Mimi Carroll-Kurtz, ex-basketball star

Marianne "Mimi" Carroll-Kurtz, 44, of New Gretna, a teacher and former basketball star, died of cancer last Thursday at home.

Mrs. Carroll-Kurtz grew up playing basketball, baseball, and soccer in Springfield, Delaware County. She graduated from Springfield High School, where she led her basketball team to a 16-0 Central League record her senior year and was the league's most valuable player.

She attended Temple University on a basketball scholarship and set the women's record by scoring more than 1,200 points. In 1986, when she was a senior, the team was the Big Five champion. She was a member of Temple's Athletic Hall of Fame and the Big Five Hall of Fame.

"In the mid-1980s, Mimi was one of the best women players in the city," said Mel Greenberg, an Inquirer sportswriter who covers women's basketball. "She helped build the foundation for Temple's first successes even though they didn't win an NCAA tournament game until after she graduated."

At Temple, Mrs. Carroll-Kurtz helped coach a wheelchair basketball team, playing from a wheelchair herself, said her father, Joseph Carroll.

After earning a bachelor's degree in recreation from Temple, Mrs. Carroll-Kurtz earned a bachelor's degree in education from Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and a master's degree in counseling from Rowan University.

For several years in the late 1990s, she coached girls' basketball at Holy Spirit High School in Absecon, N.J. From 2000 until December, she taught history at Pinelands Regional Middle School in Tuckerton, N.J.

Mrs. Carroll-Kurtz spent summers during her youth in Ocean City, N.J., and in recent years was a volunteer at Tuckerton Seaport, a maritime village that offers boat building, craft demonstrations, and tours of Barnegat Bay.

In addition to her father, Mrs. Carroll-Kurtz is survived by her husband of 17 years, George Kurtz; sons Justin Theno and Shawn Theno; stepdaughters Melissa Kurtz, Megan Kurtz-Maher, Erin Kurtz, and Lindsey Ciappisi; three brothers; a sister; and her former husband, Gary Theno.

Friends may call from 2 to 4 p.m. and from 7 to 9 p.m. tomorrow at the Wood Funeral Home, 134 E. Main St., Tuckerton. A Memorial Mass will be said at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Church of the Assumption, 146 S. Pitney Rd. Galloway, N.J.

Memorial donations may be made to Tuckerton Seaport, Box 52, Tuckerton, N.J. 08087.