10 minute read
A season to celebrate
BY KATHY MATTER
PHOTOS PROVIDED BY PURDUE ATHLETICS
25 years ago, the Purdue women’s basketball team captured the NCAA national championship
There were just over 4 minutes left in a basketball game that would change lives and embellish sports history at Purdue University forever when the team’s star player crumbled to the court with a look of agony on her face that made every Boilermaker’s heart skip a beat.
Sephanie White, playing in the 1999 Women’s NCAA Basketball Championship in San Jose, California, was the one on the floor writhing in pain. Getting to that moment was a dream she and Ukari Figgs had worked tirelessly to fulfill ever since committing to stay at Purdue after a nasty coaching debacle their freshman year.
Ahead by only five, 47-42, following a halftime deficit in a tense, low scoring game against the Duke Blue Devils, the moment of decision had come.
Kelly Komara, the freshman guard on that team who recently returned to be assistant coach of the Boilermaker basketball squad, was the player Coach Carolyn Peck called on to go in for White, who had earned National Player of the Year accolades.
“It was like nooo this can’t be happening. My heart went into my stomach seeing Steph in such pain. Then Coach Peck subbed me into the biggest game of my life,” Komara recalls.
It wasn’t that movie moment where Komara saved the day. She and the rest of the starters backed up Figgs, “who like went into a different body and became this all encompassing basketball player,” Komara says. “ We relied on Kari and she was built for that moment.”
Quoted after the game, Figgs, who would become tournament MVP, said “that (ankle injury) just fired me up. ‘I just wanted to go out and win it for Steph and myself and the rest of the team, but just more for her at the time.’ ”
From there the Boilermakers went on a 13-0 run to capture college basketball’s biggest prize. “We were a great team, and that moment proved we were a great team,” Komara says.
All during the 2023-24 season the current squad wears a special patch on their uniforms commemorating the 25th anniversary of that win.
The people we looked up to, our coaches, had a chemistry. They displayed love and care and respect for each other. I honestly believe the chemistry and love of our staff trickled down to Steph and Kari, then trickled all the way down to the freshman class.
- Kelly Komara
Camille Cooper, a 6-foot 4-inch sophomore and starter on the championship team, vividly recalls the moments after the win. She scored 13 points in the game, effectively neutralizing 6-foot 6-inch All-American senior Michele VanGorp, who led the Blue Devils with 15 points.
“I will never forget the moment when the buzzer sounded and signaled the end of the game. The lights seemed brighter and the crowd was louder, I saw Katie Douglas throw the ball up to the rafters, and I raised my hands, looked up and said, ‘Thank you, God’.”
Ironically, Katie Douglas and her roommate Komara had practiced for that moment in their Owen Hall dorm room all season long. “I told Katie you throw the ball up and I’ll run around. Literally, we talked about this moment.That’s kind of how we were. It wasn’t far-fetched.”
Danielle Bird Cardinal spent a lot of her time that championship year on the bench, but the team fed off her endless enthusiasm. “When we won, it was very surreal, almost like it wasn’t happening to me,” she recalls. “I felt and still feel so incredibly blessed to be part of such greatness.
“You can never take that title away from us or the notoriety it brings. It’s amazing the people who remember the championship and how much joy it gave to so many people. It connects us as a team forever and it is just such a special moment in Purdue University history.”
The 1999 national championship — its 25th anniversary is being honored this season — didn’t just happen. It wasn’t some kind of fluke. It was the fulfillment of a dream. After the win, White would be quoted as saying, “This is why we stayed.”
White was Miss Indiana Basketball before coming to Purdue; Figgs was Miss Kentucky Basketball. The two instantly forged a fast friendship and a goal — to win a national championship. That seemed almost ludicrous in the wake of the coaching turmoil and subsequent departure of many of their teammates at the end of their freshman year in 1996. White and Figgs made the decision to stay. Starting their sophomore year, Purdue was projected to finish a lowly eighth in the Big Ten.
Eighth wasn’t what White, Figgs and Jannon Roland (the only other player who stayed) had in mind. With the nurturing influence of new coach Nell Fortner, they fought and fought and ended the Big Ten regular season with a chance to win it all in front of a hostile, sell-out crowd at 17th ranked Illinois. Final score: 80-75 with the Boilers on top. The one-word headline in gigantic type the next day in the Lafayette Journal & Courier screamed “UNBELIEVABLE!”
Fortner stayed just one year, opening the door to Carolyn Peck. In her new office Coach Peck found an empty picture frame and was informed that it was reserved for Purdue’s first national championship team.
As the final buzzer sounded on the national championship win, Peck told the press: “I thought about my two senior captains. I thought about their fortitude and toughness. I thought about the first time I sat with them in my office and they said, ‘Carolyn, we can do this.’ ”
Putting a picture in that frame truly was a goal, Pam Stackhouse, assistant coach of the championship team, recalls, “a goal set at the end of the 1997-98 season led by Steph and Ukari. We ended the 1998 season losing by five points in the Elite Eight game that would have sent us to the 1998 Final Four. We felt we had a special group of players returning and were in a position to make another run deep into the NCAA Tournament.
“The drive and leadership behind that team came from the locker room. When you have 100 percent buy-in from players, it makes coaching easier. The team was full of self-starters who knew what it would take to achieve the Final Four and National Championship goals.”
The magic started happening in the 1998-99 season opener against Tennessee when self-described “fearless freshman” Komara entered the game and immediately popped in a big three-pointer in her first shot attempt on the Mackey Arena floor. It proved she was definitely the “goods” for Peck’s unique four guard offense. Purdue won that season opener, knocking off a titan Tennessee program that was ranked No. 1 going in, was a three-time defending national champion and winner of 46 games in a row.
Losing to Stanford in the very next game humbled the team. But from then on Purdue never lost a game, sweeping the Big Ten to become No. 1 in the nation before the tournaments began.
“It was a much different time back then,” Komara says, without all the hype that happens today.
“I have to credit our coaching staff, and Steph and Kari. They did a good job of keeping us in the moment. We didn’t have social media pumping you up. We didn’t have all the distractions. We were just 15-20 individuals locked in every day.”
“The people we looked up to, our coaches, had a chemistry. They displayed love and care and respect for each other. I honestly believe the chemistry and love of our staff trickled down to Steph and Kari, then trickled all the way down to the freshman class.”
Komara’s return to Purdue brings her full circle, back to a gym, a program and a community she loved as a student. “I always knew I would find my way back here,” she says. She also always knew she would be a coach, following in her dad’s footsteps.
With head coach Katie Gearlds, who also enjoyed a storied playing career at Purdue, Komara hopes to bring back the magic they both experienced as Boilers. Purdue’s once-elite program has experienced a tumble in recent years. “Our goal is to get a little bit better each year. Last year we made it into the extended 68 team tournament field. This year we want to be in the 64,” Komara says.
Reflecting on the fact that there were nine players from Indiana on the national championship roster, Komara says, “Our biggest goal is to win the state of Indiana, to get the best players to stay home and go to Purdue.”
By winning the state “we can get enough talent to shake things up and put us back on the map.”
Komara is not the only member of the 1999 team to stay with basketball. Katie Douglas enjoyed a storied career in the WNBA. Stephanie White coaches the Connecticut Sun in the WNBA. Danielle Bird Cardinal is a high school girls varsity basketball coach. (In addition, Ukari Figgs is a production engineer for Toyota, and Camille Cooper is an attorney.)
The recent reunion of players from the 1999 squad prompted Danielle Bird Cardinal to do some introspective thinking. “To say (that team) was a special group does not do it justice. What they have accomplished in life, the successful people they are today does not surprise me. The reason is that all the characteristics needed to succeed on the basketball court are the same characteristics they live out daily.
Former assistant coach, Pam Stackhouse, reflects by saying, “The members of this team have gone on to become successful businesswomen, lawyers, engineers and transformative leaders in their work. In April 1999, in an arena in San Jose, California, the same characteristics that helped the members of this program be successful in their professional lives, family lives and personal lives 25 years later, were on display for the nation to see.
“As much as the championship meant to me all those years ago, I feel even more pride in having the opportunity to watch them grow into the successful women they are today.” ★
