"I lost more nominations to the Hall of Fame than I did games," Rush told master of ceremonies Jim Nantz yesterday.

And that's no exaggeration.

The sixth nomination turned out to be the charm for Rush, the wildly successful coach who won three consecutive AIAW national titles at Immaculata in the early 1970s.

"The nature of it, if you go back 36 years to the first national championship ever in women's basketball, I reached a point that I didn't think this was ever going to happen," said Rush, who will be inducted with Adrian Dantley, Bill Davidson, Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, Pat Riley and Dick Vitale.

"I really thought that one of my players would get inducted and represent Immaculata, and that would have been fine, too."

During her 7 years leading the Mighty Macs, Rush was an astounding 149-15 and made six consecutive AIAW Final Four appearances. In 2000, she was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.

As fascinating as Rush's accomplishments were, they are magnified even more when you consider the challenges she faced away from the basketball court.

"We flew standby to the first national tournament," Rush said. "I had a ticket and the eight players were on standby. I could only take eight of 11 players. Judy [Marra] Martelli was one of the players who didn't get to go. Imagine going through an entire season, 20-plus games, and saying, 'You guys have to stay home, we don't have enough money.' We put together a bare-bones trip to go to the national tournament, got $7-a-day meal money, no assistant coaches, trainers or managers. Three fans came. We rented three little economy cars and drove from Chicago to Normal, Ill. Basically, there were 12 of us in the whole group."

Through it all, though, Rush's coaching shined through. Though only 24 at the time, she had a grasp of the game most women didn't back then. "I think because she was so young, my feeling is she tried to separate herself to be a little distant so it didn't look like she was just our buddy, and that was understandable," said Martelli, who attended yesterday's ceremony.

"Some of the seniors were only a year or 2 younger than her. She was tough, she worked hard. I remember during the camps in the summer, she was always sitting around the coaches at the picnic tables, like Herb Magee, and always looking to learn from them. She really worked hard at it."

And Rush relied on Philly's wonderful assortment of basketball minds.

"In 1968 when I married Ed Rush, we went to Puerto Rico every summer," she said. "There was a semiprofessional Puerto Rican league and they would bring in American coaches and American referees - Jim Lynam, Herb Magee, all Philly guys. Games were at night and wives weren't allowed to go because it was dangerous. We would all meet at the pool in the afternoon. I would find myself sitting there talking to Jim Lynam, Herb Magee, Paul Westhead. As I approached the job at Immaculata, all of a sudden the input from Herb Magee [was there]. He would give me an offense and he would tell me what to do. We would have a camp in the Poconos and we would get professional players and coaches. I went to all the NBA games that I could, and so many college games, and I had the resources in Philadelphia, that was incredible."

And she soaked up enough of that wisdom to land a berth in the Hall of Fame yesterday, which was also her 60th birthday.

"Cathy was driven," said Denise Conway Crawford, a member of those three title teams. "When she first got there, I think she thought she was going to be there to have some fun and enjoy casual coaching, but she was astounded to find the talent she had. We had lots of Catholic League talent. Once she realized it, her casual coaching turned into a drive. As players, we had no aspirations of doing what we did. We were going out to win, playing the game we loved, and it turned into something very, very special."

As was the phone call Rush received informing her of her induction, quite different from the five she had received from the committee before.

"The first year I was very disappointed," Rush said of her failed nominations. "In succeeding years I was less and less disappointed because my anticipation was less and less as well. It's much more exciting than I ever thought it would be. When I got the call, I was choked up, I started calling my family and friends, and every person that I talked to I could hear in their voice the excitement, tears building. It's quite special to me."

Rush calls the Mighty Macs the "story that will never die," and with a movie coming out, perhaps in October, titled "Our Lady of Victory," about her teams, her story will live in a brighter spotlight.

And it can now be told with the inclusion of "Hall of Famer" next to Rush's name. Finally.

Hill nominated