When the women's programs at Youngstown State University beginning to take off in the early 1970's, the growing pains of those programs was surpassed only by their need to improve and grow each and every time during competition.
Several women's athletes paved the way during those growing years, and one whose accomplishments and contributions cannot go unnoticed is Candy Evans-Kekic.
A graduate of nearby Boardman High School where she starred in basketball, she played four years and led the girl's team in many offensive and defensive categories. Her leadership and performance earned her "Most Valuable Player" laurels as a freshman during the 1968-69 campaign while she was the leading scorer in 1971 and the team's "Most Valuable Player" again.
As a senior, she hooped 175 points and at that time, was just two points shy of the single season record set just several seasons before
She enrolled at Youngstown State University in the fall of 1972 and was one of the first Penguin female athletes to earn an athletic scholarship. She excelled on both the basketball and volleyball teams the next four seasons. She earned eight total letters (four in each sport) where she was a starter on both squads all four seasons, a distinction not many athletes of any gender can lay claim to.
While at Youngstown State, she played for both Joyce Ramsey and Barb Wright, and in an article that appeared in THE JAMBAR (the school's newspaper) on Friday, March 12, 1976, they jointly commented, "She is a good team player and contributes a lot of enthusiasm to the spark of the team. Also, she is a coach's dream because she possesses so much talent and yet is always ready to learn."
During her four seasons on the Penguin basketball team, she averaged 15.2 points per game and connected on 55.3 percent of her field goals. She became the first player to ever score 700 career points, a tremendous accomplishment considering the fact that the team played only 1215 games per season on average.
In 1974, she was named one of the "Outstanding College Athletes of America" and that same year, received the Presidential Sports Award for Equitation.
In 1976, she was a candidate for the Olympic team (the Games of the 21st Olympiad which were held in Montreal) and was one of the last to remain before the final selections.
Upon graduation, she tried out for the All-American Red-Head Basketball team, one of the most respected touring women's cage teams of their time.
A Physical Education major at YSU, she was an outstanding student in the classroom where she was also President of PHEMM, Physical Education Majors and Minors. A top-rated basketball official who held her card for both high school and college while a student at YSU, she was seriously involved in promoting women's sports at YSU during her undergraduate days, and was a member of the Women's Athletic Council before women's sports were incorporated under athletics.
She represented the women's cagers in the Leader's Club, a group of athletes representing each individual team in order to present the athletes' point of view.
She earned her Master's in Pedagogy from Kent State University in 1993, and for the past 19 years has been a teacher in the Massillon School System where for the past 10 seasons, she has been the girl's varsity basketball coach.
She and her husband Terry are the proud parents of two children, Kyle and Lainey. They currently reside in Canfield.
