Hall of Fame 2026: CMU Pioneers in Women's Sports Helped to Inspire Amy Backus

Hall of Fame 2026: CMU Pioneers in Women's Sports Helped to Inspire Amy Backus

9/23/2026 9:48:00 AM | General, Women's Basketball, Our Stories

Class of 2026 Release Amy Backus Hall of Fame Page Hall of Fame Inductees

First in a series of profiles of members of the 2026 Class the Marcy Weston CMU Athletic Hall of Fame. The class comprises basketball player Amy Backus, wrestler David Bolyard, football player Ken Ealy, coach Jim Hornak, volleyball player Kaitlyn (McIntyre) Renzi and gymnast Brittany (Petzold) Franklin. The Class will be inducted during a ceremony in McGuirk Arena on 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 16. Admission to the induction ceremony is free and open to the public. The six members will be introduced during the CMU-Western football game at Kelly/Shorts Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 17.

By: Andy Sneddon

Women's sports have come a long way. Former Central Michigan basketball player Amy Backus has lived it, first as a recruit, then as a student-athlete, then as a coach, and, finally, as an administrator.

Backus arrived at CMU in 1975 from Vermillion, Ohio. The director of women's athletics at CMU at the time was the late Fran Koenig, and Backus' first coach was Marcy Weston.

She didn't know it at the time, but meeting Koenig and Weston would eventually change the course of Backus' life.

Both became immediate and lifelong influences on Backus, who went on to a long and successful career as a coach and administrator, first at Otterbein University and then at Middlebury College, Northwestern, Yale and, finally, Case Western Reserve, from which she retired in 2021 as the director of athletics and chair of physical education.

"Looking back on it, I cannot believe how absolutely fortunate I was," Backus says. "I say this to this day, Central Michigan was a decade ahead in the world of women's athletics because of the leadership of Fran Koenig."

Koenig coached women's basketball at CMU before serving as associate athletics director and director of women's athletics from 1974-89. She served on more than 20 Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) committees throughout her career and was instrumental in bringing the 1977 the AIAW Gymnastics Finals and the 1980 AIAW Basketball Final Four to CMU.

"How fortunate was I that we had someone with that kind of vision and that kind of leadership in terms of women's athletics," Backus says. "I couldn't have been more fortunate."

Women's sports, Backus says, have grown by leaps and bounds, and the likes of Koenig and Weston helped to facilitate that.

Backus lived it and benefitted from it.

"I came up at a time when I was just excited to get the boys hand-me-down warmup suits in high school," she says. "And then to get our own practice gear at Central Michigan and our own sneakers, we were thrilled with that."

Shoes and gear first, then scholarship money.

"What Fran was doing behind the scenes, both on the national level and for her own student athletes at Central, was on the cutting edge," Backus says. "And one of the examples of that, I believe, is that were one of the very first schools in the state to offer athletic scholarships for women.

"My sophomore year, people on the team got $250. Then the next year it doubled. And then the next year it doubled again. And then that following year, when I was a grad assistant, that's when we could go out and offer this opportunity to the classes that we then began recruiting."

Backus carried with her the continual influences of Koenig and Weston as she embarked on her coaching/administrative career that took her to some of the most prestigious academic institutions in the nation.

"I think of the people I wanted to emulate and the people that I wanted to follow in their footsteps -- I credit Marcy and Fran; they were my lifelong mentors," she says, adding that she remains close friends with Weston.

"She has such compassion and integrity," Backus says, echoing the sentiments of so many in and around CMU Athletics when Weston's name is mentioned. "She's just a rock in my life. I just can't say enough about the impact that she's had over the long haul. I mean, since I was 18 years old and I'm almost 70.

"Just that kind of impact is really, really incredibly special."

While the Koenigs and Westons helped to light the torch, it is their myriad protégés – Backus at the forefront – that maintained and cultivated that passion and carried on with the mission.

"To see where, not just women's basketball, but a lot of the other women's sports are at the collegiate and professional levels now, it's so incredibly encouraging and it's a tremendous testament to the people who worked so hard to make it happen," Backus says. "Sometimes I wonder, gosh, why did it take so long when we had all these great athletes in the decades prior?

"Hopefully people can really recognize what women are capable of and that you can fill stadiums and arenas with something that's really valuable and enjoyable to watch."