Vols' Version Of The Big O

Mostly they just call her Mo, a name easier to yell across a gym floor than the cumbersome "Mary Ostrowski."

"Go for it, Mo!"

"Shoot it, Mo, shoot!"

And so she does, with a practiced no-waste motion. "I can shoot, all right, but I've got to move around much faster," she says. Mo, a 6'2", 165-pound forward, is also called a phenom. She was the only high school player invited to the final Olympic-team tryout last summer. At West Virginia's Parkersburg Catholic High, she scored 2,337 points over four seasons and survived a Ralph Sampson kind of senior year in which virtually all colleges in the nation begged her to suit up for them. She's got T shirts from most of them to prove it. Last March Ostrowski finally said no, thanks to Penn State and Old Dominion, the other two schools in her final three, and decided on the University of Tennessee—or "Transfer U.," as it's sometimes called.

In the past, disgusted opponents seethed as Lady Volunteer Coach Pat Head Summitt stocked her teams with players who had switched from other schools. Many of them blossomed into All-Americas. Now, though, with the signing of Mo, three other high school All-Americas and four other freshmen, Head Summitt may finally shed her pawnshop proprietor's reputation.

"The way people talked, they implied I illegally lured players here," she says, without really denying or admitting that she did just that. "But I always believed Tennessee had a good solid program, and with so many freshmen this season, we'll see all the pieces of the puzzle fit together." Jill Rankin, the Lady Vols' All-America of last season, who is now the graduate assistant coach at Tennessee, transferred from Wayland Baptist after her junior year. "I'd played for Pat on the 1979 Pan Am team, and I liked her system—a deliberate, work-your-butt-off style that produces winners," Rankin says. "I came here mainly because I saw it as a way to develop my entire game. When the Wayland coach quit before my senior year, I knew I'd be better off here."

Because this season's Tennessee team includes just a pair of transfers, seniors Susan Foulds from Virginia's George Mason University and Cindy Noble from Ohio State. Head Summitt has reason to hope all the sniping will come to a halt. "True, we've been fortunate enough to get some really talented transfers," she says, "but I've always been against the transfer rule in principle. I'd like to see a waiting period before a girl can start playing for the new school." Unlike the NCAA, which requires a male athlete to sit out a season upon transferring, the AIAW permits a female athlete to suit up as soon as she enrolls in a different college. But, in practice, Head Summitt also sees no reason to "punish" an athlete, as she puts it, for choosing the wrong program. "Some athletes are ill-advised and can wind up at schools where they're not going to be happy," she says. "If someone is not aware of our program at the time she graduates from high school and then later finds she'd like to come here, why should she have to suffer?"

Head Summitt knew that someday she'd be recruiting Ostrowski even before Mo entered high school. Four summers ago, the coach was attending a basketball camp in Fort Worth, when she spotted Mo shooting buckets in one corner of the TCU gym. "I thought she was a college player," Head Summitt says. "When I found out she'd soon begin her freshman year in high school, I knew that in four years she'd be the most highly recruited kid in the country. After working with her a bit during that camp, I recognized a really intelligent, thinking player." And, according to Head Summitt, Ostrowski's court sense still belies her age. "She constantly reads the defense," says the coach. "Mo carries herself well and has confidence. I think she's a combination of a natural athlete, because she does have some natural ability, and a self-made one, because she's always been willing to put in hours perfecting her game."

Late this fall, Ostrowski could be found working out on the Tennessee track three times a week, trying to develop the speed she feels will strengthen her game. First she does stretching exercises, then stiff-legged jumps, then wind sprints. "I can see my stride lengthening already," she says. A quick shower and Ostrowski heads to the weight room for her daily Universal Gym workout. All of the Lady Vols follow individually prescribed weight-training programs, most of them concentrating on leg and shoulder strengthening exercises.

An hour before practice, Head Summitt calls the players in to look at color films of the previous day's workout. They groan as their coach points out their mistakes. "Your effort here is pitiful," Head Summitt tells one. "You're slow here, just a little bit slow," she says to Ostrowski. There are giggles and quiet gibes, but Mo is silent, absorbing details for future reference. Once in the gym, Ostrowski works hard; while other players take a water break, she picks up a ball to practice her hook shot. "She's got an ambidextrous hook," says a teammate. "Mo will fake the defense into committing itself to her right, and then she'll whip one in with her left."