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Molly Tadich in 1985

I was a good athlete at 12 and could beat most boys my age. But my introduction to Molly and her level of play was another matter, nearly concussive. Scrambling for the orange plastic puck to send it down the floor and away from our goal, I instead was launched into the concrete-block gym wall. The last thing I remembered was seeing a redwood going after the puck, too, and I had been in its way.

For the rest of the game, when the puck or Molly came my way I ran in the opposite direction. I recall that contest less for being roughed up or for our humiliating defeat than for what was an abrupt awakening. If someone as superhuman as Molly lived just one zip code away, how many others like her were out there? Not many, I would later learn. But at that moment, I had to face the fact that I didn’t have what it took to be a star athlete.

The following year, Molly and I attended the same junior high. She was no longer a menacing rival but the secret weapon on our seventh-grade basketball team. I could make a basket from just about any spot on the court, if no one was charging at me and waving her arms. But Molly could palm a basketball, dribble behind her back, and execute easy lay-ups, her sneakers barely touching the lane.

Our game strategy consisted of passing to Molly. She would hold the ball over her head with elbows out while opposing players hopped and swatted the air below her. Then she’d drive and score. While Molly essentially was our team, the victories were ours too. We were a team!

Until one day, when the game was about to start and Molly hadn’t shown up. Worried, we approached the coach. “Where’s Molly?” we asked. “We saw her in algebra today.”

“Good news!” he said. “Molly’s playing on the ninth-grade team from now on.”

We felt robbed. How could they put a seventh-grader on the ninth-grade team? What about our team? I remember that game not because we suffered the first in a string of embarrassing losses, but because of the sting of injustice. Even though the coach talked a good game about fair play, apparently winning really was what mattered most.

But Molly deserved the chance to play with more advanced players, and her multiplying crowd of fans would agree. We cheered her on in high school and followed her career at the University of Minnesota, where she played from 1983 to 1987. By then she stood 6 feet, 2 inches. She was team MVP two years, was selected All–Big Ten three years, ranks sixth in scoring and third in rebounding in Gopher women’s basketball history, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2007. She would go on to teach special education students.

Molly died of pulmonary edema this past December. Her sudden death stunned all who knew her or had watched her play. She was just 43.

It boggles the mind to think that the new recruits on the Gopher women’s basketball team weren’t even born yet when Molly wore maroon and gold. But, all from Minnesota, they grew up wanting to be Gophers, no doubt because of people like Molly, who inspired the next generation of athletes, who inspired the next.   

Shelly Fling may be reached at fling003@umn.edu.