Our last finalist for Remarkable Woman is a trailblazer in sports. The photos on her wall and spread throughout her home tell Shirley McCray’s story.

“I opened the door for women. See, when I was growing up, women had a place,” McCray said.

Her 82 years have been filled with a lot of firsts — first Black to play on Memphis State’s women’s basketball team, first Black to graduate with a health and fitness degree from the college, first to start an organized women’s basketball and volleyball team in the Memphis City Schools system.

And in 1973, she became the first woman coach of an all-male football team.

“When I found out from the teachers, we were all sitting there talking, that that year they were going to have women coaching football if they wanted to. Now, what woman would want to, if they didn’t know nothing about football? But I love sports,” McCray said.

She encountered a lot of skepticism when she decided to coach football at Chickasaw Junior High, especially from her male counterparts.

“I think it took me about two years, you know, to really get the boys to trust me, you know, because the men at our really indoctrinated that a woman don’t know nothing about coaching football. But when I got through exercising them and and doing this and doing that and going places now, I would sit down and talk to them and tell them how important it is. You know, I say, not only am I a coach, teaching you how to play football, but I’m teaching you about life.”

The street in front of the school was renamed Coach Shirley Yvonne McCray Way.

“Mind you, 11 years, I didn’t get paid, so I had to go to the EEOC,” she said. “The men wouldn’t accept me. The principals didn’t want to pay me.”

Ebony and Jet magazines wrote articles on her and a self-titled book tells her inspiring story. She’s working with a production company now on a movie deal.

“I wanted people to know that I want my story told,” she said.

Coach McCray spent 30 years teaching and coaching, and even had championship teams. But she doesn’t base success on games won or lost.

“I’m determined to be somebody someday. And I taught my children it. My motto over and over and over. And I am so proud of my students,” she said.