VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – Former Old Dominion University women’s basketball coach Wendy Larry, and former administrator Debbie White will be inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame, the hall of fame announced on Tuesday.
Larry's career at Old Dominion spanned more than 30 years, as one of the first women student-athletes to receive a grant-in-aid to ODU, as a graduate and assistant coach, and as the head coach of the Lady Monarchs from 1987-2011. She became the 20th all-time coach to win 600 career games in December, and completed her tenure at ODU with a 608-234 overall record and 559-203 slate at ODU. Larry's teams reached 20 NCAA Tournaments, captured an NCAA record setting 17-straight Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Titles from 1992-2008, and advanced to the championship game of the NCAA tournament in 1997.
Larry was the recipient of Coach of the Year awards from three different leagues, most recently in 2010 with her eighth CAA Coach of the Year selection. She has also been recognized on the national level as well with WBCA District III, RCA, Sporting News, and in 1997 as the United States Women's Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) Coach of the Year.
White joined the staff at ODU in 1979 as the assistant sports information director, and was promoted to sports information director the following year, playing a key role in the national exposure that both the men’s and women’s basketball programs enjoyed in the early 1980's. During her tenure as SID, Debbie served on the 1981 and 1982 United States Olympic Sports Festival media staffs, and represented the United States as one of four sports information directors on the media coordination team at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.
After a one-year journalism teaching stint at Virginia Commonwealth University in 1984-85, Debbie returned to Old Dominion as an assistant athletic director, and was promoted to associate director in 1995 and senior associate in 2003. She was a member of the NCAA Communications Committee, NCAA Basketball Marketing Committee, and the Creative Content Committee for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. She also served as a member of the media liaison team and as press moderator at the NCAA Women’s Final Four from 1986-2006. In 2017, White was inducted into the CoSIDA Hall of Fame.
The induction ceremony will take place on Saturday, April 6 at Zeider’s American Dream Theater in Virginia Beach. More information will be released on the ceremony in December.