Marshall’s Dorothy Gaters is still going strong

Dorothy Gaters was a young teacher at Marshall, her alma mater, in 1974 when the school decided to get on the girls sports bandwagon.

Title IX had come into effect two years earlier, jumpstarting the transition from intramurals to full equality for female athletes in Illinois high schools.

The IHSA approved girls basketball as a varsity sport in 1973 and the next year, Marshall athletic director Luther Bedford decided it was time to form a team.

“Luther asked everybody in the department who wanted to coach, and lastly he came to me,” Gaters said.

It was an inspired choice. The Commandos played one season as a club team before moving to varsity status for the 1974-75 season.

Gaters has built the state’s most successful and well-known program, while putting together a resume that may never be topped by a high school basketball coach in Illinois.

Through Tuesday, Gaters had 1,141 wins in 44-plus seasons — the most by any boys or girls coach in Illinois history — against just 213 losses.

Her teams have won 10 state titles, including the past two in Class 2A, have finished second four times and have brought home 23 state trophies.

It’s been a remarkable journey for someone who attended Marshall when the school, which opened in 1895, had around 5,000 students. The current enrollment is 347, but Gaters — and her program — keep rolling along.

She came into coaching with no experience, but plenty of desire to learn.

“I was always a fan,” she said. “It starts with a love of the game.”

Her role model was a NCAA champion coach turned TV announcer.

“Al McGuire was my hero,” Gaters said. “I would watch him and listen to his analysis. I learned when you should play a 2-1-2, when you should play a 3-2, when you should go to a deny. All those things, I just learned by listening to and watching other people.”

Another mentor was John McClendon, a trailblazer who was the first black head basketball coach at a major college when he took over at Cleveland State in 1967.

It’s because of McLendon, a believer in optimum conditioning, that all of Gaters’ players run cross country in the fall. But that’s not she took from McLendon.

“He had such an influence on me as a person, and secondarily as a coach,” Gaters said. “He just had a certain demeanor about him that he could give you criticism and you didn’t know you’re being criticized.

“He said to me once, ‘You know, Dorothy, so many coaches spend so much time getting on the officials that they don’t see what their kids are doing.’”

Gaters does know what her kids are doing, and it’s not what it was when she started.

“They’re a lot different,” Gaters said. “Sometimes you get a good group of kids, sometimes you don’t. That’s just part of coaching, right?

“These kids lack dedication. The kids early on, they played basketball all the time. These kids don’t. They’re on their phone playing games and it shows in their lack of development.”

Playing for Gaters isn’t always easy. Senior captain Roquesha Sims calls it “challenging.”

“She expects you to work,” Sims said. “A lot of tough love.”

But Sims knows she’s part of an elite legacy by playing for Gaters.

“I heard she had over a thousand wins, and I haven’t ever heard that before,” Sims said. “Everybody was telling me, when I was trying to (pick) my high school, ‘Coach Gaters, Coach Gaters.’

“Even now, everywhere I go, (it’s) ‘Coach Gaters still there?’”

That’s something Gaters herself gets a lot, and sometimes she tires of it.

“I hear it all the time, ‘When are you gonna leave?’” she said.

It’s a question another coaching legend from Chicago, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, never seems to face.

“Coach K, we’re the same age (72),” Gaters said. “Nobody says, ‘Coach K, when you gonna retire?’ I hear it all the time. Why?”

Gaters says she coaches from year to year now, and is focused on getting her current team — which is 10-7 and ranked fourth in 2A — ready for another playoff run.

“We’re going to keep working and see what we can make happen,” Gaters said. “But you know, this program is about the outcome. What we can do is better these kids’ lives — it’s to get them to college. So that’s what we do.”

Despite her resume, Gaters never considered leaving Marshall for bigger things — and apart from a feeler from Chicago State — was never approached about a move.

“I haven’t promoted myself, I haven’t looked for (another) job,” Gaters said. “My family was really important to me. So if I’m running around trying to recruit kids all over the United States, I’m not going to be with my family.”

She hopes that Chicago Public Schools officials will see the potential in Marshall and help the school gain enrollment.

“Hopefully someone will come up with some sort of innovative curriculum, something to attract kids to the school,” Gaters said. “They’re putting money into facilities all around us and they’re not putting resources into this school.”

But Marshall has one resource no one else can claim: the most successful coach in state history.