2015 MSU Athletics Hall of Fame Class: Mary Kay Itnyre
9/16/2015 12:00:00 AM | General
Michigan State will induct six new members into its Athletics Hall of Fame on Thursday, Sept. 17. In the first of a six-part series this week on msuspartans.com, online columnist Steve Grinczel profiles former women's basketball Mary Kay Itnyre.
The memories of big games and key plays as a Michigan State basketball player have clouded over for Mary Kay Itnyre. However, the team concepts developed during her Hall-of-Fame Spartan career continue to serve her as clearly as ever.
Soon after leaving MSU with 19 single-season and school records in 1980, Itnyre journeyed to the West Coast where she put her degree in criminal justice to use as an officer in the Los Angeles Police Department. After eight years, the desire for a career change saw her become a firefighter for the Los Angeles City Fire Department “because that was another big, physical challenge,” Itnyre said.
And for the past 20-plus years, she has worked as a squad supervisor for the FBI in Southern California.
“Unfortunately, sometimes I remember the games that we lost because of the disappointment that surrounded it,” Itnyre said. “You knew you could have done better as a team, or you should have gone further in the tournament.
“But, I don’t like to think negatively, so I don’t think of any one particular instant, just the overall ability to play the game. I just haven’t been back to Michigan State very often since then because right out of college I moved to Los Angeles, but when I do see my old teammates, it’s like you never lost track of them.”
While details have faded and relationships formed in East Lansing grow more distant with each passing year, Itnyre wouldn’t be who she is today without her Spartan experience.
“Not only to get the education I needed to help me advance, but I would say one of the biggest things is learning to work with a team and in that team environment,” she said. “I’ve been through three academies and I know that the physical aspect of the academies was made a lot easier for me having been an athlete in a college program.
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"I think it's really a benefit to have had the experience of working in an athletic team environment that has allowed me to be successful in my career."
-Mary Kay Itnyre
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“But even now, everything we do in the FBI is a team environment. We work with other agencies and (law-enforcement) people and build cases together. I think it’s really a benefit to have had the experience of working in an athletic team environment that has allowed me to be successful in my career.”
Itnyre was born to be a sportswoman at a time when the emphasis on athletics for girls and young women was just starting to dawn. She grew up in a household where her father, Jack, who died 18 years ago, and mother, Marguerite, who lives in Houston, encouraged her ambitions even though opportunities were limited.
“I loved sports,” Itnyre said. “Primarily, for me, I went to Detroit Catholic schools and we were really fortunate because the girls started playing sports in sixth grade, which was very unusual for that time. The sports we played were just basketball and softball, and when I got to high school I think that’s when we started playing some volleyball, too.
“I just loved the game of basketball and having the opportunity to play at a Division-I school was really amazing, especially when you consider the people just a little bit older than me didn’t have the opportunities I had. But I don’t know that I ever felt like a pioneer.”
Itnyre started her collegiate career as a center and power forward at Arizona State before the NCAA even recognized women’s athletics, which were administrated nationally by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. A bout with homesickness brought her back to Michigan after her freshman year. While working a sports camp at MSU, she decided to transfer into Coach Karen Langeland’s burgeoning Spartan program.
Although she was eligible to play as a sophomore under AIAW transfer rules, she was not allowed to receive a scholarship until her final two seasons.
At the completion of her career, the 6-foot Itnyre was the second player in program history to reach the 1,000-point plateau and is currently 13th on the all-time list with 1,189 points. At the close of her career, she also held MSU records for points per game with 14.9, rebounds (821), rebounding average (10.3) and double-doubles (43).
Itnyre posted double scoring figures in all but seven of her 80 games, led the Spartans in scoring in each of her three seasons and scored 20 points or more 27 times. As a junior, she had three 20-rebound games, and although she played in just three seasons, still ranks first on MSU’s career list for double-doubles, third in rebounding average, third in free-throw percentage (.823) and is tied for fourth in scoring average.
While Itnyre was helping Langeland build a program that started with the 1972-73 season, Earvin “Magic” Johnson was leading the Spartans to the national championship in ’78-79.
“He was a year younger than me, but unfortunately we weren’t national champions like he and that team was,” said Itnyre, the team MVP and third-team All-American in ’80. “But I’m not sure we recognized the difference when we were playing because you still had the Big Ten Tournament and things like that. I often felt like I was just a little bit ahead of my time because there are always more opportunities as time progresses, but I was just always thankful to have played, and to have gotten a scholarship and an education.
“What I recognize now is being thankful to my coaches and teammates and family and friends. It all started with my mom and dad allowing me to do something that not a lot of girls at that time did – not like it is now. I’m thankful to Karen, of course, and the coaches in high school who helped me develop to a point where I could compete at the college level. And of course, my teammates – you can’t do it without your teammates.”
If Itnyre ever crosses paths with Johnson in the Los Angeles area, she said she’ll remind him that her plaque is on the same MSU Athletics Hall of Fame wall as his.
“The company I’m keeping now is pretty impressive and I just never thought I’d be in that same group of people, which is pretty cool,” Itnyre said. “Even the careers that I’ve chosen, in a way I was among the initial women doing some of those things too, but I guess I always recognized there were women ahead of me who had a much more difficult time than I ever experienced.”