Brenda Gatlin was first female head coach of a boys varsity basketball team in Detroit

The celebration of Women’s History Month throughout March provides an opportunity to learn about women from all walks of life that have touched the lives of others in a variety of ways, which certainly describes Brenda Gatlin.

Before Gatlin became the first woman to be a head coach of a high school boys varsity basketball team in Detroit.

And long before the Jefferson City, Missouri, native was immortalized as part of the “Walk of Heroes” exhibit at The Corner Ballpark — headquarters of Detroit PAL — because of the many contributions she has made to her adopted home of Detroit as an educator, coach, mentor and advocate for young people.

Gatlin had to coach a pressure-packed, win-or-go-home girls basketball game without the services of her two best players for most of the contest — by choice. Such is life for a woman who for more than 50 years has been committed to helping both young women and young men succeed in the only game that really matters to her, the game of life.

For Gatlin, inspiring youths has been a longtime commitment filled with teachable moments and rules that must be carried out no matter what, even if it means possibly losing a heavily hyped basketball game in the process, which was the scenario for one of Gatlin’s teams 40 years ago.

“Our team was riding up to the game and my two stars were fussing with each other,” remembers Gatlin about a day in 1975 when she was coaching the girls basketball team at the former Northeastern High School, as the team was en route to what Gatlin recalls being a regional semifinal game played in Rochester Hills. “We had a rule that if you fuss or argue with your teammates you can’t play, and the rest of the team was looking at me as this was going on. So, I had to take that chance and not play the two young ladies because they needed to understand the rules of life.”

On the morning of March 18, Gatlin went on to describe what took place on the court that day after she stayed true to her convictions and kept her two stars on the bench. As Gatlin described it, with the help of second- and third-team players, the Lady Falcons of Northeastern “scrapped and scraped” and somehow found a way to win what some observers called an “ugly” game; where Gatlin allowed one of the stars to enter late for “about a minute,” not to embarrass the player, but to see if her star had the proper “attitude” and willingness to contribute to the team regardless of the circumstances. After that game, Gatlin’s Lady Falcons continued to soar during the state basketball tournament, all the way to the Class A Championship game played before 4,500 fans at East Kentwood High School, where Northeastern defeated Farmington Our Lady of Mercy, 67-62. The scorebook from the title game reveals that the sister combination of Helen and Sheila Williams combined for 51 of Northeastern’s 67 total points. However, Gatlin pointed out that the championship and that entire history-making season for Northeastern was a total team effort.

“After winning the state championship, we were riding on cloud nine, but we had worked so hard as a team,” explained Gatlin, whose 1975 Northeastern team completed a “triple crown” by winning the Public School League and City championships before capturing the Class A state crown — the first girls state basketball title won by a Detroit Public School League team during an undefeated (21-0) season. “What we accomplished was amazing for those students from the east side of Detroit. We played the championship game in Grand Rapids and some of our young ladies had never been outside of their neighborhood before joining the team, so we tried to keep everything as normal as possible for them.”

Brenda Gatlin has been a champion for youths in Detroit and across the metro area for more than 50 years, as captured by her inclusion in the "Walk of Heroes" exhibit at The Corner Ballpark, the headquarters of Detroit PAL.

In reality, “normal” is probably not the word that best describes Gatlin’s journey in Detroit, which began after she graduated from Virginia State University in 1966 and accepted a teaching position the same year at Barbour Middle School in Detroit’s Pingree Park neighborhood. By 1969, Gatlin was where she preferred to be, teaching at a high school. But the passionate dance teacher did not anticipate that being the girls basketball coach at Northeastern High School would be added to her plate, especially not when she was in the middle of creating choreography for the All City Dance Concert. Still, at a time when sports programs for girls were trying to gain more traction in Detroit and across the country, Gatlin accepted the assignment and she set out to do her best. However, an early encounter with Doris Jones, a revered girls basketball coach and physical education teacher at Detroit's Central High School, convinced Gatlin that her best up to that point was not good enough.

“I was the new kid on the block in coaching when Doris Jones brought her team to Northeastern for a game. And when I greeted her when she arrived, the only thing she had to say was: ‘Where’s the gym?’ " recalled Gatlin, whose respect for Jones can still be heard as she retold a story that occurred more than 50 years ago. “Then her team went on to beat us by about 30 points. And our girls were trying so hard, but there was nothing they could do about it.

“And I said to myself: ‘Oh my God, I have to make sure these girls have the tools to compete.’ I never wanted that to happen again, where young people under my mentorship were not prepared. So, I rolled up my sleeves and I became obsessed with the game.”

When coaching young women as Brenda Gatlin did with teams at Northeastern and Cass Technical High Schools and the University of Michigan-Dearborn during the 1970s and '80s, or when coaching young men, as she is pictured doing in 1985 at Cass Tech, where Gatlin made history as the first woman head coach of a high school varsity basketball team in Detroit, her approach was always hands-on.

Gatlin’s obsession with pushing herself to broaden and enhance her tools in order to pour more into the young people she touched certainly did not end at Northeastern. And it was hardly limited to basketball either. At the invitation of Dr. Charles Remus, the first principal of Renaissance High School, Gatlin arrived at 6565 West Outer Drive in 1978 — to a refreshed building that formerly housed Detroit Catholic Central High School — as one of the teachers charged with educating Renaissance’s first class of students because she believed in a vision that Renaissance would be another “shining gem” for the Detroit Public Schools. From Renaissance, during the 1980s, Gatlin would follow Remus to another well-known Detroit school — Cass Technical High School — where she taught and was once again given an opportunity to coach basketball, which included coaching both the girls and boys varsity teams during the 1984-85 school year.

There would be more challenges for Gatlin during the next couple of decades, where she proved she could positively impact the lives of Detroit students in different ways. This included serving as an athletic director at the former Southwestern High School; returning back to Cass Tech as an assistant principal; and leading Southeastern High School of Technology for a decade as principal.

Then there is another nationally respected program where Gatlin has worked her magic now for more than a decade: That would be the Cranbrook Horizons Upward Bound Program, a journey that Gatlin started in just about the same moment she was beginning her “retirement” from Southeastern.

“(The late) Dr. Eddie Green (former director of the Cranbrook Horizons Upward Bound Program) called me my last day at Southeastern and asked me to serve as a college counselor and I told him I would give the program one summer because I needed to get on with things that retired people do, like travel,” Gatlin recalled with a chuckle as she described how she became connected to one of the nation’s largest Upward Bound programs, which prepares students from schools across metro Detroit for higher education — in affiliation with Cranbrook Schools located in Bloomfield Hills — by supporting the efforts of the students' high schools. “That one summer has ended up being 15 years. But when you see the college goals of the students in the program come to fruition, it keeps you going.”

Throughout the week of March 17, Gatlin provided a glimpse into her world with the Cranbrook Horizons Upward Bound Program, where she is now Dean of Faculty, Staff and Students, as she spoke briefly, but urgently, about her need to complete tasks related to a March college tour for students and the upcoming summer program. But it was still March after all, and Gatlin was more than happy to offer up some quick takes about the March Madness basketball action of the women’s variety.

“I’m looking at South Carolina because I like the coach’s (Dawn Staley) philosophy, and UCLA also really looks like a No. 1 team,” said Gatlin, who lobbied for things like more gym time and better transportation arrangements for girls high school teams in Detroit when she started coaching basketball more than 50 years ago. “The tournament is going to be a battle, and it’s amazing how much the sport has grown.”

And one person who is never amazed by what Gatlin has done and has continued to do to advance youths in Detroit is Steve Hall, the current boys basketball coach and athletic director at Cass Tech. Hall also had a firsthand view as a player when Gatlin coached the Cass Tech varsity boys basketball team 40 years ago.

“Truthfully, it may have been a big deal to some people on the outside that Ms. Gatlin was coaching the boys team, but for the players on the team it was pretty normal,” Hall, who was a freshman that season, explained. “We had to wait for her to coach our team that season because the girls team had a long run in the state tournament. But we were looking forward to it, and had quite a bit of respect for her already as someone who was an educator in our building all day, and someone who had great rapport with the students.

“She’s multifaceted and dynamic, and someone I have always perceived as an outstanding person.”

Scott Talley is a native Detroiter, a proud product of Detroit Public Schools and a lifelong lover of Detroit culture in its diverse forms. In his second tour with the Free Press, which he grew up reading as a child, he is excited and humbled to cover the city’s neighborhoods and the many interesting people who define its various communities. Contact him at stalley@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @STalleyfreep. Read more of Scott's stories at www.freep.com/mosaic/detroit-is/. Please help us grow great community-focused journalism by becoming a subscriber.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Meet Detroit's first female boys varsity basketball team head coach

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Brenda Gatlin was first female head coach of a boys varsity basketball team in Detroit

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