Mary Ann Gilchrist: A Woman for These Mountains

Mary Ann Gilchrist

by Roy R. Harris

The Lady Volunteers of the University of Tennessee won the 2007 NCAA ladies championship. The Women National Basketball Association (WNBA) will soon start its season. Radio personality Imus just opened his mouth and uttered those infamous words that got him fired.

I wondered if Mary Ann Gilchrist longs to have come along in 2007 with all of the opportunities now afforded young female athletes of today. Mary was a star athlete at Stephens-Lee High School from 1955-58.




In
that old Baptist tradition, let me introduce the life and legacy of one
Mary Ann Gilchrist. According to the book “The Greatest Sport Heroes of
the Stephens-Lee Bears” by Johnny Bailey and Bennie Lake, she may have
been the greatest female athlete to have played at Stephens-Lee (The
Castle on the Hill). She averaged 18 point per game, made the team as a
freshman, played all four years, and once scored forty seven points in
a game. As much as I love sports, and especially female sports, I want
to talk about Mary as a person.



Former Asheville
High School basketball coach, Kenneth Mapp said to me that if I ever
was to do an article on some of the greatest Sports personalities of
WNC, Mary had to be included.



A Trip to Mary’s House



I drove up to
her home and was immediately taken aback by its serenity. In the
driveway is her famous red car with the Mary Ann license tag. On the
outside of her house hangs Christmas lights saying Happy holidays. Her
house sits on a hill overlooking downtown Asheville and her beloved
Stephens-Lee. As I approached the house I started to think that maybe
Mary’s legacy to Asheville is not her athletic prowess but her service
to the community of Asheville.



I knocked on the
door and immediately realized that I had found a friend for life. She
is sweet, gentle, and struts with the dignity and grace of a grand
lady. She does what any self-respecting southern lady would do and
offers me a drink of water or tea. I do a quick survey of the room and
take in her life and legacy as displayed on the walls of her house.



I ask her to
tell me a little bit about herself, and she talks about her upbringing,
her family, and her mother and father. Her eyes light up when the
subject of Southside Avenue comes up and she feels a little sad because
there are few left who remember the glorious days on Southside.



Later we walk
down to Stephens-Lee Recreation Center and as we approach the center
you could hear the sound of a basketball hitting the floor. You can
sense that her body is preparing itself to do battle. Her muscles tense
and that championship look glazes her eyes, and then she pauses for a
moment and smiles. We enter the center and immediately we search and
find her named scribbled on to the Wall of Fame. She smiles again.



We sit down on
the bench and I ask Mary to take me back to that fateful night in 1958
when she scored 47 points against Morristown Jr. College. Her eyes
light up and she takes a deep breath. She shifts her weight in her
chair and recounts not the feat but the fact that she was benched in
the fourth quarter because she did not follow the coach’s directions.



He’d asked her
to press full on ahead, but Mary didn’t want to score any more points;
she wanted to let her teammates do some of the scoring. She said she
sat quietly on the bench learning a lesson in life that she would pass
along to the present generation: it’s not always about you. Sometimes
you have to pass the ball to fellow teammates.



As we ended the
interview I asked Mary about her proudest moment in life. She leans
against the window sill at Stephens-Lee, gazes out, and without
hesitation proclaimed it was the day she was saved and gave her life to
Christ. Tears formed in her eyes and she said, “I’m happy now.”



Maybe the
baptismal certificate dated May 15, 2005, strategically place on her
living room wall, is Mary’s greatest accomplishment. Faith Tabernacle
Christian Center is her church and Rev. William Robertson is her pastor.



We ended our
interview and shook hands. I was about to leave when I turned and asked
her for a hug as only Mary can do. For Mary it’s about serving God,
church, family and humankind and especially her sister and adopted
Great-Great-Great nephew Akeylaha Logan, whom she loves dearly.