Anne Donovan biography
Anne Donovan, (born November 1, 1961, Ridgewood, New Jersey, U.S.—died June 13, 2018, Wilmington, North Carolina), American basketball participant who is commonly credited with revolutionizing the centre place in ladies’s basketball. She later had a profitable teaching profession.
As a 6-foot 8-inch (2.03-metre) faculty freshman, Donovan confronted excessive expectations when she entered Old Dominion University (ODU), house of one of many nation’s most profitable ladies’s basketball packages, instantly following the conclusion of future Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman’s profession. Donovan didn't disappoint. She helped the Monarchs to a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) nationwide championship in her first season and went on to determine a storied collegiate profession (1979–83), culminating together with her choice as nationwide participant of the yr in 1983. Donovan was a three-time All-American (1981–83), led the nation in rebounding in 1982, and set faculty data in scoring (2,719 factors), rebounding (1,976), and blocked pictures (801). Her complete of 801 blocks is the best in NCAA historical past however technically not a document, as a result of the NCAA didn't formally maintain that statistic till 1987–88.
Donovan was named to the U.S. Olympic workforce thrice (1980, 1984, and 1988) and contributed to the gold medal drives of 1984 and 1988, making her considered one of solely two ladies basketball gamers to win two gold medals. She was additionally chosen to play on seven different U.S. nationwide groups between 1977 and 1988 and was a cocaptain of world championship and Pan American groups in 1986 and 1987.
Donovan performed semiprofessionally in Japan from 1983 to 1988 and in Italy from 1988 to 1989. In 1989 she returned to the United States to just accept an assistant teaching place at her alma mater. Donovan remained on the Old Dominion workers till 1995, when she grew to become head coach at East Carolina University, the place she served till 1998. After leaving East Carolina she was the top coach for quite a few Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) franchises. In 2004 Donovan led the Seattle Storm to its first WNBA championship. She was the top coach of Seton Hall University from 2010 to 2013. Donovan additionally received a gold medal as the top coach of the U.S. nationwide workforce on the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. In addition to teaching, she labored with a number of organizations concerned with ladies’s basketball, together with serving on the manager committee for USA basketball and the organizing committee for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.
Donovan was widely known because the prototype centre who altered the profile of the place in ladies’s basketball. While she was a dominant presence across the offensive and defensive basket, she nonetheless was cell sufficient to run the ground, possessed good passing abilities, and had an above-average taking pictures vary of 15–17 toes (4.5–5 metres). Widely considered the primary centre to grow to be such an entire participant, she was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1995.