 Former WNBA and college coach Marianne Stanley commences her second season as an assistant coach for the Scarlet Knights.
Stanley has brought a wealth of experience from the professional, international and college ranks to the ‘Banks’. Her work with the RU forwards and centers was showcased this past season with Rutgers run to the NCAA Championship.
A two-time national champion as a player at Immaculata College, she led Old Dominion University to the 1985 NCAA national title, reached the 1996 Final Four while at Stanford University, and was named the 2002 WNBA Coach of the Year while serving as the head coach of the Washington Mystics.
For seven seasons prior to her arrival at Rutgers, Stanley coached in the professional ranks in the WNBA. She began in the summer of 2000 with the Los Angeles Sparks as an assistant to Michael Cooper. Stanley then moved on to the Washington Mystics in 2001, serving as an assistant coach for one season under Tom Maher before being named the head coach in 2002. She served as the Mystics’ head coach for two seasons, leading the team to its first-ever WNBA playoff victory while garnering the league’s Coach of the Year Award in 2002. In the spring of 2004, Stanley went to the New York Liberty as an advance scout before joining head coach and RU alum Patty Coyle as an assistant coach midway through the 2004 season, a position she held for the past three years.
Stanley began her coaching career at her alma mater, Immaculata, as an assistant (1976-77). She then became the head coach at Old Dominion (1977-87) at the age of 23, becoming the youngest Division I head coach in the country, and built the Lady Monarchs into one of the nation’s premiere programs. She posted a 269-59 (.820) record at ODU, winning the NCAA national title in 1985 and the AIAW national championships in 1979 and 1980, while also reaching the NCAA Final Four in 1983 and the AIAW Final Four in 1981. During her time in Norfolk, she guided such players as Anne Donovan, the current head coach of the U.S. Olympic Team and the WNBA’s Seattle Storm, Nancy Lieberman, Inge Nissen, Tracey Claxton and Medina Dixon to All-America accolades.
Following two seasons as the head coach at the University of Pennsylvania (1987-89), Stanley took over the reins at the University of Southern California (1989-93). While at USC, she guided the Women of Troy to a 71-46 record (.607) and the 1992 Elite Eight and 1993 Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament, recruiting and coaching players such as All-American and current WNBA MVP Lisa Leslie, as well as Olympian Tina Thompson.
In January of 1994, Stanley moved to Stanford, assuming responsibilities for the marketing and promotion of women’s basketball, a position she held for 10 months. She was then named the co-head coach of the Stanford team in April of 1995 and led the Cardinal to a 29-3 mark and a Final Four berth as Tara VanDerveer prepared the U.S. Olympic Team for the Atlanta Games. Stanley then served as the head coach at the University of California-Berkeley for four seasons (1996-2000).
Overall, Stanley posted a 416-222 (.652) record in 21 seasons as a head coach, guiding her teams to 10 NCAA Tournament berths. Three times her teams advanced to the NCAA Tournament Final Four, winning one title, and five times reached at least the Elite Eight.
During a 13-year span (1983-96), she also served on numerous USA Basketball coaching staffs as both an assistant and head coach, including the 1993 World Championship Qualifying Tournament (Sao Paulo, Brazil; gold medal); the 1991
Pan-American Games (Havana Cuba; bronze medal); the 1986 World Championship (Moscow, Russia; gold medal); and the 1990 USA Select Team Tour (Yugoslavia and Russia). Stanley also served as the head coach of the 1985 Junior World Championship Team (Colorado Springs, Colo.; fifth place) and the 1981 National Sports Festival East Team (Syracuse, N.Y.; silver medal), and was a head court coach at the 1992 Olympic Trials. Stringer and Stanley crossed paths in 1991 in Cuba, when Stringer was the head coach and Stanley the assistant for Team USA at the Pan-Am Games.
A 2002 inductee into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, she was selected as the 2002 WNBA Coach of the Year, the 1993 Pacific-10 Conference Coach of the Year, the 1984 and 1985 Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year, the 1983 NCAA District Three Coach of the Year and the 1979 AIAW National Coach of the Year. Also a member of the Old Dominion Sports Hall of Fame, Stanley has also been an active member of the community, working with such groups as Hoops For Africa, the YMCA, Hope House Foundation and National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
An All-American point guard, Stanley graduated from Immaculata in 1976 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology. Her daughter and son-in-law, Michelle and Jonathan Worden, live in Long Beach, Calif., with their children, Madelyn, Jonathan, Jr., and Dylan. |
