Wayland Baptist Flying Queens of 1948-1982

On November 7, 1953, the Flying Queens of Wayland Baptist blew open the doors on another basketball season with a convincing win against the overmatched Dowell’s Dolls. This was the start of a special season for the small private school located in the windswept Texas panhandle town of Plainview, and the beginning of one of the greatest winning streaks in the history of sports. Over the next five years, the Queens won 131 straight games and four national championships. The Queens, led by coaches Caddo Matthews and later Harley Redin, competed in the Amateur Athletic Union and ultimately captured ten national titles during a reign that lasted nearly 35 years. Redin, a veteran of the Marine Air Corps, ran a tight ship with an emphasis on conditioning and fundamentals. The Flying Queens enjoyed air travel provided by a local businessman named Claude Hutcherson who used his Beechcraft Bonanzas to fly the girls to games. Claude and his wife Wilda loved the girls, treating each player like a daughter. Wayland Baptist began offering full-ride scholarships to prospective student-athletes, a first for women’s basketball, in order to compete with the well-funded business teams that largely comprised AAU basketball at that time. The Flying Queens blazed a trail for women’s basketball long before the passage of Title IX and the subsequent involvement of the NCAA.