Making Gary Blair's Case For Naismith Hall of Fame
Texas A&M women’s basketball coach Gary Blair is a nominee for the first time for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Blair, who led the Aggies to the 2011 NCAA title, is retiring at the end of this season.
Blair is already a member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. But the Naismith encompasses the entire sport — men’s basketball, women’s basketball, professional basketball, college basketball, high school basketball, and international basketball. It is the most prestigious Hall of Fame in the game.
Blair is part of the Women’s Committee Nominations. Coaches on the nominee list include Leta Andrews, Marianne Stanley and Marian Washington. Stanley won an NCAA title at Old Dominion in 1985 (along with two others in the pre-NCAA days). Andrews is the winningest high school basketball coach in the country with 1,328 wins. Washington coached her entire career at Kansas and won more than 500 games. Like Blair, all three are in the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. Unlike Blair, all three have been nominated for the Naismith Hall of Fame before.
So how does Blair stack up? Let’s make his case.
Pure numbers
Entering SEC play Thursday against Vanderbilt, Blair has won 848 games. That puts him 12th all-time among women’s coaches. The coaches in front of him, from a Division I standpoint, are giants — Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer, UConn’s Geno Auriemma, Tennessee’s Pat Summitt, Rutgers’ C. Vivian Stringer, North Carolina’s Sylvia Hatchell, Notre Dame’s Muffet McGraw, Vanderbilt’s Jim Foster, Texas’ Jody Conradt, Montana’s Robin Selvig and Georgia’s Andy Landers.
Of particular note is that VanDerveer, Auriemma, Summitt, Stringer, Hatchell, McGraw and Conradt are all in both Halls of Fame. Foster and Landers are just in the Women’s Hall of Fame. Which brings us to another piece of Blair’s case.
The national championship
That could be of particular importance to his candidacy. NCAA has only sponsored women’s basketball since the early 1980s (before that the AIAW sponsored the sport). VanDerveer, Auriemma, Summitt, Hatchell, McGraw and Conradt all won at least one national title. Stringer is the only one still chasing one. But she’s also among just seven coaches with 1,000 or more wins.
Foster (903), Selvig (865) and Landers (862) are the three coaches most associated with Division I schools that are ahead of Blair on the wins list. What does Blair have that those three don’t? A national title. Incredibly, the Aggies beat four Naismith Hall of Fame coaches during that run —Stringer, Kim Mulkey (Baylor), VanDerveer and McGraw.
Another note? There’s a large gap between Blair and three other Hall of Famers on the wins list — Brenda Frese, Marsha Sharp and Dawn Staley are all more than 250 wins behind Blair but have at least one national title. It’s worth noting that Staley is in the Hall as a player, for the moment.
His approach works everywhere
Blair has coached in the college ranks for more than 40 years, starting as an assistant coach at Louisiana Tech in the early 1980s. He took over at Stephen F. Austin in 1985 — which had won fewer than 10 games the season before — and turned them into an immediate winner. Blair stayed for eight seasons and then moved to Arkansas for another 10 seasons before taking the job at Texas A&M. Blair has had ONE losing season — his first in College Station, when the Aggies went 9-19.
His consistency is remarkable. As a head coach, he has 35 winning seasons, 30 20-win seasons (including 16 straight at Texas A&M), and 15 straight trips to the NCAA Tournament (26 overall). He is one of three coaches to have taken two or more schools to the Final Four (Arkansas, Texas A&M).
His legacy
Blair will leave the game this season just shy of 900 wins, but among the top dozen or so winners in NCAA history (there’s a chance he could catch Landers and Selvig, depending on the Aggies’ NCAA Tournament run). With a national championship on his resume, he’s one of just 16 coaches to win a women’s national championship since the NCAA started sponsoring the sport in 1982, a span of almost 40 years. In fact, Blair was on the first staff to win an NCAA national title in 1982 at Louisiana Tech under Sonja Hogg. Six Division I coaches have either played for Blair or worked for Blair in some capacity —Mulkey (a player on that 1982 LA Tech team), Texas’ Vic Schaefer, Arkansas’ Mike Neighbors, Auburn’s Johnnie Harris, Georgia Tech’s Nell Fortner and Lamar’s A'Quonesia Franklin.
Blair’s resume and body of work not only demand serious consideration from the Naismith Hall of Fame, it practically demands his induction at some point.
Finalists for the North American and Women's Committee for the Class of 2022 will be announced during NBA All-Star Weekend on Feb. 18 in Cleveland. The entire Class of 2022 will be unveiled during the NCAA Final Four in New Orleans in early April.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
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