Katie Richards, key in UND's string of national titles, remembered as passionate player, ideal friend
Nov. 2—GRAND FORKS — The UND women's basketball program lost a revered member of its community on Thursday.
Katie Richards, an integral figure in the program's rise to three NCAA Division II national championships in the late 1990's, died in a car crash early Thursday near Reynolds, N.D.
Legendary UND women's basketball coach Gene Roebuck and his former players remembered Richards as a passionate player and ideal friend.
"I think if you look back at any of our game film, you'll see she was a fierce competitor," former UND guard Tonia Jones Peterson said. "Every game, every practice was approached with heart and passion. She wore that on her sleeve. That emotion gave us fuel to the fire. It helped elevate us in those national championships because she had an intensity about her that was unmatched."
Richards, a native of Hope, N.D., was living in Mayville and working at Mayville State.
An all-state high school player out of Hope, Richards scored 1,500 points with 175 3-pointers in her UND career (1996-2000) and won three national championships. She was an honorable mention All-American.
Richards had remained connected to the UND women's basketball program and its alumni network.
"This is really hard," Roebuck said. "I'm devastated. My bond with Katie is eternal as far as I'm concerned. She was the fire to those teams. She lit the fire with her emotions and her hard-nosed play, her devotion to the team. That's what it's all about. That's why all of our players who played at UND, then and now, are part of a family. We honor Katie as being a big part of it. She did it all through hard work. There was no quit in Katie."
UND's national championship team in 1999 (the third of the three-peat) was inducted in to the school's athletics hall of fame in 2019.
In that championship game, Richards hit a key fourth quarter 3-pointer and finished with 13 points in the championship game.
Prior to her UND career, Richards was named co-Miss Basketball in North Dakota in 1995. She was also named to the all-state first teams in both 1994 and 1995.
Richards and Jones Peterson, a Thompson, N.D., native, were roommates in college.
"We played Gus Macker and camps together and played against each other," Jones Peterson said. "She was the type of friend I hope everyone has in their life. She honestly had the biggest heart and would do anything for anyone. For all the things she was on the court, she was a better person. She cared so much about her kids. They were the center of her world."
Richards held a number of coaching roles and was recently an assistant coach for the May-Port-C-G boys basketball program.
"She had an impact on every level of sport you could think of from elementary to college," said former UND teammate Kami Winger Danner. "But she was always there for me. I could call her and have her at my door in 20 minutes. She was always up for doing anything with me last minute.
"My life will never be the same. My family loved her. She was with us almost every weekend in one way or the other. She's the best friend I could have ever asked for. She was my sister. My family. My life will always be missing something. She was the best mother and loved her kids more than anything in the world."
