The game had just undergone its change to five-player, a style that Delaney-Smith was wholly unfamiliar with.

“I knew absolutely nothing about it—nothing, nada, zero,” Delaney-Smith said. “[The directors] hired me because I told [them] I could win.”

And win she could. In her seven years as head swimming coach, Delaney-Smith never lost a meet. But basketball was a different story. Her first team went 0-11, a record that sparked her competitive spirit.

“I read every book and went to every clinic,” Delaney-Smith remembered. “I just fell in love with the sport of basketball, and [now] here I am.”

Her next decade in high school athletics saw her rack up 204 wins, a state championship, and numerous individual awards.

“She was a legend,” DiVincenzo said. “All the kids coming up the pipe, we couldn’t wait to play for her because she was just bigger than life. The talk of the town was to be on the girl’s basketball team.”

Huge crowds came to every game, something largely unheard of for a high school female athletics team. But her influence didn’t end in the in the win-loss column. She was ever a proponent for equal treatment between her team and that of the boys.

“She did everything,” DiVincenzo added. “She was in there fighting with the athletic director, fighting for us at every turn…. We did stuff that no one did. She really put herself on the line, and I know she got herself in hot water a lot. Her job was in jeopardy when she did this kind of stuff.”

Delaney-Smith fought for better practice hours, jerseys, and sneakers for her team. She encouraged her players to go to summer weight-lifting programs where the only other attendees were football players.

“Nothing was equal for women [at this time],” Delaney-Smith said. “So I filed four lawsuits at the high school level. They made us wear woolen field hockey skirts for the basketball team in 1973, and I was like, ‘No, thank you.’ I asked properly, but I got told no, so I filed lawsuits.”

Title IX gave Delaney-Smith the ammunition she needed to press for the equality she sought.

“I just thought, ‘Stop treating the girls like second-class citizens,’” Delaney-Smith remembered. “I think if Title IX weren’t there, I [might not] have won the fights. I think it was very exciting and felt great that the Westwood High School girls’ program was where it was when I left because it was my hard work, [and] it was a whole lot of people’s hard work as well.”

That mentality remained as she crossed the Charles River, joining Harvard as the women’s basketball head coach in 1982.

‘ACT AS IF’

With her successful track record at Westwood High, the calls began coming in for Delaney-Smith. Boston College, Boston University, and Providence all pursued Delaney-Smith, but she refused to take their calls.