"There's nothing quite like the first," former women's basketball head coach Linda Robinson said when discussing the 1986-87 Appalachian State team, who won the program's first-ever Southern Conference Tournament title and a then-program record 24 wins. That first tournament championship started a stellar run of five straight seasons in which App captured a conference championship, tournament or regular season.
To turn around a program that only won six games the season before her arrival in 1984-85, Robinson knew she had to bring in a special crop of talent in her first recruiting class, and did so signing two gems in Valorie Whiteside and Jane Dalton.