How did it all start?
Founded in 1981, the mission of the Women's Basketball Coaches Association
is to promote women's basketball by unifying coaches at all levels to develop
a reputable identity for the sport of women's basketball and to foster and
promote the development of the game in all of its aspects as a
sport for women and girls.
The WBCA would never have been a reality if a group of women's coaches
had not met at the Olympic Festival in Syracuse, N.Y. in 1981 to discuss
the formation of a coaches association. There were some well-recognized
names at that meeting: Jill Hutchison, 1984 Olympic coach Pat Summitt,
1988 Olympic coach Kay Yow, 1992 Olympic coach Theresa Grentz, C. Vivian
Stringer, and Colleen Matsuhara, among others.
The coaches gathered and with their concerns about the lack of an association
to meet the needs of women's basketball coaches. Jill Hutchison was named
president of the then nameless organization during the summer of 1981
and was present at the second meeting in Wayne, Pa. on September 1. Kodak
underwrote the cost of the meeting. Betty Jaynes who was then the head
coach at James Madison University was named interim executive director.
Jaynes officially resigned her position as head coach at JMU after the
1981-82 season and operated the WBCA office with an intern in Wayne, Pa.
The office was provided rent free from Bill Orr of Tel-Ra Productions.
Jaynes then hired the organization's first assistant executive director,
Regina Sullivan, in 1985 and Sullivan and Jaynes moved the WBCA Offices
to Atlanta, Ga.
Jaynes retired as Chief Executive Officer of the WBCA in 2001 after which
Beth Bass was named the successor to Jaynes as CEO of the WBCA.
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