedy struck her family.
On Thanksgiving Day, her husband, who was a picture of health died suddenly at the age of 47 from a massive heart attack. Vivian's whole world fell apart. Bill was the love of her life, and her biggest supporter. During this time, she turned to her mother for strength and support. Her father was around the same age as Bill when he died. Her mother had to then become the provider for the family. It took strength and determination that pulled her mother through that tough time in her life. Her mother served as an example of strength and courage to get Vivian through tough times (Hall).
After taking some time off, Vivian found it difficult to return to work. But it was the court that served as an outlet to snap her out of her state and help her get back on her feet. That season she took her team and returned to the Final Four. Vivian became the first Division I coach to take two different teams to the Final Four. She coached another season at Iowa, but things were never the same after Bill died. Vivian felt it was in her best interest of her and her family to make a change. During her time at Iowa, Vivian appeared in the NCAA tournament 9 times, and won 6 Big Ten championships. Also, she was given the National Coach of the Year award twice (Johnson).
Vivian decided to coach at Rutgers University, and headed east. She signed an attractive multi-year contract with the university. At Rutgers, her contract paid her more than the mens' coach in basketball, and football. Vivian’s first two seasons were losing seasons. She had been so busy in her early years at Rutgers that she put off her annual physical. When she did finally go, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She kept the news to only a few in her inner circle. Vivian received radiation treatment that took a toll on her both mentally and physically. After all that she had been through in her life, the cancer was not going to stop her. It did not. She has been cancer free ever since. After installing her system and recruiting her kinds of players, the team started to have success. In 2000, Vivian took Rutgers to the Final Four. It was the first time in basketball, men’s and women’s, that a coach had taken three different teams to that level.
The basketball team continued successfully. Vivian built the team into a national powerhouse. In 2007, she returned to the Final Four, and went on to play in the national championship game, losing to Tennessee. But Vivian and her team did not have time to celebrate their remarkable season, which she called the most rewarding of her career. Vivian was informed of the comments made by talk show host, Don Imus. He described the team as “nappy headed hos” and “wannabes.” This rocked Vivian to the core. She took pride in how her girls turned out and what they had become (Stringer 268).
Vivian turned to her family and some close coaching friends for advice in handling the situation. Most recommended that she say nothing and let it just go away. By addressing it, she was just adding fuel to the fire. But, Vivian felt that she could not just stand by and not defend her girls. So she chose to speak out. Vivian felt that “Imus’s comments had hurt us and I wanted to protect the players and the program from further damage” (Stringer 268). Vivian and the team had a press conference and appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Later, a meeting with Don Imus followed at the governor’s mansion. Imus apologized to the team and all of their families, and they accepted.
Recently Vivian Stringer’s name appeared before the Albert Gallatin school board for the second time. One local resident has been petitioning the board to name one of the districts gymnasiums in her honor. "I want her accomplishments brought to the attention of all former, current, and future students of this school district" (Oravec). They feel that she has been a positive influence and it would be well deserved. After months of appearances before the board, the board has yet to honor that request.
Vivian Stringer has had a lot of challenges in her personal life. She found it was through her love of basketball that gave her strength and she has continued being a successful coach. Vivian had received many coaching awards throughout her career. But none has been like the most recent one: “On April 6, 2009, it was officially announced that she has been inducted to the Hall of Fame with the likes of Michael Jordan, John Stockton, David Robinson and long-time Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan” (Johnson).
Works Cited
Hall, Shauntia. Personal interview. 18 Feb. 2010.
Johnson, Anne. “C. Vivian Stringer.” Answers.com. 2009. Web. 10 Feb. 2010.
Oravec, Angie. "AG Board Member Backs Renaming Gym." Herald Standard [Uniontown, PA] 24 Jan. 2010: B1+. Print.
Stringer, C. Vivian, and Laura Tucker. Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Truimph. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2008. Print.
Tokish, Anthon. Personal interview. 15 Feb. 2010.
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