MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Another of West Virginia University's women's sports pioneers has died. Martha Thorn, who coached the WVU women's tennis team from 1973 to 2000, passed away Sunday in Morgantown following months of declining health.
 
Thorn, 83, was responsible for starting the women's tennis program at West Virginia University one year after Title IX legislation was enacted in 1972.
 
Dr. Wincie Ann Carruth, chair of the women's physical educational department, Kittie Blakemore and Thorn were the leading advocates for women's sports at WVU, former director of athletics Leland Byrd once recalled.
 
"I was on the job a week, and I had a message sitting on my desk from Dr. Carruth, Kittie Blakemore and Martha Thorn," Byrd said in 2013. "They wanted an audience with me so I met them."
 
It was really an ambush more than it was a meeting, if that's possible from three ladies as nice as Blakemore, Carruth and Thorn.
 
"They said, 'Hey, we've got to start a women's sports program at West Virginia University.' Of course, Title IX was just coming in and I said, 'We can start it, but it will have to be on a shoestring. I don't know where we'll find the money, but we'll find it,'" Byrd said. "To my knowledge, Kittie took $1,000 (for women's basketball), Martha took $1,000 (for women's tennis) and that's how we began."
 
Basketball, tennis and gymnastics were the first sports to get started during the 1973-74 academic year. A year later volleyball and swimming began competition. Softball (1976), track and field (1977) and cross country (1978) were added in subsequent years, followed by soccer (1996) and rowing (2000) years later.
 
"Martha started the tennis program, and she really loved it," Veronica Hammersmith, former WVU volleyball coach, said. "She did it for a long time – as long as she could – before it was time to pass it on to someone else."
 
Hammersmith doesn't recall how they first met, but she does recall developing a strong friendship with Thorn through the years. They would often bounce ideas off each other or discuss issues within their teams during their lunch-time walks.
 
"She was always a good person to talk to because she was so kind and generous with her time," Hammersmith said. "We sort of became confidants."
 
"She always kept us grounded," Linda Burdette-Good, West Virginia's longtime gymnastics coach, added. "She just knew what to say to keep us all going on the straight and narrow. I wanted things faster than fast, and Martha would tell me, 'Just calm down, we will make it happen.'"
 
Thorn, who grew up in Hinton, West Virginia, played basketball and field hockey at James Madison University where she earned a degree in health, physical education and general sciences in 1959.
 
She received a master's degree in health and physical education from West Virginia University in 1963 and later returned to WVU as its director of intramural sports following a teaching and coaching stint at Milford High in Milford, Delaware.
 
"Martha played a lot of sports in high school and in college. She was quite athletic in her younger years," Hammersmith said.
 
In addition to coaching the women's tennis team, Thorn was also an assistant professor and lecturer in the School of Physical Education, today known College of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences.
 
Including fall and spring competition, she won 315 matches during her 27-year coaching tenure at WVU, becoming in 1999 only the fourth coach in school history to achieve 300 career wins in any sport. 
 
Thorn's 1986 squad finished second in the Atlantic 10 Conference with its first-ever 20-win campaign, and she coached six performers who earned All-Atlantic 10 honors, including 1992 A-10 Senior of the Year honoree Jo Marie Cinco, who was inducted into the WVU Sports Hall of Fame in 2014.
 
"She was very caring of her student-athletes," Burdette said. "You didn't ever hear anything negative about Martha or her tennis players."
 
Thorn served on many regional, national and University committees during her career. Her volunteer work in the community included support for the WVU Extension Services, Girl Scouts, YMCA and Monongalia Riding Handicapped  Association.
 
West Virginia renamed its fall women's tennis tournament The Martha Thorn Invitational in her honor and a team award was established in her name in 1997 to recognize the individual who best exemplifies effort, dedication and consistency. 
 
She was inducted into the CPASS Hall of Fame in 2006.
 
Thorn and her husband, Gordon, former WVU associate dean for student educational services, were fixtures on campus, and both were very proud of their West Virginia University ties.
 
"In their early years at WVU, when Martha was in graduate school and Gordon was just getting started in student services, they used to live in the dorms," Hammersmith recalled. "They have been here ever since, which is quite a thing."
 
Gordon served on the planning committee for Mountaineer Field when it was constructed in 1980, and he earned numerous awards through the University as well, including induction into the Order of Vandalia in 2002. That's the highest honor WVU bestows to an individual for service to the University.
 
"We used to get together socially," Burdette-Good recalled. "She used to host these fun game nights when a bunch of us would get together and play board games. We would have the best time because we all enjoyed each other's company."
 
Martha is survived by her husband and three grown children, Susan, Sarah and John.