Fran Garmon is an American basketball coach. Her collegiate heading coaching career included position at Temple Junior College, Delta State, and Texas Christian University. She was active in the USA Basketball, serving as head coach of the gold medal winning World University Games team in 1979 and the Pan American Games team in 1983. She also held leadership positions with the US national team. Garmon was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000.
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
|---|---|
| 1962–1979 | Temple JC |
| 1979–1983 | Delta State |
| 1983–1993 | TCU |
| Head coaching record | |
| Overall | 537–411 (.566) |
| Women's Basketball Hall of Fame | |
Early years
editGarmon had interest in basketball as early as the age of 5 when "her cousin Gene Morris held her up high enough to put a ball through a hoop".[1] She played high school basketball at Moody High School, playing the two-division court, six player system in vogue at the time.[1]
College playing career
editShe initially enrolled in Temple Junior College, then went on to the University of Mary Hardin–Baylor, where she played basketball for the school as well as an independent team. She went on to earn a master's degree at Baylor.[1]
Coaching career
editGarmon then returned to Temple Junior College in 1963, where she persuaded the athletic director and the school president to let her start a women's basketball program. At this time, there were not a lot of options for opponents so she scheduled anyone who would be willing to play including high schools and four-year colleges. She had a challenging start to her college coaching career as her team lost their first seven games, but they went on to win the next nine. She had no scholarships in her first year but the school president gave her four scholarships for the subsequent year. She remained at Temple Junior College until 1979, winning 383 games against 157 losses. Her 1975 team won the first National Junior College Athletic Association national championship, beating Northern Iowa Area Community College 59–58.[1][2] Although a junior-college, she sometimes scheduled four-year schools such as UCLA. They competed in one national invitational tournament and defeated UCLA, which led her to say with a smile, “(That) was a big mistake because then they banned all junior colleges from it after that,”.[1]
In 1979, Garmon took over the head coaching duties at Delta State. This was one of the premier women's basketball teams of the era — the team had won the AIAW national championship in three consecutive years – 1974 – 1977. She remained there for four years with a record of 76–63.[3] After Delta state, Garmon spent a decade at Texas Christian University where her teams were 78–192 between 1983 and 1993.[3]
In March 2018, Garmon was invited to the second round women's NIT game held at TCU, where she was honored at halftime for winning the Jostens-Berenson Lifetime Achievement Award.[4][5]
Coaching record
edit| Season | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Postseason | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta State (Gulf South Conference) (1979–1983) | |||||||||
| 1979–80 | Fran Garmon | 17–15 | |||||||
| 1980–81 | Fran Garmon | 22–17 | |||||||
| 1981–82 | Fran Garmon | 24–15 | |||||||
| 1982–83 | Fran Garmon | 13–16 | |||||||
| Delta State: | 76–63 (.547) | ||||||||
| Texas Christian University (Southwest Conference) (1983–1993) | |||||||||
| 1983–84 | Fran Garmon | 6–22 | 1–15 | 9th | |||||
| 1984–85 | Fran Garmon | 6–21 | 2–14 | T-8th | |||||
| 1985–86 | Fran Garmon | 5–22 | 1–15 | 9th | |||||
| 1986–87 | Fran Garmon | 10–17 | 3–13 | 9th | |||||
| 1987–88 | Fran Garmon | 12–15 | 5–11 | T-7th | |||||
| 1988–89 | Fran Garmon | 9–16 | 4–12 | 8th | |||||
| 1989–90 | Fran Garmon | 11–16 | 8–8 | T-5th | |||||
| 1990–91 | Fran Garmon | 5–22 | 2–14 | 9th | |||||
| 1991–92 | Fran Garmon | 4–24 | 0–14 | 8th | |||||
| 1992–93 | Fran Garmon | 10–17 | 1–13 | 8th | |||||
| TCU: | 78–192 (.289) | ||||||||
| Total: | 154–255 (.377) | ||||||||
|
National champion
Postseason invitational champion
| |||||||||
USA Basketball
editGarmon was actively involved, and had multiple roles in the USA basketball organization.
In 1979, she was asked to serve as head coach of the USA entry into the World University Games. The team went on to win the gold medal.[2][7]
In 1983, the USA basketball organization took the same team that had lost in the recent world championships and entered them in the Pan Am games. While all the players with the same as the previous team, there was one difference — they changed the coaches, choosing Fran Garmon as head coach and Kay Yow as assistant coach. The team would go on to win the gold medal.[8][9]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e TDT, Tim Waits. "For the love of the game: Hall of Famer Garmon continues to spread basketball knowledge". Temple Daily Telegram. Retrieved 2018-05-18.
- ^ a b iThemesLab. "Fran Garmon - Women's Basketball Hall of Fame". www.wbhof.com. Retrieved 2018-05-18.
- ^ a b c "NCAA Statistics". web1.ncaa.org. Retrieved 2018-05-18.
- ^ "Long-distance connections plug TCU women into WNIT's round of 16". star-telegram. Retrieved 2018-05-23.
- ^ "Garmon to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award". Retrieved 2018-05-23.
- ^ "Lady Frog Basketball Media Guide" (PDF). TCU Athletics. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-05-19. Retrieved 2018-05-19.
- ^ "TENTH WORLD UNIVERSITY GAMES -- 1979". Archived from the original on September 7, 2015. Retrieved 2018-05-18.
- ^ Kim., Mulkey (2007). Won't back down : teams, dreams and family. May, Peter, 1951 February 7- (1st Da Capo Press ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press. ISBN 9780786726134. OCLC 608551597.
- ^ "USAB: NINTH PAN AMERICAN GAMES -- 1983". archive.usab.com. Archived from the original on August 8, 2014. Retrieved 2018-05-18.