Marguerite (Margo) VerKruzen was hired in 1962 as a physical education instructor and coach for field hockey, women’s basketball, and women’s volleyball. By 1970 she was also coaching softball.  

At the time women’s sports at Towson were mostly restricted to intramural play, as they had been since 1926 when the school’s athletic association was split into the Women’s Athletic Association and the Men’s. Men’s teams took precendence and men were allowed to play varsity sports. Despite women being the larger number of students enrolled on campus and paying more in athletics fees, women's sports were not granted the same recognition.

Under VerKruzen, however, the women’s basketball team would venture into varsity and junior varsity territory just before the establishment of Title IX in 1972. In 1968, the women’s basketball team competed in the first women’s National Invitational Tournament where they beat Ball State, Central Michigan, and Perdue before losing to Southern Illinois. That team, and their coach VerKruzen, were inducted into the Towson Hall of Fame – the earliest women’s team to be included.

written by Felicity Knox, Archives Associate, Spring 2021