Former UCLA, Olympic women’s basketball coach Billie Moore dies

Billy Moore, the nation’s first Olympic women’s basketball coach who led UCLA to the 1978 U.S. National Championship, died Wednesday night at her home in California. She was 79 years old.

Moore was in hospice care for cancer.

She led the Americans to a silver medal at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. This was a breakthrough moment for women’s basketball at the Summer Olympics.

“She was a very organized coach and always understood the composition of the team,” said 1976 Olympian and Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman. Like , she had a sense of the game, and she took my basketball IQ and understanding to another level.”

Moore coached California State University Fullerton to a national championship in 1970. This was the year before the Women’s Intercollegiate Track and Field Association was launched. In 1978, along with star players Ann Myers, Anita Taurtega, and Dennis Curry, Moore led UCLA to her AIAW National Championship.

She coached at Fullerton, California from 1969-1977 and at UCLA from 1977-1993.

“It’s hard to put into words the depth of Billy Moore’s impact,” current UCLA women’s coach Cori Crouse said in a statement. I have lived a truly wonderful life.”

With the Olympic team, Moore coached the legendary Pat Summitt of Tennessee, where he coached the Olympic team in 1984.

Moore was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999. She and Summitt were inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame that same year a facility opened in Knoxville, Tennessee.

“It’s hard to put into words the depth of Billy Moore’s influence.

UCLA Women’s Basketball Coach Cori Close

Born in Humansville, Missouri in 1943, Moore later moved with his family to Kansas, where he attended high school. Although she never got the chance to play high school basketball, she competed for her local industrial team.She was also a competitive softball player in the industry league. She graduated from Washburn College in Topeka, Kansas.

U.S. women have competed internationally for years, including the World Championships (now called the FIBA ​​World Cups) since the 1950s. However, it took years of lobbying for women’s basketball to be included in the Summer Olympics. After serving as an assistant to the 1975 Pan American Games team, Moore became an Olympic coach.

Moore told ESPN in January that there was virtually no institutional funding for the US women’s basketball team to train or travel for the 1976 Olympics. Still, women’s basketball stakeholders figured it out and organized tryout camps in the area.

The team was selected and held its first training camp at Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg, Missouri, about 70 miles from where Moore was born. The US contingent relied on universities for free accommodation and local businesses for donated meals.

“We didn’t do anything we could, not even on a tight budget,” Moore told ESPN.[Assistant coach] Sue Gunter and I spoke at Rotary clubs, ran clinics, provided free meals for the team, everything.

“I stayed in Warrensburg for about two weeks to get ready for the Olympics. Then I went to Hamilton, Ontario, where I qualified. We didn’t have a place to stay.The commission didn’t plan for us to be so successful.”

Moore turned to Kodak, which is based in Rochester, New York, to sponsor the national women’s college basketball team. Kodak helped arrange dormitory accommodation and training at the University of Rochester.

“Honestly, we stayed in a dorm that was still under construction,” Moore said. “We didn’t have a single complaint from the players. They were so excited that we were going to the Olympics. We had local men help us scrimmages.”

At the 1976 Olympics, the United States won silver in a five-game round-robin format, 3-2, behind the undefeated Soviet Union team.

The United States boycotted the 1980 Moscow Games and won gold under Summit at the 1984 Los Angeles Games. Since then, U.S. women have won gold in basketball at every Olympic Games except 1992.

“I always think there are moments and achievements that are like a trampoline that pushes things forward,” Moore said. “Title IX was one of them.

At UCLA, Moore’s team won 27-3 in 1977-78, defeating Montclair State in the AIAW semifinals and Maryland in the championship game. Myers was drafted by the Indiana Pacers, but did not play for any NBA team. Moore also coached his UCLA in his 1979 AIAW Final Four, where the Bruins lost to eventual champion Old his Dominion in the semifinals, where Lieberman played.

“I was able to go to Billy in my best moments and my worst moments,” Lieberman said. “She was amazing to me. She was more than a mentor. She was a friend. And I know what she’s done for me, and she’s done it for so many other people.”