photo by: Elvyn Jones/file photo

Former Baldwin High School coach and teacher Ginny Honomichl will be inducted in the National Federation of High School (Association) Hall of Fame in June for her career of expanding opportunities for women in sports. Honomichl is shown her speaking about her career at Baldwin High School when she was inducted in the Kansas State High School Activities Association Hall of Fame in 2014.

Retired high school coach and teacher Ginny Honomichl knows from experience that not everyone was happy with the growth of women’s sports in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

One person who was upset with the new opportunities for women, she said, was former Kansas State University men’s basketball coach Jack Hartman. Honomichl, who was a member of the Wildcat team when women’s basketball was introduced at K-State in 1969, remembers Hartman did not like sharing resources with the women.

“He would lock the doors to Ahearn Field House and hide all the basketballs so we couldn’t practice,” she said. “At that time, women used the same size (of) basketballs as men, so those were the only basketballs we had.”

Playing on K-State’s inaugural women’s basketball team was just one of the firsts Honomichl notched in a career that will be celebrated with her induction into the National Federation of State High School Associations, or NFHS, Hall of Fame on June 30 in Indianapolis.

Honomichl has been an innovator throughout her career, according to a press release from the NFHS announcing her induction. At the two high schools where she taught since 1970, Homomichl started a bevy of girls sports teams — tennis, track, volleyball and basketball squads at Russell High School, and tennis and softball teams at Baldwin High School. She was also the first female president of the Kansas Coaches Association and the first female president of the NFHS, and she has been executive director of the Kansas Coaches Association for the past six years and is the first woman to serve in that capacity, according to the release.

“I guess I had a career of firsts,” Honomichl told the Journal-World. “I just came along at the right time and was determined to follow my interests.”

While Honomichl was at K-State, the rules of women’s college basketball were changed to allow all five players on a team to play a full-court game. Before that, two of a team’s six players were restricted to the defensive side of the court, two could only be on the offensive side, and two could play full court.

“They decided we could play full court and still have babies,” Honomichl joked.

In truth, Honomichl admits she doesn’t know the reason for the patronizing half-court rules or the movement to curtail women’s sports on the high school and collegiate levels after World War II. She does know she and other young women pushed for opportunities to compete in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and that the push for women’s sports around that time allowed Honomichl to pursue her passion at Russell and Baldwin high schools.

Although she ran into a male coach at Russell who, like Hartman, didn’t want to share resources with a girls team, Honomichl said most of her male colleagues supported her efforts to expand the roles of women and girls in sports. She notes that Hartman, too, eventually warmed to the women’s game, serving as K-State’s women’s basketball coach for the final seven games of the 1996 season after the head coach was fired.

“That was the year they finally gave us our big ‘K’ letters to put on our letter jackets,” Honomichl said. “It was ironic to be presented the letter from a man who was so opposed to the program when it was started.”

Gary Stevanus, Baldwin High School activities director, said Honomichl has retained close ties to the school and its students since her retirement in 2008. She is a regular substitute teacher, announcer at sports events and instructor for CPR classes.

“She’s a wonderful motivator,” Stevanus said.

Honomichl said she likes substitute teaching because the connection to teens helps her mind stay fresh. She also stays active by leading a 6 a.m. walking club that meets in the school district gym and playing pickleball in Baldwin City, Eudora and Ottawa recreational leagues. As chair of the Wellsville United Methodist Church mission committee, she is also organizing the church’s first summer youth lunch program to ensure that town’s children have midday meals during the summer break, she said.

When she makes the trip to Indianapolis this summer for her NFHS Hall of Fame induction, Honomichl said she will accept the honor with her many local friends on her mind.

“I don’t think of this as an individual honor, but as one I share with all the people who were part of the ride,” she said. “That includes my family, fellow teachers and coaches, parents, students and players.”