MAGNOLIA, Ark. – Trailblazer…pioneer…educator…coach…are some of the many words used to describe Southern Arkansas University's Dr. Margaret R. Downing, who will be inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame Friday at Verizon Arena in North Little Rock.
Downing's long journey at SAU began in 1965 when she was named women's basketball coach at then Southern State College, and the women's teams known as the Riderettes.
Not only would Downing go on to have an extraordinarily successful coaching career, but her teachings in the classroom still reverberate with the many students who had the opportunity to have her as a professor. She did all of this while being that trailblazer and pioneer for women's athletics, not just at the university and in Arkansas, but across the country and in some instances, indeed around the world.
Downing served 19 years as head coach of the Riderette basketball team, compiling an impressive record and résumé that began with the 1965-66 season and ran through 1983-84. She then stretched her teaching duties to full-time, serving as chair of the Department of Health, Kinesiology and Recreation from 1991-1997, before becoming Dean of the School of Education in 1998 and holding that title until retiring in 2002 after 37 years at SAU. She has served the university since then in part-time capacity as Professor of Health, Kinesiology and Recreation.
Although Downing was the head coach of many women's sports teams at the university, it was in basketball that she made her biggest mark. During her first 13 seasons in a stretch from 1965-1978, her teams never finished lower than second place in organized play, capturing AAU and AWESA (Arkansas Women's Extramural Sports Association) titles in her first year. When the Arkansas Women's Intercollegiate Sports Association (AWISA) was founded in 1969, her teams won seven of the first eight titles (1969-70, 1970-71, 1971-72, 1973-74, 1974-75, 1975-76, 1976-77), including four consecutive from 1973-1977. Her 1972-73 team placed second, and the 1976-77 squad shared a co-championship with Arkansas-Monticello.
Downing was named AWISA coach of the year for 1977-78, the first awarded by the association, with her team finishing second that year and concluding the 13-year run of placing at least in the top two spots. At that time, the coach of the year award was based not only on coaching ability, but teaching, work with young people, participation in professional organizations, and school and community service as well.
Promoting, creating an awareness of, and equal rights for women's athletics were always a driving force for Downing, whose work primarily helped lead to convincing the then all-male Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference (AIC) to add women's sports in 1983. From then on, the women's athletic teams would be accepted as full partners with the men's programs.
Downing's last season as the Riderette basketball coach in 1983-84 was their first year as members in the AIC. Her 19-year run saw her compile 15 winning seasons, with an overall record of 231-155 over her last 18 years, with results unknown from her first season of 1965-66. Along with her 10 AAU, AWESA and AWISA titles, her teams also claimed back-to-back Southwest Region of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (SWAIAW) championships in 1969-70 and 1970-71.
From 1966-1978, a span of 12 seasons, Downing's teams went 185-69, knocking off many notable opponents. The 1968-69 team finished 18-9, defeating Kentucky in the AAU region playoff and advancing to the AAU national tournament, and her 1973-74 squad went 19-4, beating Baylor in the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) region tournament. Downing's 1975-76 and 1976-77 teams had consecutive 20-win seasons and third-place finishes in the AIAW region tournament, with the 1975-76 squad going 20-4 and upsetting Oklahoma State in the region tourney, and the 1976-77 team finishing 20-3.
A coach in the truest sense of the word, Downing also served as head swimming and diving, volleyball, and softball coach while with the university.
She spent seven years as the swimming and diving coach from 1966-1967 and again from 1969-1973, claiming an AWESA championship in 1967 and an AWISA title in 1969, and finishing second two other seasons.
She coached the volleyball team for three years (1973-1975), winning the AWISA championship in 1974, and placing second the other two seasons, and then claimed an AWISA championship in softball in 1980.
Receiving her B.S.E. in 1953 from Arkansas State Teachers College (Central Arkansas), Downing went on to earn her M.S. from Tennessee in 1960, and her Ph.D. from Texas Woman's in 1973.
Downing had multiple coaching stops before settling at then Southern State College (SAU), serving in the high school ranks at Monticello, Texarkana Arkansas High, North Little Rock, and the Tennessee School for the Deaf. She coached collegiately at Connecticut College for Women, Central Connecticut State College and Ouachita Baptist University. At Ouachita, her basketball teams ranked in the top three in the nation.
Downing was nationally known in the field of women's athletics. She was manager of the U.S. women's basketball teams in the fifth and sixth Pan-American games, serving as business manager in the Pan-Am games in Winnipeg, Canada, and Cali, Columbia, and for the World Tournament in Prague, Czech Republic. She also served on the U.S. Olympic Committee for Women.
Throughout her career, she was involved in numerous professional organizations, serving as a member of the joint national AAU-DGWS basketball rules committee; the U.S. National Basketball Committee; the International Basketball Committee for Women; served as president and secretary of the U.S. Olympic Committee for Women's Basketball; and was commissioner of regional championships.
She also served terms as president for both the SWAIAW and AWISA.
Probably even more successful in the classroom as on the court, Downing was named Southern Arkansas University Honor Professor in 1988, and is remembered fondly by thousands of former students as one of the best instructors ever to serve the university.
Downing was previously inducted into the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Hall of Fame in 1987 and to the Southern Arkansas University Sports Hall of Fame in its inaugural class of 2003.
