Rockdale — When the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame inducted its 2018 class Saturday, a Central Texas woman was cemented in basketball lore.
Liz Galloway-McQuitter grew up in Rockdale before becoming a pioneer for the game she loved.
"Going to a frontier that we didn't know anything about," McQuitter said. "And we went all over the country."
McQuitter retired from coaching after leading her alma mater, Rockdale High School, back to the state tournament in 2015, their first trip since 1972, her junior season.
But the journey between her stints in Rockdale are what cemented her in basketball history.
Known then as Liz Galloway, she played in the Women's Pro Basketball League (WBL), the country's first viable professional women's basketball league. During the league's 1978-81 existence, she suited up for the Chicago Hustle.
"We were just ecstatic, we just couldn't believe it," McQuitter said. "So, naturally, we jumped at the opportunity."
McQuitter was known for her defense, where her former teammates commented on how tenacious she was on that end of the floor.
Her high school coach said it was one of her best attributes.
"She was very intense on defense," former Rockdale girls basketball coach John Shoemake said. "But she took after the offensive end in the same manner."
From Rockdale, McQuitter played at Temple Junior College, where she won a junior college national championship and went on to UNLV.
After she played in the WBL, McQuitter coach at DePaul, Dartmouth, and Texas A&M and was a head coach at Lamar and Northern Illinois. After her collegiate coaching career, she coached girls basketball at Rockdale HS for eight years.
Saturday, alongside everyone she played with and against in the WBL, she'll be inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tennessee, as a trailblazer.
"We were laying a template for the future and hoped it would catch on and survive," McQuitter said.
Catch on, it did.
And now, everyone can see the contributions McQuitter and so many other women made to the game of basketball.