Inductees

Nancy Rutter, from Shelbina, Missouri, was a four-year letter-winner in women’s basketball and a three-time co-captain (1975-78). Rutter earned Big Eight Conference all-tournament team honors in back-to-back seasons in 1977 and 1978 and helped lead Mizzou to a Big Eight Conference Tournament title in 1978. Mizzou was nationally ranked in Rutter’s junior and senior campaigns when she helped lead the Tigers to back-to-back NCAA Tournament berths when the NCAA field consisted of just 16 teams. After a highly successful senior campaign in 1977-78, Rutter was selected as a Wade Trophy finalist, the inaugural season for the award. She scored 40 points in a 1977 game at Graceland, still the most by any Tiger in an away game. Following her time at Mizzou, Rutter played in the Women’s Basketball League (WBL), the first women’s professional league, for the Iowa Comets and the Dallas Diamonds from 1978-80. She was a 1991 inductee of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, and a 2018 inductee into the Women’s Basketball League Hall of Fame as a recipient of the Trailblazer Award for her time in the WBL. In 2019, she was honored in the Southeastern Conference’s Class of Women’s Legends.