Twenty-first-year head coach Nan Carney-DeBord has blazed trails never before seen by Ohio Wesleyan women's basketball.
The winningest women's basketball coach in Ohio Wesleyan history, Carney-DeBord guided the Battling Bishops to a 14-12 record during the 2005-06 season.
The Bishops compiled a 17-10 record during the 2004-05 season. In 2003-04, the Bishops went 15-12 and placed fourth in the North Coast Athletic Conference.
In 2002-03, the Bishops compiled an 18-10 record and finished in second place in the NCAC. Those 18 wins included a 55-51 decision over Earlham that was the 300th career victory for Carney-DeBord, making her the 29th active NCAA Division III coach to reach the 300-win mark.
During the 2000-01 season, she piloted the Bishops to a 26-7 record. Ohio Wesleyan advanced to the NCAA Division III semifinals after winning the North Coast Athletic Conference championship for the fifth time. She capped that magical season by being named the Russell Athletic/Women's Basketball Coaches Association Division III National Coach of the Year.
A 6-time selection as NCAC Coach of the Year, Carney-DeBord is the most frequent recipient of that honor in league history. She was named Coach of the Year in 2000, when Ohio Wesleyan was 23-3 and won the NCAC championhip; in 1999, when the Bishops went 21-7 and won the NCAC championship; in 1993, when the Bishops compiled a 21-6 mark and won an outright NCAC title; in 1992, after the Bishops went 23-2, won their first NCAC tournament and earned their first-ever NCAA Division III playoff bid; in 1988, after leading the Bishops to a 16-10 mark, including a 10-2 league mark and the second of her 7 second-place finishes; and in 1986, when her team finished second in the NCAC and upset Division III quarterfinalist Muskingum on the Muskies' home court.
Her effect on the Ohio Wesleyan field hockey program was just as magical. She guided the Bishops to their first national ranking in 1986, then topped that in 1987, starting a string of 4 straight NCAC titles and NCAA Division III playoff appearances that would continue through the end of her tenure in 1990.
Carney-DeBord came to Ohio Wesleyan from Bethany (W.Va.) College, where she was head field hockey and softball coach and assistant basketball mentor. Her field hockey squads won Pennwood West Conference titles in 1983 and 1984.
Carney-DeBord is a 1980 graduate of Denison University, where she lettered 4 times each in basketball and field hockey. A wing and point guard in basketball, she was team captain and MVP as a senior. As a field hockey back, she was a team captain for 3 years and led one team to a 13-0 record. She was inducted into Denison's Athletic Hall of Fame in 1998.
She earned her master's degree from Kent State and is a professor of physical education at Ohio Wesleyan.
Carney-DeBord and her husband, Jack, have 2 sons, Tyler and T.J.
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