Ep104 Muffet McGraw: Legendary Hall of Fame Women’s Basketball Coach

May 20, 2021
The legendary, Muffet McGraw patrolled the sidelines as the Karen & Kevin Keyes Family Notre Dame women’s basketball head coach for Thirty-three seasons. In two of those seasons (2001 and 2018) she won the national championship trophy, becoming the sixth women’s basketball head coach to win multiple NCAA titles. McGraw was the 13th female coach inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017. She was also inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011 and the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014.

Coach McGraw’s career included an impressive 936 career wins, which ranks sixth all-time among Division I coaches. 848 of those wins were at Notre Dame, where she led the Irish to seven NCAA title game appearances, including six in her last decade of coaching. Her nine Final Four appearances rank as the fifth most all-time. All totaled, McGraw’s teams have qualified for 26 NCAA Tournaments, earning 67 tournament wins along the way.

A four-time National Coach of the Year winner and seven-time Conference Coach of the Year, McGraw won 25 total combined conference regular season and tournament championships. She is one of just five coaches in NCAA Division I history with over 930, nine Final Fours, and multiple NCAA championships – others are Pat Summitt, Geno Auriemma, Tara VanDerveer and Duke men’s coach Mike Krzyzewski.

Since recently retired from coaching, Coach McGraw joined ACC Network as a basketball analyst and just in March 2021 she joined the Women’s Sports Foundations Board of Trustees.

Expect More!: Dare To Stand Up and Stand Out by Muffet McGraw
Coach McGraw’s response to being asked about women in leadership as a 2019 Women’s Final Four press conference
McGraw Tweet about being tired
Women’s Sports Foundation
Battle of The Sexes - Billie Jean King vs Bobby Riggs
Add your name to the WSF Letter Addressing NCAA Gender Equity Review
WCBA- Women’s Basketball Coaches Association
The Mighty Macs Movie about Cathy Rush, who in the early 70s, becomes the head basketball coach at a tiny, all-girls Catholic college.

Book Recommendations:
In the episode, Coach McGraw shares that she has all her players read We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Find that and all our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at hearhersports.com/books.
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