Delco hoops stars Theresa Grentz and Marianne Stanley enshrined in the Hall of Fame: ‘Make the most of what you have’

Marianne Stanley and Theresa Grentz credited their successful college basketball and coaching careers to those who supported them along the way. One person, in particular, is the duo’s former Immaculata coach, the legendary Cathy Rush.

“I’ve just been really fortunate to be around great people, great players, great coaches,” Stanley said Friday in a press conference. “Their impact on me has been immense, incalculable. I don’t know that I could really quantify it, to be quite frank.”

Stanley and Grentz are two of 16 who are being enshrined into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Saturday at Symphony Hall in Springfield, Mass.

» READ MORE: Theresa Grentz and Marianne Stanley: From Delco to Immaculata to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

Stanley, 68, and Grentz, 70, lived about 15 minutes away from each other growing up and played on rival high school teams. Grentz, a Glenolden Township native, attended Cardinal O’Hara and Stanley, who lived in Yeadon, went to Archbishop Prendergast.

Stanley and Grentz connected at Immaculata, winning two of the team’s three consecutive national titles together in 1973 and ’74. (Grentz also was part of that first title-winning team in 1972.) Grentz was named National Player of the Year and earned three All-American honors.

Following their college stint, Grentz went on to become the women’s basketball coach at Saint Joseph’s from 1974-76, which, at the time, was recently created.

She then was named the women’s basketball coach at Rutgers. Grentz led the Scarlet Knights to the final Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women national championship in 1982 and appeared in nine consecutive NCAA Tournaments, earning national coach of the year honors in 1987.

She went on to University of Illinois, and, after taking a seven-year break from the coaching scene, Grentz joined Lafayette College an assistant and later became head coach from 2014-17.

“Today I’m standing on the stage for the Hall of Fame,” Grentz said. “I think my lesson would be you learn from the adversity. ... You take what you have, make that work. Make the most of what you have, not what you think you need.”

Stanley began her coaching career as an Immaculata assistant. The 23-year-old then took her first head coaching job at Old Dominion. Her team won the National Women’s Invitational Tournament during her first year. She then led them to the NCAA Championship in 1985, finishing the season 31–3.

Stanley has built up quite the resumé, coaching at Penn, USC, Stanford, and California. She joined the WNBA as an assistant with the Los Angeles Sparks in 2000, marking her first time coaching at the professional level. She was named WNBA Coach of the Year in 2002 when serving as head coach of the Washington Mystics and also had stops with the New York Liberty (as an assistant) and the Indiana Fever.

Larry Costello, who died Dec. 13, 2001, also is being inducted. Costello is known as the last two-handed set shooter. He was drafted out of Niagara by the Philadelphia Warriors in 1954.He was traded two years later to the Syracuse Nationals (who later became the 76ers).

Costello ruptured his Achilles in 1965, and missed the 1965-66 season. He played in 49 regular-season games during the Sixers’ run to the 1966-67 NBA championship. He wrapped up his career in 1968 and was promptly named head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, leading them to the 1971 championship.