Sue Durrant was a fantastic coach for WSU coaching both women’s basketball and volleyball. She later took a position in administration at the university to continue her impact on the athletic department. 

No matter how good her coaching was, her legacy is rightfully revolved around her impact on women’s athletics as a whole at all levels. Someone on the front lines of the fight for more resources for women in sports, she was not one to shy away from the challenges of that fight.

After Title IX was passed in 1972, the belief was that universities would follow its rules, given that it was the law. However, that is not what happened, leading to Blair v. Washington State University. 

The case regarded the concern that the university’s ts distribution of athletic opportunities and resources violated the Washington State Equal Rights Amendment and the state’s Law Against Discrimination.

Durrant’s role in the lawsuit was to be the point person for the coaches. Despite her role in the lawsuit effectively ending her coaching career, it is not something that she said she regrets or would even take back. 

“A lot of us who were a part [of the lawsuit] were not doing it for ourselves — we were doing it for those coming after us,” Durrant told the Evergreen in 2001. 

As a coach, she led the WSU volleyball team from 1963–75 and the women’s basketball team from 1971–72 and 1973–82. Winning league titles in 1978 and 1979, her longest postseason run was a Sweet 16 appearance of the AIAW Championship. 

At the time of her coaching retirement, she had a .575 winning percentage (134-99), the highest mark of any coach with two or more years of service as a coach in WSU women’s basketball program history.

Other than her induction into the WSU Hall of Fame in the class of 2017, she has earned the following accolades while at WSU: Honor Fellow Award by the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport, Outstanding Services in Women’s Sport by the Women’s Sports Foundation, the Honors Award from the National Association of Collegiate Athletic Administrators and the Lifetime Achievement Award by the President’s Commission on the Status of Women.

For her role as a significant and successful coach and, more importantly, in her role in the fight for equality in women’s athletics, Durrant was the person in mind for a Washington State Senate Bill to recognize women’s athletics. 

Former Washington State Senate Democratic member Ken Jacobsen proposed a bill that would allow the superintendent of public institutions to honor selected girls under 13 with the Sue Durrant athletic achievement award, with the intent to promote women’s athletics at all levels.

“[Durrant] is the Rosa Parks of the women’s athletics movement,” Jacobsen said about Durrant’s impact. “Most people don’t know her courage and her determination. She has been taken for granted.”