NORFOLK, Va. -- Former Old Dominion head women's basketball coach Marianne Stanley was named a 2016 recipient of the Joe Lapchick Character Award, as announced by the Lapchick Foundation on Thursday.
Johnny Bach, the winningest coach in Fordham University basketball history, and Philadelphia University’s Herb McGee, one of only two college basketball coaches to record more than 1,000 career wins, join Stanley as this year's recipients.
The Joe Lapchick Character Award Foundation is committed to encouraging and promoting good character in the sport of basketball. Each November the foundation recognizes a group of iconic basketball figures, from all levels of men's and women's basketball, who have demonstrated honorable character throughout their careers much like the legendary coach Joe Lapchick.
The awards will be presented at a luncheon in New York on Friday, Nov. 18, with the recipients honored that night during the 2K Sports Classic, benefiting the Wounded Warrior Project at Madison Square Garden.
Stanley’s coaching career began in 1976 as an assistant coach at her alma mater Immaculata College and later became the head coach at Old Dominion University in 1977 at the age of 23, and continued coaching the Lady Monarchs until 1987. Stanley compiled a ten-year mark of 268-59 for a career winning percentage of .820, the best of any coach in ODU women’s basketball history.
In her first year as a head coach, Stanley’s Old Dominion team won the NWIT, the first of four National Championships for the school, and went on to win the AIAW National Championship in 1979 and again in 1980 and her 1984-85 team won the NCAA National Championship. Stanley’s teams won 30 or more games four times and enjoyed eight seasons of 20 or more wins. She was the AIAW National Coach of the Year in 1979, and a five-time Virginia Coach of the Year in 1979, 1980, 1981, 1984 and 1985.
After leaving ODU, Stanley coached at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley and Rutgers University. Overall, Stanley has appeared in the Women’s National Final Four 12 times as either a player or a coach.
Later Stanley moved to the professional coaching ranks and has coached the Los Angeles Sparks, Washington Mystics and New York Liberty in the WNBA. She coached the Mystics to the Eastern Conference Finals in her first year, earning WNBA Coach of the Year honors in 2002.
In 1995 Stanley was inducted into the ODU Sports Hall of Fame, the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010 and joined the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 2016.
Be sure to follow ODU Women’s Basketball at @ODUWBB on Twitter and ‘Like’ the ODU Lady Monarch Basketball Facebook page to stay up to date with the latest news and coverage.