Former First Lady of Mountaineer Basketball Anise Catlett Passes Away
March 01, 2024 05:30 PM | Men's Basketball
Share:
By: John Antonik
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Anise Catlett, the First Lady of Mountaineer basketball for more than two decades, died earlier this week in Morgantown following a lengthy illness.
Anise was the wife of Gale Catlett, the winningest coach in school history with 439 victories over his 24-year WVU tenure spanning from 1978 until 2002.
The Catletts came to West Virginia following a successful six-year run at Cincinnati that saw the Bearcats post a pair of 25-win seasons in 1976 and '77 after reaching the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 in 1975.
Catlett was the first coach in any sport at WVU to receive a multi-year contract, and he used that job security to revitalize Mountaineer basketball after one of the lowest periods in program history in the early 1970s. Soon after his hiring, Gale, Anise and their attractive young family traveled the state to attend functions, judge contests at county fairs and ride in open cars in small-town parades. Coach Gale Catlett and his wife Anise prior to West Virginia's game against Georgetown in 1998 (WVU Athletics Communications photo).
Following two developmental seasons in 1979 and '80, Catlett in 1981 led West Virginia to the NIT semifinals at Madison Square Garden in New York City where it lost by two points to Nolan Richardson's Tulsa Golden Hurricanes.
A year later, the Mountaineers took the state and the nation by storm, winning 23 straight games at one point and climbing to No. 6 in the Associated Press poll – their highest ranking since the early 1960s when Catlett was a WVU player. A Coliseum-record 16,704 showed up to watch West Virginia outlast Pitt 82-77 that year on the way to snapping the school's 15-year NCAA Tournament drought.
The following season, more than 15,000 came out to watch the Mountaineers knock off top-ranked UNLV 87-78 in one of the epic games in Coliseum history.
Catlett led West Virginia to six NCAA Tournament appearances during the 1980s, and eight trips total, including another Sweet 16 berth in 1998.
Through the years, Mrs. Catlett was a loyal supporter of her husband and his players, and she was not afraid to stand up for them whenever she felt it was required.
One year, when West Virginia was playing James Madison in the NCAA Tournament in Greensboro, North Carolina, JMU coach Lou Campanelli made some disparaging remarks about her husband, and Anise confronted Campanelli about it afterward, politely making it clear to him that she didn't appreciate his comments.
Years before, when Gale was an assistant coach at Davidson, a fan sitting behind her was cursing out coach Lefty Driesell during a game and Anise, growing sick and tired of listening to his profanity with small children nearby, turned around and tapped him on the head with her umbrella and told him to shut up.
And he did!
She used to send Christmas cards to everyone working in the athletic department and her kindness, generosity and strong-willed demeanor were greatly admired throughout the community. Mrs. Catlett considered all her husband's players a part of their extended family.
A Morgantown native, the former Anise Vandervort was a member of one of the city's most prominent families who owned and operated Sanitary Milk and Ice Cream located downtown. She attended WVU and was a member of the Mountaineer cheerleading squad while earning her physical education degree in 1963. She later earned a master's degree from WVU in 1966 as well.
When the Catletts went to the University of Kansas, where Gale was Ted Owens' freshman coach, Anise served as a physical education instructor and started women's gymnastics as the Jayhawks' first coach in 1968, making her a women's sports pioneer four years before the passage of Title IX in 1972. She had been a high school and junior high physical education instructor at her husband's prior stops at Richmond and Davidson.
During Catlett's assistant coaching years, to make some extra money, they spent one summer managing a pool with Anise serving as his assistant manager. Another summer, he sold insurance while she was back at WVU earning her master's degree.
When the Catletts were living in Cincinnati, it somehow became known in the press, including Sports Illustrated, that they were wealthy because of the Vandervort's successful Morgantown business. Anise was once asked by a reporter about her personal fortune, rumored to be $5 million back then.
"I'm so sick of hearing that I could croak," she sighed. "Once, when a reporter called to ask about that, I was down on my hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. I thought, 'If I have $5 million, why am I doing this?'"
Following his retirement from coaching in 2002, the Catletts kept their South Park home in addition to residences in the state's Eastern Panhandle, Florida and Hawaii. They were avid travelers who were always eager to experience other cultures. She also loved to shop.
I can recall occasionally calling Catlett on his cellphone to ask him about something historically related to basketball and him jokingly mentioning where they were in the world, and how much better the weather was where they were than it was in Morgantown.
The Catletts also kept an extremely low profile whenever they were in town. He once explained why.
"We were on a cruise to Bermuda with some other coaches and their wives, and Anise and I were sitting in the back of the boat with Al and Pat McGuire," Catlett recalled. "He said, 'The biggest mistake I made was after we won the national championship, I stayed in Milwaukee that next year, and it was the most miserable year of my life.'
"He said, 'The players called me that weren't playing. The coaches called me about the players. The media called me. The president called me. The parents called me. When you retire, Gale, get the hell out of town for a couple of years and don't associate with anybody,'" he said.
"I listened to what he was telling me, but the person who listened to that more carefully was Anise," he added.
Catlett's 30-year coaching record at Cincinnati and West Virginia was an impressive 565-325.
In addition to her husband, Anise, 84, is survived by daughters Krista (husband Ed), Kara (husband Thomas) and four grandchildren, Sam, Lila, Madi and Ty.
