DETROIT (8/26/2020) -- Former University of Detroit women's basketball standout player Nancy (Labach) Thomson didn't start playing high school basketball until 11th grade, when her Roseville Brablec high school first started a team.
Just a few years later, however, Thomson was starring for the Titans and ended her career in the red, white and blue as the Athletic Department's inaugural female President's Award winner, which has been presented annually since 1980 to a male and female student-athlete who excel both in athletics and academically.
Thomson, who began her collegiate basketball career at Pittsburgh before then starring at Macomb Community College, felt at home as a Titan in her final two seasons during the 1978-79 and 1979-80 seasons.
Nancy (Labach) Thomson
"I was honored to be chosen out of all of the female athletes," Thomson said. "It was quite an accomplishment. I was pleased with my whole experience and it was great."
Thomson starred for the Titans during her junior season as a post player, averaging 8.4 points and 9.0 rebounds per game and was part of a front court that included Hall of Famers Lisa Blackburn, Lydia Johnson and Cheryl Williams. She was named to the Honorable Mention All-State Team during her first year as a Titan.
Thomson was a big part of a school-record 27-4 season for the Titans, with the squad winning 27 of the final 29 games of that season, including winning the state championship with consecutive wins over Central Michigan, Western Michigan and Michigan State in the finals. The Titans then notched wins over Ohio State and Indiana in the regional tournament.
"My junior year we were in the playoffs and had a really good record, I think we only had four losses that season," Thomson recalled of the 1978-79 year. "The big games were always Michigan and Michigan State, I remember playing against Michigan."
Thomson had a big game in that one -- totaling 22 points and 16 rebounds against the Wolverines in a 91-55 victory.
"My junior year, I got a lot of playing time because Lisa Blackburn tore her ACL," Thomson said. "So I was playing all of the time and it was great. She came back in my senior year, so I didn't really get as much playing time, but my junior year was great."
The Titans earned 25 more victories the next season in Thomson's senior year as the squad captured 52 in a two-year span, earning a trip to the AIAW national tournament in 1979-80 and a second-straight state championship.
Thomson, who earned a degree in Criminal Justice and would go on to coach both girls and boys basketball at Roseville Community Schools, among other stops, learned a lot of her coaching pedigree from her playing career under coach Hardy and the Titans.
"What I learned in coaching skills was from U-D and coach Sue," Thomson said. "She was hard, she was tough, but in the end, I understood and it worked out. I coached seventh grade girls and I had the principal come up and say that I was running the girls too much. I didn't look at them as girls, I looked at them as athletes and they have to be in shape.
"I think that I finally got that. (Coach Sue) used to run us a lot, we did a lot of drills, a lot of latters and in preseason, we would do to the track and we would get timed on the mile. We would do sprints and everything was timed. That was tough. Looking back on it, it was necessary. We were running all of the time and she didn't sub a whole lot. You had to be in shape, that was another great thing, was being in shape."
Thomson took pride in her academics in college.
"My father didn't finish school, he went into the Marine Corps in World War 2 and that was his proud thing was that all of his kids went to college," she said. "We tried to keep up with academics."
Labach didn't realize that she was the first President's Award winner in Titan history, but feels honored to be chosen over her fellow student-athletes for the presitigous honor.
"Looking back at it, to be the first of anything, that's kind of nice," she said. "I didn't really understand the importance of it until reflecting on it later, of all of the women's athletes, I was real honored to get it. It meant a lot."
