By Madhu Mayer
A new sports club for youth will be at Nowell Park Recreation Center for an Amateur Athletic Union sign up for boys and girls ages 9 to 12, noon to 6pm on Saturday November 19. A Joliet native, Pam Gant Sports Club owner will open the doors to area kids who are interested in joining a local youth basketball team.
Gant is a former Joliet East High School All-American who in college, became the greatest shooter in Louisiana Tech University basketball history. She is an inductee to the Basketball Museum of Illinois and was a first team all-state player at Joliet East High School during her junior and senior seasons before graduating in 1981. Her 3,205 career points set the state scoring record at the time.
Gant’s skills on the basketball court did not go unnoticed, she is also the face on Showtyme energy drink.
The basketball star led Joliet East basketball team to third place in1980 in the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) Class AA State Finals and to IHSA Elite 8 the following year. She was the first team All-American in1985 at Louisiana Tech, where she led the team to two NCAA National Championship titles with a combined mark of 125-10 record from 1981 to 1985. The shooting guard shot 55 percent from the field for her career while scoring 1,714 points in college. Gant was inducted into Louisiana Tech University Hall of Fame in 2017.
Gant played women’s basketball overseas in Spain, Italy, Sweden, and Yugoslavia after graduating from college. Gant said she hopes the sports club will be much more than a place for kids to learn how to shoot hoops.
“I wanted to have a team, a club, a family,” said Gant, who still lives in Joliet. Her goal is to oversee at least four to five teams, she added.
“I want to give them experience and play as a team, so they are just not sitting at home,” Gant said. Her partner in the sports club is Marvin Evans of Shorewood, founder of the Showtyme energy drink.
“I want to put other ladies (on the energy drink bottles) so they get an incentive,” Gant said. (Marvin) wanted to keep my name above water.”
Legendary Hall of Fame basketball coach Leon Barmore calls Gant the “smoothest shooting guard in the history” of the Lady Techsters program.
All area youth are invited to sign up for the club. Nowell recreation center is located at 199 Mills Road in Joliet, IL. For more information call (815) 260-5847 or contact pam121262@gmail.com
Madhu Mayer – news@thetimesweekly.com
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