Class of 1994
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The 1993-94 Hale High School girls basketball team was Tulsa Public Schools’ first girls state champions. Three more TPS schools — 5A Edison and East Central and 6A Booker T. Washington — have the opportunity to join the Rangers.

Hale set standard in '94

JOHN D. FERGUSON World Sports Writer
03/09/2006 Tulsa World

Three TPS teams have aspirations to join the elite Rangers.

The Hale High School girls basketball team had just lost a 37-31 first-round state tournament game in March 1993. The Rangers finished the season 14-13 as a surprising state qualifier.

Eventual state champion Ardmore sent Hale packing. The Rangers had done well, but the locker room atmosphere was down.

Coach Donna Vujnovic was trying to come up with something inspiring to say. She resorted to a coaching maxim: Ask them a simple question.

"Did we want to work to be seven points better?" the coach asked.

Something ignited in the imagination of enough

of the Ranger players. That would be Hale's credo for the 1993-94 campaign, a season that would end in a 23-5 record and the first girls Tulsa Public Schools' state basketball championship.

Beginning Thursday, three TPS schools - Class 5A's Edison and East Central and 6A's Booker T. Washington - could join that Hale championship team.

Vujnovic, who is now Donna Gradel, looked back at the championship march. "It was our first time to the playoffs since 1988 and we did well to turn the program around (that 14-13 season)," said Gradel, who talked from her home while recovering from recent surgery.  "We didn't do what we wanted to do.  I told them if we were seven points better we'd still be playing.

"I asked them if they wanted to get those seven points. We even later got T-shirts that said '7 points better.' "  Hale paid more than lip service to the goal.

That summer found hot and humid conditioning workouts with assistant coach Tammy Smith pushing the girls to get better and reminding them of the quest.

Gradel pointed to one incident that revealed the team's grit and drive.  "We were doing agility drills in the old Hale wrestling room," she said. "There was no air conditioning and they had to do footwork over the mats."

One player, Summer Kroll, was dripping wet from the heat and no air movement. Gradel noticed and called it quits for the day.  She got a surprising response.

"Summer said, 'Was that enough to be seven points better?  You are not pushing us hard enough to get better.  There should not be an easy day,' " Gradel recalled.  Gradel changed her mind, and the team kept working.

Hale had more than a championship attitude - the Rangers had talent. Summer and Pepper Kroll anchored the inside, while multitalented Carrie Moss, Julie and Jamie Fetters, and Dee Dee and Dawn Holmes did the rest.  "They were on a mission," Gradel said.

Hale breezed through the regional and area playoffs.  At state, the Rangers beat El Reno by five and Woodward by eight to reach the state final against Duncan.  Hale played the last game of all the girls state tournament classes and beat Duncan 44-39.

"Everything has to go the right way or you must be incredibly talented," Gradel said about what it took.  "Someone wrote me a note after we had won state; it said 'Enjoy it. You may never do this again.' "

Then-Tulsa mayor Susan Savage signed a proclamation to honor the Hale girls.  For weeks, groups and organizations took the team out for lunch or dinner after the gold ball found a home in the Hale trophy case.

Gradel, who teaches at Broken Arrow High School, has no desire to be the only TPS coach to win a basketball championship.  "You don't want to be the only one," Gradel said. "You want the programs to be successful and you want them to do it."

Gradel thought the 1997 East Central team was going to join Hale. The Cardinals lost to Ada in a hard-fought 47-41 decision.

There have been two recent TPS runners-up.  Washington lost in the 2004 final to Claremore 41-37 and East Central followed last year with a 36-32 loss to Claremore.  Other close calls included Central in the 1993 and 1988 finals, McLain in the 1991 final, and Webster was denied a gold trophy in 1987.