Albright retires as Nevada women’s hoops coach

RENO – Jane Albright, who has spent 33 years as a Division I head coach including the past nine at Nevada, announced her retirement today, effective at the end of this season.

“I have truly been blessed to have coached this great game for 40 years. The relationships I have built with players, staffs, athletic departments, fans and families are the crown jewel of my time,” said Albright. “I am especially grateful to the University of Nevada for the past nine years and I look forward to living in Reno and being a part of this great community for a very long time.”

Albright has guided the Wolf Pack to 115 wins during her tenure, second-most by a Nevada head coach in program history. She led Nevada to back-to-back appearances in the WNIT in 2010 and 2011 and earned the program’s first win in the WNIT when the team defeated Saint Mary’s in March of 2011. Additionally the 2010-11 team became the program’s first to post a 20-win season, finishing with a program-record 22 wins.

On Jan. 27, 2016 Albright earned the 500th win of her career when Nevada defeated San Diego State. Among active head coaches in Division I she is in the top 30 in career wins. Also under Albright’s guidance, the Pack has seen two WNBA draft picks in Tahnee Robinson (2009-11) and Mimi Mungedi (2011-15), the only WNBA draft picks in program history.

“The true extent of Jane’s success as a coach, teacher and mentor is not measured by the over 500 wins in her head coaching career, or the multiple conference coach of the year awards, or even coaching in a Final Four alongside a legend in Pat Summitt,” said Nevada athletics director Doug Knuth. “The true measure of her success is the impact she has on the people around her – her players, her coaches and staffs, and her many fans. She has positively impacted thousands of lives in her career and we are all grateful to Jane for making us better people every day. On behalf of President Marc Johnson, I offer our sincere appreciation to Jane for her leadership and incredible work building community support for Wolf Pack basketball.”

Albright, 61, began her coaching career in the early 1980s at the University of Tennessee, working under legendary coach Pat Summitt, where she assisted with Tennessee’s first NCAA Final Four team in 1982. From there she made four stops along the way as a head coach at Northern Illinois, Wisconsin, Wichita State and Nevada. Albright is the winningest coach in program history at both Northern Illinois and Wisconsin. Overall in her career she has led her teams to nine NCAA Tournament appearances and won the WNIT in 2000 with Wisconsin.

Albright is a four-time conference coach of the year, earning the honor in back-to-back years as part of the North Star Conference, once in the Mid-Continent Conference and as a member of the Big Ten Conference in 1995. She is a two-time recipient of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) District IV Coach of the Year award. Following her 2001-02 season at Wisconsin, she was named a Naismith Coach of the Year finalist.

Her impact on the game of women’s basketball is not only present in terms of success on the court, but on the people she influenced throughout her career as well. Many of Albright’s former graduate assistants, assistant coaches, and others have gone on to lead their own successful careers including Florida State head coach Sue Semrau, Northern Colorado head coach Kamie Ethridge, Notre Dame associate head coach Carol Owens, among others. Additionally, 29 of Albright’s players at Nevada have received at least one degree with all current student-athletes on track to graduate.

The university will conduct a national search at the end of this season to identify the next head coach of the women’s basketball program.