Dr. Virginia “Ginny” Hunt arrived in Bozeman in 1977 from the University of Michigan with a vision for Montana State Athletics and the amount of ambition and enthusiasm necessary to build a program from scratch. At her first MSU women’s basketball game, Hunt was one of 250 fans. At her last game as MSU’s women’s athletic director, there were 5,000 fans in attendance as the Bobcats won the program’s first-ever Big Sky title in 1993. 
 
While working tirelessly to build MSU’s women’s athletic programs, Hunt was also a strong voice on the national level for opportunities in athletics at all levels for women. To that end, she was actively involved throughout her career in the Associa­tion of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), as well as the U.S. Olympic Committee. Hunt chaired the AIAW Ethics Committee and was the organization’s President-Elect when it was folded into the NCAA.
 
Hunt, an Iowa graduate and former field hockey, bas­ketball and volleyball coach at Wooster College, was most recently honored by the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators (NACWAA) as one of its Lifetime Achievement Award recipients.
 
Hunt passed away in her home state of Iowa in 2022 at the age of 86.