2012 Marian Archer Award

Tom May, Crown Point High School

The Marian Archer Award is an award established by the Archer Family in 1979 to honor Marian Archer for outstanding work in promoting girls’ athletics. Marian Archer was the owner of Sports Togs in Carmel – a sporting goods business that dealt exclusively with uniforms for female athletes, and was one of our earliest exhibitors at our ICGSA spring conference. The recipient of this award should have been or is actively and positively involved in the promotion of girls’ athletics, and they may be in any field where he or she may promote girls’ athletics in Indiana.

Our 2012 Marian Archer recipient is best known for his basketball coaching career for 26 years at Crown Point High School and now as an official for both boys and girls basketball. While at Crown Point his teams earned 15 sectional, 7 regional, 2 state runner-up, and 2 state championship titles amassing a 442-172 career record. He is the only two time head coach of our Indiana All-Stars, placed 40 girls into collegiate ranks, and coached seven Indiana All-Stars. He is the only coach to have won two state championships and also officiated two state final championships. He has received numerous coaching honors, but earned the highest honor of all when he was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009.

Our recipient has been active in ICGSA by serving on our ICGSA basketball committee and was the chairperson of that committee. He also served on our Executive Board from 2002 to 2005. However, one of the main reasons that the Executive Board has chosen Tom as our 2012 Marian Archer winner is that as a young coach in Crown Point he along with his parents and players took a huge step in filing a Title IX lawsuit against the Crown Point school corporation to “level the playing field” for his girls basketball program in respect to practice time, game nights, budget, and facilities. Needless to say that was not a popular move in those days, but soon his lawsuit became a model that many schools used throughout the state to improve girls programs. Each of us in this room have benefited from that lawsuit that was filed by Tom, his parents, and players.

Please join the ICGSA Executive Board as we honor, Tom May, retired coach of Crown Point High School, as our 2012 Marian Archer Award winner. Our president, Kellie Kuhn, will present him with a plaque.