I caught up with the iconic coach during the Nike Chicago Basketball Reunion at Loyola University. Gaters who recently became only the 28th person from Illinois to be elected into the National High School Hall of Fame talked to me about her legacy. She also spoke about the motivation behind her years of coaching basketball. Check out the interview below.
Black Truth News: What has kept you going after all these years?
Dorothy Gaters: Because it is a beautiful game and I love working with young people. I enjoy it, that’s the only reason someone would stay at a job for a long time.
You have more victories than any other basketball coach (men & women) in Illinois high school history. Do you ever look back on your legacy and say wow?
You know when I do it feels like an out-of-body experience. It’s like I ask myself ‘did you really do that.’ (laughs) I had the most amazing players and some of them are out here now. I had the most dominant players and my job was not to mess them up. When you have great players, anybody can coach them
Some people say that most great coaches have all the great players but it seems that it goes hand to hand. Jordan, Shaq, and Kobe didn’t win until they got Phil Jackson as a coach and I don’t think that a lot of your players would have excelled without you being their coach.
Well, I think you have to know your personnel at the end of the day. I had some great players like Janet Harris on my team. I remember Janet’s senior year and I would ask her: ‘Janet where you wanna play this game?’ I mean I would really ask her, what do you want to do?