Robinson and Baylor legend Suzie Snider Eppers comes back to inspire future
ROBINSON, Texas (KWTX) - On Friday morning at the Robinson High School athletic meeting, coaches and administrators welcomed back one of Robinson’s all-time greats, Suzie Snider Eppers, to inspire them and help prepare them for the new school year.
“Robinson gave me so much,” said Eppers. “This was a chance for me to give back. And if I can do that , then I certainly will.”
Eppers is not only one of Robinson’s best basketball players in the school’s history, but she’s a legend in Central Texas.
After winning a basketball state championship in 1970, Eppers went on to become the first female athlete to receive an athletic scholarship at Baylor. There, she was named an All-American and became an inspiration to the Title IX movement that laid the foundation for women’s sports.
“We had no heroes, women had no heroes back in that time,” said Eppers. “So we had to form our own. And I didnt realize it at the time, but I was becoming a hero. People would write to me, girls, and grown women, thanking me for what I was doing, and I’m like, I was just playing the game of basketball. But it wasn’t just that, it was paving a way.”
In 2022, Eppers was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame. As a former high school coach herself, she hopes to inspire all coaches to be more than a coach to their players, especially the ones at Robinson wearing white and blue.
“I realized how impactful that was, but I didn’t know it at the time,” said Eppers “That’s what they have, so they might not hear it right now, they might, but they might not.”
“She was kind of the starting point to help women’s athletics here in Central Texas,” said Robinson athletic director Lonnie Judd. “By the success she had at Robinson, by the success she had at Baylor, it was important for them to hear her story and what Robinson meant to her, and how important every little thing they can do coaching wise can affect them for the rest of their lives.”
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