Delaney-Smith Wins Eckman Award

Harvard women's basketball Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith is the winner of the 1999-2000 Carol Eckman Award, the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) announced yesterday in Atlanta. The Eckman Award is named for the former West Chester State College coach who organized the first women's basketball championship at West Chester in 1969.

Delaney-Smith will receive the 15th annual Eckman Award on April 2 at the WBCA National Convention, which will be held in Philadelphia in conjunction with the NCAA women's Final Four.

Delaney-Smith was diagnosed with breast cancer in December and has been taking chemotherapy treatments since January. But she has been on the sidelines for every game of the Crimson's 15-8 season.

"Kathy has been a role model and mentor to countless people throughout the course of her 23-year coaching career," said WBCA President Theresa Grentz, the Coach at the University of Illinois, in a press release. "Kathy's courage and character have been even more evident as she faces the challenge of fighting cancer."

This season Delaney-Smith reached several milestones, including her 250th career win Nov. 28 against Sacred Heart and her 150th victory in the Ivy League Jan. 7 against Dartmouth. She is the winningest basketball coach in Harvard history, and her all-time record now stands at 262-201.

Delaney-Smith, who has the longest current basketball coaching tenure in the Ivy League, has guided the Crimson to six Ivy titles and recruited Harvard's greatest women's basketball player ever, Allison Feaster '98.

In Feaster's senior season, the Crimson made history when it upset Stanford in the first round of the 1998 NCAA tournament. It marked the first time a No. 16 seed had beaten a No. 1 seed in either the men's or women's tournament.

She was the Ivy League Coach of the Year for the 1996-97 season after guiding the Crimson to a perfect 14-0 league record, the only time it has been done in Ivy League women's basketball history.

A Newton resident, Delaney-Smith lives with her husband, Francis, and their son, Jared.