JOHNSTOWN —
Mag Strittmatter learned the game of basketball while playing against her brothers on the second floor of the family barn in Patton during the late 1960s.
Little sister was a quick learner.
A few years later, Strittmatter was on the first girls basketball team at Cambria Heights High School, where she averaged 27 points a game.
The next stop was Happy Valley. Strittmatter became the first women’s basketball player offered a scholarship at Penn State University soon after the groundbreaking law Title IX was enacted.
Her stellar career at Penn State concluded nearly 40 years ago, but her time with the Lady Lions has earned Strittmatter a spot on another distinguished team. She will be part of the Cambria County Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2012 that will be inducted during a banquet at the Pasquerilla Conference Center on July 14.
A pioneer on the women’s college basketball scene, Strittmatter led Penn State in rebounding all four years of her career.
She made a smooth transition to the NCAA Division I college game by averaging 18.3 points and 15.3 rebounds a game as a freshman in
1974-75. Strittmatter didn’t slow down, either.
Her Penn State statistics and milestones remain impressive four decades later:
- Strittmatter’s career 10.3 rebounds a game average still is a Penn State women’s record.
- The Lady Lions went 21-5 during her senior season in 1977-78.
- Strittmatter holds the Penn State women’s single-season rebounding record with 260 as a senior.
- She ranked fifth on the Lady Lions’ single-game chart with 20 boards, a feat she accomplished twice.
- Penn State didn’t have a losing season during Strittmatter’s four seasons in the program.
That impressive resume might be traced all the way back to the family barn.
Strittmatter is the executive director at The Action Center, an organization that assists disadvantaged and low-income people in Denver, where she resides.
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