Only 15 coaches have won all 35 National Championships...

[DavidinNaples]

Most UConn fans know Geno has won 11 National Championships, including the last 4 in a row. What many don't know, is that only 15 coaches have won the 35 National Championships since the current format was instituted. Obviously, Geno with 11 wins and Pat Summitt with 8, dominate the totals. After Geno and Pat, there are only three other coaches with more than one championship. Kim Mulkey has had 2 at Baylor, Tara Vanderveer won 2 at Stanford and Linda Sharp won 2 at Southern Cal in the 1980's. All together, those five coaches have 25 of the 35 National Championship titles.

That leaves 10 different coaches with 1 NC each. That list includes Muffet McGraw at Notre Dame, Brenda Frese at Maryland, Sylvia Hatchell at North Carolina, Carolyn Pack at Purdue and Gary Blair at Texas A&M. The other five predate recent history, but won National Championships at Old Dominion, Louisiana Tech (2 different coaches), Texas and Texas Tech. Fifteen coaches, fourteen schools and 35 National Championships.

Also of interest, only 7 of the 15 coaches had prior Head Coach experience before winning the National Championship. Those 7 coaches, with experience, only won 8 total championships, with Tara as the only 2 time winner. The other 8 coaches to win National Championships had never been a Head Coach before. Five of the eight did become the Head Coach at the school where they previously worked as an assistant. Geno is one of the three, with no head coaching experience, who came from outside the school and won a title. Or in his case, 11.

In summary, only 7 of the winning coaches had been head coaches before and 8 had not. And, of the 8 with no experience, 5 came from within and 3 from other schools. Short of hiring Geno, there appears to be no easy formula for hiring a coach who can win a National Championship.

Go Huskies..!!

P.S. - Tip of the hat to Phil who did the research for this post.

 

[Rayvin56]

Since Geno's only been a head coach since '85, he's won 11 of the 32 possible NCs, which is over 34%. Just WOW!

 

[UcMiami]

Interesting research. But in some ways I think a little misleading. The numbers and most importantly the 'modern' numbers are so dominated by two coaches that it is a very small data set of 'others'. With 16 out of the past 22 championships won by Geno and Pat, a period that I refer to as the modern era that only leaves 6 'other' NCs won by 5 coaches. In fact you could probably shorten that era to the 2007-8 season with GG being bought away from Duke or possibly 2000-01 with Kim jumping to Baylor because LaTech was nickel and diming her on the HC salary. If you use the 2008 NC time frame it is 7 of 9 belonging to G&P with two other coaches, and if you use the 2001 NC it is 11 for G&P and four other coaches with the other 5 NCs.

The reason I am making a demarkation is that when you go back to the 80s when Geno was hired or back to Pat's hire in 1974-75, there was no money in WCBB coaching and at the few programs that actually had a semblance of facilities which was the only distinguishing factor between programs no one was getting fired - they might retire to actual find a job that could support them but their performance was of little consequence. When Geno contemplated leaving Uconn in the early nineties it wasn't money that would have driven him, but facilities and 'cache'. With the explosion of national attention in 1995 things did begin to change, and Kim choosing to leave LaTech might be the first sign of money and respect being the driving force - she left a nationally prominent program for a 'start up' program because of money - from a team that was always in the NCAA and had just made the elite eight, to a program with no NCAA appearances. GG's hiring was the first high profile parallel move where one school outbid another for her services at significant compensation levels. Compensation was the only motivation.

There had been a process of assistants at larger programs and coaches at small programs being hired by larger schools with better facilities, but those two hirings sort of stand out as sea changes in how an influx of money and commitment that got kickstarted in 1995 had changed the prospects for WCBB coaches. There has not been another GG bidding war, but her move signaled the beginning of a much greater mobility amongst D1 coaches - still nothing like what happens in the male money sports, but a new era.

Using 2001 - the four coaches:
Muffet - HC at Lehigh prior to ND
Kim x2 - associate at LaTech prior to Baylor
Brenda - HC at Ball State and Minnesota prior to Maryland
Gary - HC at Stephen F Austin and Arkansas prior to Tx A&M

So modern history is 3 of 4 NC winners being outside HC hires, and I would almost call it 3.5 out of 4 - Kim had been groomed to take over the LaTech program from Leon Barmore. In terms of internal hire vs. external it is simply 4 of 4 NC winning coaches not named Pat or Geno.
If you go back to 1995 then it adds just one coach:
Caroline Peck - assistant at TN and KY before being an assistant at Purdue for one season before taking over for the departing Fortner. She left for the pros after 2 years, returned to coach 5 years at Florida before being fired. And now back as an assistant at Vanderbilt. Sort of an exception to the career path of most WCBB coaches!

 

[alexrgct]

There have been 46 total NCs: 11 AIAW championships, 35 NCAA tournament championships:

• Uconn has 11 of the NCs.
• Immaculata, Delta State, and Old Dominion, have nine combined.
• Baylor, USC, Stanford, and Louisiana Tech, have nine combined.
• UCLA, Rutgers, Texas, Texas Tech, North Carolina, Purdue, Notre Dsme, Maryland, and Texas A&M, have nine combined.
• Tennessee has eight.

 

[Vowelguy]

View attachment 18195

Also of interest, only 7 of the 15 coaches had prior Head Coach experience before winning the National Championship. Those 7 coaches, with experience, only won 8 total championships, with Mulkey as the only 2 time winner.

Are you saying Mulkey was a HC before Baylor? (She wasnt.)

 

[DavidinNaples]

Are you saying Mulkey was a HC before Baylor? (She wasnt.)

You are right, she was Associate Head Coach, kind of a gray area...sorry.

 

[Vowelguy]

You are right, she was Associate Head Coach, kind of a gray area...sorry.

With the exception of Summitt, I would think all the coaches were an associate or assistant before becoming a HC.

> Mulkey as the only 2 time winner.

Tara has 2 and she WAS a HC at Ohio St prior to Stanford.

 

[Phil]

I'm pleased that there's some interest in the research; it wasn't sure who might be interested. In some ways it reminds me of my actuarial background — what do you do, in general, when you are trying to draw an inference from a dataset which is too small? One thing you try to do is extend the dataset in some way. (Then you have to introduce credibility analysis which is way beyond the scope of this forum.) One way to extend the dataset is to go further back in time. That's what alexrgct did, by including the AIAW championships. However, the further back you can go time, the less relevant it is to the current situation. UcMiami already objected to the earlier years of the NCAA, arguing correctly that the world was different then. And if the mid-80s are too early than the 70s are definitely too early.

It is still interesting to look at the numbers but one has to be very careful about drawing inferences from programs that were very different than today. Pat Summit was a graduate assistant fresh out of school when she was named the head coach. It obviously worked out very very well; beyond the wildest dreams that anyone could have imagined at the time. Yet, I guarantee no major program today would remotely consider a 22-year-old graduate assistant. Maybe a smaller program would take such a chance and maybe that program will turn into a national powerhouse, but none of the regulars in postseason tournaments would take such a chance, so observing that lightning in a bottle won't help.

Another way to extend the dataset is to go sideways. Rather than going back in time to pick earlier national championship winners go sideways in time and look at coaches reaching the final four but not necessarily winning a national championship.

For the NCAA years, that would give us a total of 140 data points, for the four final four coaches for each of the 35 years.

The raw data is here, on the main tab as well as on the final four teams and HC tab. I think I have all the coaches but I haven't pull together a summary or an analysis yet.

 

[Phil]

I had no idea that I could embed the table.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

I had no idea that I could embed the table.

By the way, although I see you noted Van C. as a WNBA head coach, he was also a college head coach, at Ole Miss IIRC. A good friend of CVS, she told us he was WNBA bound at a fan club meeting a couple days before he actually announced it.

While I figure you are looking at immediate prior job, I just think this might be introducing an unneeded complication in his case.

 

[Phil]

Yeah, I went most recent prior. I did call him a head coach - for which I accepted WNBA, DI, DII or DIII, JC but not High school.

Van is quite a character, must have been fun meeting him. I had a very brief interaction on a practice court, but no extended discussion.

 

[BroadwayVa]

There have been 46 total NCs: 11 AIAW championships, 35 NCAA tournament championships:
T

• Uconn has 11 of the NCs.
• Immaculata, Delta State, and Old Dominion, have nine combined.
• Baylor, USC, Stanford, and Louisiana Tech, have nine combined.
• UCLA, Rutgers, Texas, Texas Tech, North Carolina, Purdue, Notre Dsme, Maryland, and Texas A&M, have nine combined.
• Tennessee has eight.

Thanks Alex---Immaculata and ODU get lost in the shuffle of those who pioneered WBB---I heard and read so much about the apparent source of many WBB coaches--I had to see Immaculata---near Paoli, Pa. A tiny school up an unassuming black top---humble. Geno played ODU regularly in the past--now with their famous coach retired--they are not even big in the CAA.

 

[BroadwayVa]

I had no idea that I could embed the table.

Exceptional, just exception---lots of research and details---you and David make a great team!! Thanks
for providing this.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

Thanks Alex---Immaculata and ODU get lost in the shuffle of those who pioneered WBB---I heard and read so much about the apparent source of many WBB coaches--I had to see Immaculata---near Paoli, Pa. A tiny school up an unassuming black top---humble. Geno played ODU regularly in the past--now with their famous coach retired--they are not even big in the CAA.

No, they're not big in the CAA - they are not in the CAA anymore. That said, you are correct, they are not "big" anywhere, but they also weren't for a number of years before Wendy Larry retired. Their last hurrah was in the '90's, with Pennichero and Andrade.

 

[BroadwayVa]

No, they're not big in the CAA - they are not in the CAA anymore. That said, you are correct, they are not "big" anywhere, but they also weren't for a number of years before Wendy Larry retired. Their last hurrah was in the '90's, with Pennichero and Andrade.

Question/; Did I spell CAA correctly???

 

[CL82]

Also of interest, only 7 of the 15 coaches had prior Head Coach experience before winning the National Championship.

I think you mean to say "had head coaching experience prior to taking the job for the school at which they won one or more national championships." Otherwise it sounds as if they won in there first year as a head coach.

@Kibitzer

 

[Husky1964]

A little unrelated but interesting, since the Men's Tourney went to 64 teams the number of teams making the FF is not very high. Thats about 32 yrs. Many P5 schools have never sniffed the FF and our men have been there 5 times with 4 wins!!!!!

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

Question/; Did I spell CAA correctly???

?????

ODU is in Conference USA these days. As I said, you otherwise correctly recounted ODU's status. Their glory days were, of course, in the CAA.

Apparently they wanted to play FBS level football, the CAA is in the FCS sub-division, while C-USA is in that group of conferences that includes the American, MAC, etc.)

 

[BroadwayVa]

?????

ODU is in Conference USA these days. As I said, you otherwise correctly recounted ODU's status. Their glory days were, of course, in the CAA.

Apparently they wanted to play FBS level football, the CAA is in the FCS sub-division, while C-USA is in that group of conferences that includes the American, MAC, etc.)

The question was---did I spell CAA correctly??
That question was supposedly a joke/funny. I appreciate the information. I looked up ODU and found they moved to the USA in 2012--wow time flies. I don't follow the CAA as such--those teams that come into JMU --i'll see or read about in the local yokel paper--apparently i missed the ODC jump. I was aware when Wendy retired, yesterday I think, it was a big deal here. I remember her when Geno played them--and I don't remember them being easy games. I must have them on DVD somewhere--I 'll dig them up if i can.
If I didn't say thank you for the information I say it now. Thanks.
Since Morgan Valley was at Towson and gracious to allow us to sit behind her on the bench. We remember them as well--I was pleased when Morgan departed Towson he was a terrible coach.
Thanks again. A joke is not a joke unless both people get it---i get THAT!!