Jan. 12, 2001
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Spotlight takes a look at the third-ranked women’s basketball team which owes a majority of its success to Ruth Riley. Her achievements on the court are equally matched by her skills in the classroom. Today, the FANSzine takes a look at the Macy, Indiana native, in the first part of this three-part series.
Most people don’t know what they want to be until they reach a certain age of maturity, and even then it still is reached with some degree of skepticism.
That was never a problem for Ruth Riley.
Growing up as the “tallest girl,” Riley realized at an early age what she would be doing when she grew up, or lack of a better word, grew taller.
“I have always been taller,” Riley said. “Growing up my friends would say `oh, you’re going to play basketball’.
“It was something I always did and I liked doing it.”
She played high school basketball in a small town called Macy located in the heart of Indiana. And if anyone knows anything about basketball, it is the state of Indiana that it calls home.
“It’s like the movie Hoosiers, where you can drive through the country and people have their baskets hanging on the side of their barns.”
The similarities to the film do not end there. The enrollment of North Miami high school when Ruth graduated was 380. It is this very number, however, that may have helped her become a starting center her freshman year of high school.
“North Miami is such a small school that whoever went out for the sport would not get cut,” Riley said. “Me, being the tallest player in the school, got thrown into a starting position.
“I had a lot of work to do to catch up with the role I was put in.”
Catching up turned out to be no problem for Ruth. After her sophomore year, she began to play AAU basketball where her skills began to improve. AAU basketball also brought more exposure, and the college recruiters began to notice the tall girl from Macy, Indiana.
Notre Dame assistant coach, Carol Owens, began to make trips to North Miami to see Riley in action.
“I remember the game she came to,” Riley said. “After high school games, I would sometimes play one-on-one with the guys, and I would play pretty good.
“Coach Owens was standing up there just watching me playing with this guy I ended up beating. I guess she thought that was something different.”
While Notre Dame would be a simple choice for most high school athletes, Riley was approaching the subject nonchalantly. While attending a WBCA camp, Ruth’s current teammate, Meaghan Leahy, picked her brain for her choice.
“I hadn’t really considered Notre Dame that much,” Leahy said. “Ruth was like `yeah, I’ll probably go to Notre Dame’ and I was like wow, that is such a great school.”
Even though she acted cool about her choice, Riley would soon find herself in a place far removed from the rural roads of Macy.