A black and white photo of an older woman smiling.

Louise O’Neal

Categories: Class of 2017
  • O’Neal was the women’s basketball head coach at Southern Connecticut (1962-1976)
  • She revolutionized the women’s basketball program there, elevating it from a club sport to a varsity sport in the 1970s
  • Former president of the Eastern Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women
  • WBCA Jostens-Berenson Lifetime Achievement Award (2004)
  • Served in several national leadership positions, including NCAA Long-Range Planning Committee, Women’s Basketball Rules Committee, Sears Cup Selection Committee and NACDA Executive Board
  • Junior Select Team Head Coach for USA Basketball that captured gold (1979)
  • Eight straight appearances in the National Women’s Collegiate Championships, and was the only school to qualify for each of the first eight championships
  • She coached two players (Mary Anne O’Connor and Sue Rojcewicz), who played on the 1976 U.S. Women’s Olympic Team
  • Inducted into the Connecticut Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame (1988), and she was inducted into the Southern Connecticut Hall of Fame (2001)
  • NACWAA Lifetime Achievement Award (2011)
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