Lady Choctaws Basketball Star Rita Easterling Joins Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame

2011 Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Inductees

Former Mississippi College Lady Choctaws Coach Ed Nixon remembers Rita Easterling as a dynamic player who was among the first to put the sport on the map in the USA.

With the Chicago Hustle, Rita was the all-star game MVP of the women’s pro basketball league in its initial season in 1979 after a stellar hoops career with the MC Choctaws.

The Hustle was really a fitting team for Easterling, who on Friday night will be inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in Jackson.

At Mississippi College, “Rita was a full speed player all the time,” says Nixon, now the head coach of the Independence High girls basketball team in Tate County. “She was a hard worker who never did complain when we got in a lot of road work,” he said. “I never had to take her out of a game, except when she was in foul trouble.”

His wife, Dot Nixon, a former MC physical education teacher and chaperone on road trips for the Lady Choctaws, believes the former Morton High standout, possessed the basketball skills to play in the WNBA today.

“She just had a natural talent and the athleticism,” Dot Nixon said when reached Thursday at her home in Senatobia. ”She was an incredibly smooth player who was always calm and worked hard, and she was a good student.”

Mississippi College Athletic Director Mike Jones and Associate AD Susan Musselwhite will be among those on hand for the induction ceremonies at the Jackson Marriott at 5:30 p.m. Friday.

Easterling was not only a superb MC basketball player, she also excelled as a fast-pitch softball coach at Baptist-affiliated MC. “She was very successful in everything,” says Musselwhite, a former MC softball player. “She was big-time at MC and then moved into the pro ranks. A lot of people have told us they enjoyed playing with her.”

Easterling is in solid company with the newest crop of Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame members. Others include former Jackson Mets owner and businessman Con Maloney, Delta State baseball coach Mike Kinnison, former University of Southern Mississippi baseball coach Corky Palmer, former Mississippi State and Major League Baseball star Jeff Brantley, and the late Jerrel Wilson, a standout kicker with Southern Miss who later played with the Kansas City Chiefs in the NFL.

Seeing Easterling in action at the A.E. Wood Coliseum was a treat for sports reporters like Michael Rubenstein, now the executive director of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. “She was a terrific player in total motion from the moment she walked on the floor,” said the former WLBT-TV 3 sports director in Jackson. “MC-Delta State basketball games were as big-time as it gets in Mississippi.” From passing the ball to shooting to defense, she could do it all on the hardwood, he added.

Rita Gail Easterling’s exploits are highlighted in a story Thursday in “The Clarion-Ledger” written by sports columnist Rick Cleveland.

The headline salutes Easterling, who turned 56 this week, as a “hoops pioneer.”

Mississippi’s “Miss Basketball” at Morton High in 1973, Easterling succeeded right away as a freshman at Mississippi College. She led the Choctaws to a 26-4 record with the team losing to Immaculata College in the old Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women championship game. As a rookie with the Chicago Hustle, she averaged 21.5 points and 10.1 assists per game. Easterling once scored 45 points in a game for the Hustle in the old Women’s Professional Basketball League.

The CL story quoted her former Chicago Hustle coach Doug Bruno. “She was the MVP the first year of the league. She could do everything, and she played the game the way it’s supposed to be played. She played 30 years ago, but she would stand up to today’s WNBA players,” says Bruno, now the coach at DePaul University. “She was that good. She was ahead of her time.”

Easterling is also a member of the Mississippi College Sports Hall of Fame.

For more information on the 2011 BancorpSouth Induction Ceremony at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, call 1.800.280.3263.