A notable member of the UCLA and women’s basketball communities has passed away.
Wednesday, at 79, former UCLA women’s basketball coach Billie Moore passed away surrounded by her friends and family. In 1978, Moore guided the Bruins to their lone national title.
Before the NCAA’s sponsorship of women’s athletics, UCLA participated in the AIAW. Moore handled the final transfer of the Bruins to the NCAA level, establishing herself as a pioneer not just for the program but also for the sport and women’s athletics.
Moore developed players such as Pat Summitt, Ann Meyers Drysdale, and Nancy Liebeskind for the United States’ inaugural Olympic women’s basketball team in the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal.
Before her death in 2016, Summitt stated, “Billie Moore had the greatest impact on my coaching career of anyone.” “She was my guide. She has had a significant effect on my coaching technique.”
Billie Moore is a national champian
Moore, who had already won a national championship at Cal State Fullerton in 1970, took over at UCLA in 1977 and led the Bruins to a tournament in her first season.
Moore led the Bruins to two NCAA Sweet 16 appearances and 296 victories from 1977 to 1993, giving her the most successful coach in program history. Moore’s career is winning percentage was.690, and she became the eighth Division I women’s basketball coach to surpass 400 career victories in 1991.
Billie Moore is in Hall of frame
1999 marked Moore’s induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. Before he was inducted into the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame in 2000. Meyers Drysdale, Denise Curry, Anita Ortega, Rehema Stephens, and Natalie Williams are among the notable UCLA women’s basketball players that played under coach Moore.
Coach Cori Close was not Moore’s immediate successor, as 18 seasons and two other coaches separated their tenures, but she is close to surpassing several of Moore’s school records. However, according to Close, she would not be where she is now without Moore’s direct and indirect assistance.
“It is difficult to express the magnitude of Billie Moore’s effect in words,” Close said. “I know I can follow in Billie Moore’s footsteps. A genuinely extraordinary and fruitful life.”
Moore, who has a 436-196 record as a collegiate head coach, began her career before the passage of Title IX. The revolutionary civil rights law will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2022, which UCLA Athletics has been commemorating all year.
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