Women's Basketball Timeline - University of Kentucky Athletics

All-Time Kentucky Coaches
Sue Feamster
1971-76
Record at UK: 64-39 (62.1%)
Terry Hall holds the laudable distinction of being the winningest coach in
UK women’s basketball history as well as owning the best winning percentage
of any coach to guide the program. Hall coached the Cats to seven
straight winning seasons, starting with a 25-6 record and a trip to the second
round of the AIAW national tournament before falling by one point to
Maryland to end the 1980-81 season. The NCAA welcomed women’s basketball
into its ranks the following year, and that historical season ended with
the Cats falling to eventual national champion Louisiana Tech in the Midwest
Regional finals on the Lady Techsters’ home floor. After the Cats failed
to make the NCAA tournament in 1986-87, Hall left coaching for the business
sector. But three years later, she accepted the head coaching job at
Wright State University, where she coached for seven years before succumbing
to cancer in 1997.
Sue Feamster became UK’s first head women’s basketball coach of the
modern era when the program regained its varsity status in 1974. Women’s
basketball had been a varsity sport at UK from 1903 until 1925, when the
University senate passed a bill abolishing the sport for being “too strenuous”
for females. Feamster began coaching the UK women in 1971-72, when the
squad earned a 10-3 record, and remained head coach as the squad rolled up
a 26-15 record over the next two seasons. After women’s basketball became a
varsity sport, Feamster helped the program to a fast start, passing along to
incoming coach Debbie Yow a squad that included All-American Pam
Browning, who still holds several spots in the UK record book, and standout
Ceal Barry.
Debbie Yow
1976-80
Record at UK: 79-40 (66.4%)
In the last year of her four seasons at Kentucky, Debbie Yow’s Wildcats
stormed to a 24-5 record and earned the school’s first trip to the national playoffs
— then the Association of Intercollegiate Women’s Athletics (AIAW)
Tournament. It was clear then that both Yow and the UK women’s program
were primed for success. And just as the Cats continued to earn postseason
berths, Yow’s career remained on the fast track as well. Yow enjoyed a successful
coaching stint at Florida and subsequent athletics administration positions
at Florida and UNC-Greensboro. She then became Athletics Director at St.
Louis, and since 1994, has been AD at Maryland. She served as president of
the National Association of Collegiate Athletics Directors.
Terry Hall
1980-87
Record at UK: 138-66 (67.6%)
SHARON FANNING
1987-95
Record at UK: 134-97 (58%)
Sharon Fanning guided the Cats through eight seasons, including a 23-8
season in 1989-90 in which the Cats won the National Women’s Invitation
Tournament. Fanning had an dubious beginning at Kentucky, with back-toback
losing seasons before the NWIT title year. After that, Fanning’s squads
never suffered another losing season. Prior to her stint at UK, Fanning had
been a graduate assistant at Tennessee and a head coach at UT-Chattanooga.
Since leaving UK, she has been head coach at Mississippi State University.
Bernadette Mattox
1995-2003
Record at UK: 91-135 (40.2%)
Bernadette Mattox spent eight seasons at the helm of the Wildcats basketball
program. She began her coaching career at her alma mater, Georgia, but
became a household name in Kentucky and across the nation when she was
hired by former Wildcats coach Rick Pitino as the first female Division I
assistant “bench” coach for a men’s team in 1990. She was promoted to assistant
athletics director at Kentucky for one year before taking over the UK
women’s program in 1995. Her most notable season came in 1998-99, when
she led the Cats to their first 20-plus win season and first appearance in the
NCAA Tournament in nearly a decade. The Cats won their first NCAA
Tournament game in 17 years, finished with a 21-11 overall record and captured
seven wins in the SEC, the most conference wins in school history.
Since leaving UK in 2003, Mattox has served as an assistant coach for the
WNBA’s Connecticut Sun.
174 • 2006-07 Women’s Basketball