L/C
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B
A
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70
WA C
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30
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70
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30
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70 70
70
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30
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100 40
Women’s basketball coach Joan Bonvicini puts winning program on the map
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3.1 2.2 2.2 10.2 7.4 7.4 25 19 19
3
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By Caitlin King | Photo by John Lok 100
SU Magazine Fall 2 013 / 23
ICS# 130285 • Seattle University 2013 Fall Seattle U Magazine - 52 pg. 9” x 11” • 175 lpi • PDFX1a • G7_GRACoL Epson
Page 23
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n the day of a press conference introducing Joan Bonvicini as the new head coach of women’s basketball, the coach—who is known by players as “Coach B”—announced that she was a championship coach at a championship university and that she was at Seattle University to build a championship program. That last point is one that Coach B is proving since taking over the program in 2009. When a team achieves success, some people lean back, but Bonvicini is always working to get better. Entering her fifth season as head coach of women’s basketball, she has led the Redhawks through their first full season of NCAA Division I in the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) and back-to-back second straight 20-win seasons. Her coaching style earned her many accolades this past season including the 2013 WAC Coach of the Year honor and a Naismith nomination for National Coach of the Year. Building champions takes talent, perseverance, focus, time and travel. Lots of travel. Last year alone, Coach B spent 220 days on the road with scouting, recruiting and games. For the veteran coach, it’s all part of the rebuilding process and achieving sustainable success. The task of rebuilding a program is not new to Bonvicini, who has been coaching since the late 1970s. It is a job she seemed destined to do. The second oldest of five, Bonvicini grew up in a boisterous household in bluecollar Bridgeport, Conn. Interested in sports from a young age, her parents, both immigrants from Europe—her father from Italy and her mother Ireland—were supportive from the start. She began to take softball and basketball seriously in elementary school. Memorable mentors along the way, including her 12th grade softball coach Ralph Raymond, who later became an Olympic softball coach, and her father, who was also a talented athlete, both led Bonvicini to pursue sports seriously.