Montclair State University Athletics

In the mid-to-late 1970s the Montclair State women’s basketball program rose to national prominence led by one of the greatest players in the history of the sport in Carol Blazejowski. The roots of that success can be traced back 10 years prior where a freshman named Joan Ficke earned a spot as a member of the junior varsity team as a freshman. The next year she joined the varsity squad helping Montclair to a 10-3 record. In 1969, she was named the team captain end led the team in rebounding as Montclair State went 9-3. In her senior season of 1970-71, the game of women’s basketball changed going from six to five players, however the change did not seem to affect Ficke, who had spent her first three years as a defensive-only player. Serving as team captain she led Montclair to a 12-1 mark, the lone loss coming to national power West Chester State in the championship game of the Middle Atlantic Women’s Intercollegiate Regional Tournament. As she had done her first three seasons, Ficke anchored the defense unit which held it opponents to 33 points per game while she herself pulled down 88 rebounds (seven per contest) and made 36 steals. Upon the completion of her career, Ficke continued her affiliation with the basketball team as an assistant coach in 1971 and served as the interim head coach in 1974 where she mentored a young freshman by the name of Blazejowski. Ficke would go one to earn her doctorate from New York University in 1975 and has since risen through the academic ranks at Montclair State University from professor to Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs for Personnel and Resource Planning.