Former Hudson sports standout achieves success as Vanderbilt

Hoops or links: Difficult college decision paved Freitag’s life path
By Brett Hait, bhait@nashvillecitypaper.com

In 1991, Martha Richards was handed a painful ultimatum: choose basketball or golf.

The message, coming from Stanford women’s basketball coach Tara VanDerveer, was clear but still too difficult for Richards to accept.

Richards was, after all, a certified sports nut. In addition to playing golf and basketball, she hunted, fished, skied and watched sports on television as feverishly as any couch potato. She wanted to slice none of it from her life.

Still, VanDerveer drew a line in the sand with Richards, who at the time was a member of the Stanford women’s golf and basketball squads. VanDerveer was demanding a year-round commitment.

“She told me I had to choose,” said Richards, now Martha Richards Freitag. “I didn’t want to choose, so she kind of chose for me. That was tough, because I was recruited to play both, and I went there with the understanding that I would be able to play both.”

Just like that, Richards’ basketball career was finished.

Read more of the story from the Nashville City Paper.

Read the Vanderbilt University bio of Martha Richards Freitag.