Hall of Fame Basketball Coach. Namesake of the Wade Trophy, presented each year by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association in conjunction with the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport to the most outstanding player in women's collegiate basketball. It is regarded as the "Heisman of Women's Basketball". She was an outstanding player at Delta State Teacher's College in Cleveland, Mississippi, beginning with her freshman year in 1929, until the program was disbanded in 1932. At the time, college officials there joined other institutions in believing that the game was too strenuous for women. They deemed that, "(Women's) intercollegiate basketball could not be defended on sound grounds." Wade soon joined a semi-pro barnstorming women's team known as the Tupelo Red Wings, until a knee injury forced her retirement after two years. Margaret began her coaching career on the high school level, where she coached at several schools including Cleveland High School, her alma mater. She compiled a record of 453 wins, 89 losses, and 6 ties in 21 years of high school coaching. Coach Wade returned to Delta State College in 1959 as Director of Women's Physical Education. After a 14 year absence from coaching the game, in 1973, she was asked to reinstate her beloved Lady Statesmen program of women's basketball at Delta State. During the next six years at Delta State her record was 157 wins and 23 losses, including four Mississippi State Championships, three regional titles, and three AIAW National Championships. She was the AIAW National Coach of the Year for 1977. During her final season at Delta State, she was honored by the WBCA when they created the Lily Margaret Wade Trophy. In 1985, the first year that women were considered for induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, she was one of only three women to be so honored. She is also enshrined in the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, and the Delta State University Sports Hall of Fame. In 1999, she was posthumously honored with membership in the inaugural class of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tennessee.