Lucille Kyvallos Athletics Records and Papers

Lucille Kyvallos (b. 1932) grew up in Astoria, Queens as an avid athlete in a time when women and girls were shunned from playing sports. She would spend time playing sports with boys on her neighborhood block and in afterschool programs, exhibiting a talent for basketball at age fourteen. She attended Bryant High School. Due to the lack of organized basketball teams for women and girls, she joined recreational leagues, playing for teams in the Metropolitan Girls Basketball League, the Christian Youth Organization, and the Police Athletic League. Kyvallos and her peers started their own team, the Queens Rustics. Later in high school, Kyvallos was recruited to the Bronx Angels, and then to a paying team called the Cover Girls that traveled the tri-state area. The Cover Girls would play men's teams in fundraiser events. Her talent was recognized in the press and she was known as “Big Lulu.”

Kyvallos started at New York University before transferring to Springfield College to study physical education. Kyvallos would use a fake name to play in a league off campus, traveling for hours on the weekends to play. She also participated in recreational teams on campus, and kept up with the Cover Girls. She graduated from Springfield in 1955, going on to work at Carle Place High School from 1955-1958 before getting her masters degree in Physical Education at Indiana University in 1959. She went on to teach health and physical education at the University of Rhode Island, coach the women’s basketball teams at Cathedral High School for Girls, and coach and teach at West Chester State College in Pennsylvania from 1962-1966. She led West Chester State to a record of 54-2.

After being hired to teach physical education at Queens College in 1966, she coached the Queens College Women's Basketball team as head coach from 1968-1979 and 1980-1981, and helped bring her team and the sport as a whole to the national stage. Due to a continued lack of opportunities for teenage girls in New York to play sports, many players came to the Queens College team without competitive experience. Kyvallos not only taught physical and strategic skills, but focused on boosting her players confidence. After the passage of Title IX in 1972, more inter-scholastic programs were available to high school-aged girls. Because of this change, more players started out at Queens College with a higher level of ability. Kyvallos led the team to an overall record of 239-77 over those years despite facing sexism in her department and a lack of adequate support from the administration along the way. Along with coaching the Queens College players, Kyvallos spent weekends and summers hosting basketball camps and clinics, raising awareness of the sport among teen girls and improving their skills.

Kyvallos is known for coaching the first women’s college basketball game to be played at Madison Square Garden in 1975, Queens College versus Immaculata College, which drew a crowd of almost twelve thousand people. This game was the follow up to a round of exciting women’s college basketball championship games: Immaculata winning in 1973, and then Queens College winning on their home court in 1974, ending Immaculata’s two-year undefeated streak. Publicity around the rivalry led to Madison Square Garden’s interest in hosting the rematch at the 1975 championship finals, which Queens College ended up losing. Ample media coverage, prompted by Kyvallos and the Queens College PR team, also contributed to increased recognition of the power of collegiate women athletes. Kyvallos also coached the 1977 United States National Women’s Basketball Team at the World University Games, where the team brought home a silver medal. Several of Kyvallos’s players from Queens College went on to play either at the Olympic level or in professional women’s basketball leagues, including Althea Gwyn, Debbie Mason, Donna Geils Orender, and Gail Marquis. After thirty years of teaching, Kyvallos left Queens College in 1995.

Kyvallos’s involvement in bringing women’s basketball to the national stage included committee positions for the United States Olympics, the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), and National Girls and Women in Sport. She has received many honors over her career, including Lady Champion’s “Coach of the Year” award, WomenSports’s “The Coach You Would Want to Play For” title, recognition from the New York State Resolutions and New York City Proclamations for her role in women’s basketball at the college level, induction of her and her 1972-1973 team into the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame, induction into the West Chester University Hall of Fame, induction into the Queens Athletic Hall of Fame, the Joe Lapchick Character Award, and renaming of the Queens College basketball court in her honor. The latter honor was the first instance in New York City of a basketball court being named after a woman. The Lucille Kyvallos Court is listed in the New York City LGBT Historic Sites Project.

References

Davis, Amanda. (2021, November). "Lucille Kyvallos Court." NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, Nov. 2021, https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/site/lucille-kyvallos-court/.

Hult, Joan S. and Mariana Trekell (eds.). A Century of Women’s Basketball: From Frailty to Final Four. American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, 1991.

LaGreca, Angela. "Lucille Kyvallos: Legendary Women’s Basketball Coach and How She Changed the Game." Dan’s Papers, 2 Oct. 2021, https://www.danspapers.com/2021/10/out-east-end-lucille-kyvallos/.

"Lucille Kyvallos." Schneps Media, https://www.schnepsmedia.com/lucille-kyvallos/. Accessed 21 Jan. 2023.

"Lucille Kyvallos." Springfield College Archives and Special Collections, 19 Dec. 2016, https://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15370coll2/id/17929.

Museum of the City of New York. "'City/Game: Basketball in New York': Lucille Kyvallos at Queens College." Youtube, uploaded by MuseumofCityNY, 3 March 2020, https://youtu.be/iN17hsoV6JM.

Queens College Athletics. Lucille Kyvallos: The Legacy. Accessed 21 Jan. 2023, https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/queenscollege.sidearmsports.com/documents/2019/1/12/Kyvallos.pdf.

Queens Public Television. "QPTV Presents Power Women of Queens: Lucille Kyvallos." Vimeo, 20 June 2018, vimeo.com.

"UDC to Commemorate Historic 1975 Federal City College vs. Chinese Women’s National Team Game Amidst National Girls and Women In Sports Day Celebration." University of the District of Columbia Firebirds, 13 Jan. 2015, w.udcfirebirds.com/sports/wbkb/2014-15/releases/2015011364dhen.