My favorite sports memory/moment/event is… I have been fortunate enough to teach and coach at the high school I graduated from as a student, Sparta High School. My junior year of our basketball season our team won a Group 2 State championship and finished the season 27-0. Fast forward many years to my second to last year as the Sparta Girls Basketball Head Coach, and our team won a Group 3 State Championship and finished the season 22-8. To experience these two major and unique accomplishments as a player and a coach is something I will never forget.
Cathy Wille graduated from Sparta High school and earned a Division 1 full scholarship to Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. She started all four years at Wake Forest and was their point guard during those four years. The Demon Deacons 1989 team made it to the NCAA Basketball tournament (only 34 teams made it into the tournament) and won its first round game versus Villanova. They lost the 2nd round to Pat Summitt’s University of Tennessee Volunteers. This has been the only women’s basketball team to make it into the NCAA tournament in program history.
Mrs. Wille majored in Health and Sports Science. She then went on to earn a Masters degree in Health Education at East Stroudsburg University.
Cathy also became a Health and Physical Education teacher at SHS. She worked and coached there for 30 years, and retired this past June, 2024. She was the head girls basketball coach for 11 years with an overall record of 183-100. She ran a very successful girls basketball camp at SHS for the past 11 years. She has also coached high school boys/girls soccer, boys/girls track & field, and boys/girls tennis.