Pat (Hodgson) Gleeson, a Cyclone letterwinner from 1975 to 1978 and the first member of Iowa State’s 1,000-point club, sat down with us to reminisce about her career and life beyond basketball.
“I’ve had lots of different careers, but currently I’m retired,” Gleeson said. “For the past 30 years in Los Angeles, I’ve been a hat maker (milliner) for film, TV and theater. It was a very fun, creative, way to be able to raise kids and pick and choose jobs while my husband was working with in the restaurant industry. We always thought we’d return to the Midwest to raise our kids, but after buying our first house in California, we ended up staying. Thirty years later, we’re still in the same home—it all worked out for us.”
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Gleeson is a 1974 graduate of Glenwood Community High School.
“Glenwood was a enterprising small town,” Gleeson said. “I feel like there were a lot of people, transferring to our town. Our class was one of the bigger ones. I feel like there was a new packing plant, so a lot of families came in to work at the packing plant. A lot of families came to work at the Glenwood State Hospital School where my parents both worked as well. We moved there when I was in kindergarten, from Council Bluffs. It was all kind of a new adventure. I’m happy that I got to stick in one place from kindergarten to my senior year. I have all good memories about Glenwood.”
Ade Schmal coached Gleeson in three sports at Glenwood.
“He was basketball, track and softball,” Gleeson said. “Got to know him very well and he got to know us very well. I always had admiration for his coaching and he would put up quotes in the basketball gym on the wall to read which I was always interested in and curious about, He pushed us, I like to be pushed. I remember we got the first Universal Gym, so he got us started on some weight training early on. I appreciate the, not so serious side, of being in three sports. Without having a women’s professional sports as a goal, it didn’t get so serious about it. I look at the gals now, what their lives are like and, and their schedules and intensity. I had fun, and I didn’t have a lot of pressure in that sense.”
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Gleeson dominated six-on-six basketball, scoring 3,174 career points at Glenwood. She had a career-high 62 points against Lewis Central and multiple 50+ point games, including 56 points in two separate matchups and 55 points in a district championship game against Treynor.
“I loved six-on-six,” Gleeson said of her high school playing days. “I didn’t learn to dribble very well, but, I did have a great half court, two dribble layup. I loved it because it was high scoring. I think it was exciting for the spectators as well as the participants and the fact that six girls got to play versus five so we got one more off the bench that way. It gave some of the gals who maybe weren’t shooters a chance to play defense, or they could play both. It was basically three on three. I think one of the fun parts for me was that because I was such a good rebounder, I didn’t have to be a pure shooter and I could, if I missed, I could get my rebound– first time, second time, even third time– and still score. So I still got to play aggressive style of game, and I think that, raised the bar, a bit and then when we went to college to change to five-on-five, I didn’t become a guard because I didn’t really learn to dribble very well. I think the transfer was pretty smooth. I picked it up pretty quick.”
Gleeson’s track records at Glenwood High School are believed to still stand: a 200-meter dash time of 26.2 seconds, a 100-meter hurdle (30 inches) time of 15.6 seconds and a distance medley relay time of 4:11.17, in which she ran as the anchor.
She placed at the state track meet every year of high school and, according to a June 19, 1974, Glenwood Opinion-Tribune, “(Hodgson) has a 100-28 pitching record in softball and owns a .438 batting average.”
“I was really grateful that we had all those sports because I was pretty restless, and it was great for me to be able to have something that put all that energy into,” Gleeson said. “I think that Iowa in general was really great at having girls sports at high school. So a lot of neighboring small towns were able to have teams and compete and we didn’t have to travel very far.
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“It’s just a really exciting time to be able to compete and see how far you could go, how fast you could run and how high you could jump and fast you could throw a softball, that kept me out of trouble,” Gleeson added.
Glenwood graduate Jenna Hopp, class of 2023, is following in Gleeson’s footsteps and playing college basketball. Hopp started her collegiate career at South Dakota State before transferring to South Dakota.
“I’m just so happy that we have the foundation and the everything in place,” Gleeson said. “I’m just really happy that they were able to build on that and then also with scholarships. I think that was a big thing that helped motivate a lot of young girls to know that they could get a scholarship. I’m glad that Glenwood has continued to, support and bring out great athletes, in all sports.”
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Gleeson’s adventure at Iowa State started in academia, before she decided to join the second ever women’s basketball team.
“It was really interesting because at the time there were a few smaller schools that were recruiting basketball players and were offering small bit of money to play there,” Gleeson said. “I actually had been pretty burnt out by the time I graduated as a senior and I really felt like I wasn’t going to participate anymore. When I wanted to try a larger school versus the smaller schools around Iowa, and I passionately told myself I wasn’t gonna play basketball. I had sports year-round. I chose my degree in advertising and design. They didn’t have a program at Iowa State, but they had, a good art department and at that point felt like I wanted to do something different. When I got into Ames, I, started playing, pick up games over at State Gym and all of a sudden realized how much I needed basketball and missed basketball and I walked on to the tryouts.”
Gleeson led the 1974-75 Cyclones in scoring, averaging 12.4 points a game.
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She also excelled for the Cyclones’ track and field teams, as her Iowa State Hall of Fame biography shares: “she was the Big Eight champion high jumper in 1975 and 1976 and also won Big Eight titles in the 440-meter hurdles and the mile relay in 1975. At the AIAW championship in 1975, Hodgson earned All-America honors by placing sixth in the high jump and third in the mile relay.”
“I didn’t think I wanted to participate or compete in track and Chris Murray recruited me and he did a good persuasion of why I should come out for the team,” Gleeson said. “I tried it my freshman and sophomore year and he helped me improve my high jump and my times. It was really exhilarating and fun. Luckily at that point, I was able to do school, run track and participate in basketball.”
On April 19, 1976, Gleeson and a team of Iowa All-Stars played an exhibition game against the Soviet Union’s Olympic team, who won gold in Montreal a few months later.
“I was picked to do the center jump against a 7’2” gal,” Gleeson said over text.
Of all the 497 field goals and 290 free throws made, a field goal made at Forker Building put her name in the Iowa State history books— well, media guides/fact books.
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Gleeson’s first basket of the night against the Missouri Tigers on Dec. 18, 1977, cemented her place in Iowa State women’s basketball history as the first player to score 1,000 career points.
“Being the first one, it’s quite a landmark, and, I like being a trailblazer,” Gleeson said with a laugh. “I carry that with pride.”
Karen Gerard was one of Hodgson’s teammates.
“I just know we all had goofy, fun times,” Gleeson said. “On and off the court, we were so supportive of each other. I do remember Faye loved extracurricular activities and, and, I also did a lot of extracurriculars. We did have a super great flag football team, Karen Gerard was on it, Sandy Yanger, myself, Carol Kozlic and we had the right combination where the other teams couldn’t even match us. They wouldn’t let us play anymore because we were beating the team so much. But that was fun while it lasted.”
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Gleeson was the first ISU woman to be a professional basketball player, as the Iowa Cornets drafted her in the ninth round of the 1979 WBL Draft.
Page 249 of Karra Porter’s Mad Seasons: The Story of the First Women’s Professional Basketball League, 1978-1981 shares Pat’s averages for the Cornets:
She ending up third in scoring (11.4), rebounds (6.2), assists (3.3) and minutes played for the Cornets.
Gleeson played with Moravia native and three time WBL-All Star “Machine Gun” Molly Bolin, among others, during her time with the Cornets.
“Molly, Charlotte, Sister Green, Robin Tucker. They had a 25 year reunion, which was super fun to go to. I haven’t heard of one since then, but I think we should rally and have another one. When I went back to the 25 year reunion, they were asking me if I still had my six pack, which was pretty humorous. I think that that was another time frame in women’s professional sports that we were the trailblazers and just a little bit ahead of our time. It was perfect timing for myself, because I was able to go straight from college to professional and was able to play the, barely three years that it lasted. The fact that Iowa had the first women’s professional team, was perfect. When I tried out for the team, (coach and general manager) Rod Lien and told me that, I would make the team, I’d be the 13th player, but I’d probably spend a lot of time on the bench. I remember telling him that, I was gonna be a starter and I didn’t plan on sitting on the bench. So, I was pretty excited to play and pretty excited to prove myself, and I feel like I hung in there with the best of them.”
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Gleeson’s Cyclones will find out their March Madness destination on Sunday.
“Thank you for taking me down memory lane and it’s fun to reminisce, relive and also be there to remind the youngsters out there now that there’s so much they can do and so much more they can, strive for and achieve and they give it all they got.”
