Delta State is well known for its women’s basketball program. The first iteration of the Lady Statesmen played from 1925 to 1932, before the school claimed the sport was “too strenuous” for women; players on the team, including a junior named Margaret Wade, burned their uniforms in protest of the decision to discontinue the program. After a career in high school coaching, Wade returned to Delta State when the team reinstated women’s basketball in 1973. Through her tenure at Delta State, the team won three consecutive AIAW championships in 1975, 1976, and 1977, and Wade earned the reputation as the “mother of modern women’s basketball.”