Catana Starks

Catana Starks
A smiling African-American woman with short curls
Catana Starks, from a 1998 newspaper
Born
Catana Rhoda Johnson

December 30, 1944
Mobile, Alabama, USA
DiedSeptember 6, 2020(2020-09-06) (aged 75)
Nashville, Tennessee, USA
OccupationAthletics coach
Years active1980-2000s
Known forGolf coach, Tennessee State University
Notable workFirst African-American woman to coach an all-men’s team at the collegiate level

Catana Rhoda Johnson Starks (December 30, 1944 – September 6, 2020) was an American athletics coach. She was the first African-American woman to coach a men's team at the collegiate level, when she coached the men's golf team at Tennessee State University from 1986 to 2005.

Early life

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Catana Johnson was born in Mobile, Alabama. She graduated from Tennessee State University, where one of her classmates was Olympian Wilma Rudolph.[1] She earned a doctorate from Tennessee State in 1989,[2] with a dissertation titled "An analysis of three methods of teaching physical fitness and their effect on strength, flexibility, and cardiovascular endurance" (1989).[3]

Career

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Starks coached high school swimming and basketball in Saginaw, Michigan in the 1970s.[4][5] She became a swimming and diving coach at Tennessee State in 1980.[6] She became head coach of the school's new golf program in 1986,[7][8] the first African-American woman to coach a men's golf team at the highest collegiate level.[9] She coached the men's golf team at Tennessee State from 1986 to 2005; her efforts to boost the team's profile included recruiting international students, which caused some controversy,[10] especially in the 1998 season, when the team had only one African-American player.[11] In her last year as coach, the team won the National Minority Golf Championship.[12] Her former players included Canadian golfer Sean Foley, who in turn coached Tiger Woods, and Scottish golfer Robert Dinwiddie.[1] She was also head of the Human Performance and Sports Sciences department at Tennessee State.[9]

Starks' life story was dramatized in a film, From the Rough (2011), starring Taraji P. Henson as Starks.[13][14][15] In 2014, Starks was inducted into the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame.[12]

Personal life

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Catana Rhoda Johnson married Alfred Donnie Starks in 1964 and had a son. She later remarried. Starks died in 2020, aged 75 years, in Nashville, Tennessee.[16]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Former TSU Men's Golf Coach Dr. Catana Starks Passes Away". Ohio Valley Conference. Archived from the original on 2020-12-30. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  2. ^ "Catana Starks, Ph.D. '89". TSU Points of Pride. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  3. ^ "ETD Collection for Tennessee State University". Digital Scholarship, Tennessee State University. Archived from the original on 2013-03-15. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  4. ^ Hunt, Donald (2011-04-28). "Catana Starks made her own history in golf". ESPN.com. Archived from the original on 2021-01-22. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  5. ^ "Police Probe Crash That Killed 6 Teens". Ironwood Daily Globe. Oct 4, 1977. p. 14. Retrieved January 16, 2021 – via NewspaperArchive.com.
  6. ^ "Recreation Classes Slated". The Tennessean. 1982-01-21. p. 47. Retrieved 2021-01-16 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ DeVille, Nancy (2011-09-26). "Golf Coach Conjured Magic; Starks a Race, Gender Pioneer". The Tennessean. pp. B1. Retrieved 2021-01-16 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ "TSU Adds Two Sports; Temple Gets New Post". The Tennessean. 1984-06-29. p. 26. Retrieved 2021-01-16 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ a b Johnson, Lucas (September 7, 2020). "Dr. Catana Starks". Tennessee State University Newsroom. Archived from the original on 2018-10-07. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  10. ^ "TSU Golf Experience Colorful One for Starks". The Tennessean. 2005-05-15. pp. C1. Retrieved 2021-01-16 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ Coleman, Anthony (1998-05-09). "TSU Golf Squad Swings for Equal Opportunity". The Tennessean. p. 7. Retrieved 2021-01-16 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ a b Organ, Mike (2020-09-07). "Obit: Tennessee State's Catana Starks, first Black woman to coach an NCAA men's golf team". Golfweek. Archived from the original on 2020-09-18. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  13. ^ Parker, Najja (April 25, 2014). "Taraji P. Henson Makes Hole-in-One with Latest Film". Jet Magazine. Archived from the original on 2014-04-27. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  14. ^ Harrington, Jayla (2020-12-30). "Catana Starks: Rising From the Rough". Medium. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  15. ^ Callahan, Yesha (April 25, 2014). "Catana Starks, the True Story Behind From the Rough". The Grapevine. Archived from the original on 2017-01-31. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  16. ^ "Golf Community Mourns the Passing of Trailblazing Coach Dr. Catana Starks". PGA. September 8, 2020. Archived from the original on 2020-09-23. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
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