Women's Basketball
Barbara Stevens, Coach
C White, Assistant Coach
Kathy Karlsson, Assistant Coach
Barbara Stevens
Women's Basketball Coach
Send an email to Coach Stevens
Of all the people to coach women’s basketball at the Division II level, no one has recorded more victories than Bentley’s Hall of Fame coach, Barbara Stevens. And only five coaches in the history of women’s college basketball, in any division, have more victories!
Stevens, who is in her 31st year as a head coach and her 22nd at Bentley, received the ultimate honor in April 2006 when she was amongst the 2006 inductees into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame during ceremonies held in Knoxville, Tenn.
That honor came a little more than three months after Stevens became the sixth NCAA women’s basketball coach to reach the exclusive 700-win plateau, a milestone she achieved on Jan. 5, 2006, with an 85-69 win over Bryant.
Stevens enters the 2007-08 season with a remarkable career record of 734-201. Do the math and you’ll see that she is more than 500 games over .500! Of the top ten winningest coaches in NCAA women’s basketball history, only the legendary Pat Summitt of Tennessee has averaged more victories per season than Stevens.
A 2005 inductee into the Bentley Athletic Hall of Fame, Barbara climbed atop the all-time Division II win list on Feb. 6, 1999 when the Falcons topped Merrimack, 65-56, in North Andover. That was victory number 520, pushing her past the late Darlene May of Cal Poly Pomona.
Earlier in that same season, she became the first women’s basketball coach in New England history to reach the 500 career win plateau with an 89-66 victory over Columbus State.
Career win number 600 came Jan. 26, 2003 when the Falcons cruised to an 83-42 victory at Saint Rose. Her 500th Bentley win came at Southern New Hampshire Feb. 10, 2004.
That’s just the start of a lengthy list of accomplishments for the 12-time Northeast-10 Conference Coach of the Year.
There has been a remarkable 21-year Bentley record of 577-110, which equates to an .840 winning percentage. An NCAA Division II tournament berth 20 times, with ten regional championships.
Continuing on, five consecutive trips to the Division II Fab Four, including an appearance in the 1990 national championship game. Nine 30-win seasons, including five straight from 1989-93. Fourteen Northeast-10 regular season championships. Breaking the school record for consecutive wins six times.
However, perhaps the most impressive stat is the fact that Barbara Stevens’ Bentley teams have averaged 27.5 wins a season. That’s while playing a 26-game regular season schedule over most of her tenure!
Barbara, who has seen two of her former assistants move on to head coaching positions (Ann McInerney at Merrimack and Maine, Monica Galamaga at Saint Anselm), has also reached the top of her profession off the court, serving as the 1994-95 President of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association. No other Division II coach has ever headed the 3,500-member organization.
Barbara came to Bentley in 1986 after three years as head coach at UMass. The 1976 Bridgewater State product began her coaching career as an assistant coach at Clark during the 1976-77 season.
“Bardy” was promoted to head coach following year and met with great deal success during her six seasons at helm, winning nearly 75 percent of time. The Cougars averaged better than 20 wins a season reached the NCAA Division III Final Four in both 1982 and 1983.
While at Clark, Barbara guided her teams to three Division III state championships and a postseason tournament five straight seasons. In her final season, she was named District l Converse/WBCA Coach of the Year and coached the Division III Champion Player of the Year, Margie O’Brien.
At UMass, Barbara had a three-year record of 34-49 while coaching in the highly competitive Atlantic 10 Conference. During her tenure at UMass, that conference frequently had three teams ranked in the top twenty.
Her accomplishments have not gone unnoticed. Stevens has three times been the WBCA Division II National Coach of the Year (1992, 1999 and 2001) and has been voted Northeast-10 Coach of the Year 12 times (1988-89, 1991-93, 1996-2001, and 2003) She was also named the Division II Coach of the Year by the American Women’s Sports Federation following the 1988-89 season, and was the WBCA District One Coach of the Year annually from 1991-93, again from 1999-2001 and 2003.
Stevens was one of 100 members of the charter induction class into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame in October 2002, and both the Clark and Bridgewater State Halls of Fame have also called her name.
In 2002, Stevens was presented with the prestigious Carol Eckman Award from the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association, given for sportsmanship, commitment to the student-athlete, honesty, ethical behavior, courage and dedication to purpose.
In July 1994, she traveled to France and Israel as an assistant coach for the USA Select Team, marking the second straight summer she was involved in USA Basketball. In 1993, she was an assistant coach for the West team at the U.S. Olympic Festival.
Barbara, 53, is a native of Southbridge. She resides in Waltham.
|
The Stevens Record | |||
|
YEAR |
COLLEGE |
RECORD |
PCT |
|
1977-78 |
Clark |
18-3 |
.857 |
|
1978-79 |
Clark |
23-5 |
.821 |
|
1979-80 |
Clark |
21-8 |
.724 |
|
1980-81 |
Clark |
18-11 |
.621 |
|
1981-82 |
Clark |
22-7 |
.759 |
|
1982-83 |
Clark |
21-8 |
.724 |
|
1983-84 |
Massachusetts |
10-17 |
.370 |
|
1984-85 |
Massachusetts |
13-15 |
.464 |
|
1985-86 |
Massachusetts |
11-17 |
.393 |
|
1986-87 |
Bentley |
24-5 |
.828 |
|
1987-88 |
Bentley |
28-4 |
.875 |
|
1988-89 |
Bentley |
31-3 |
.912 |
|
1989-90 |
Bentley |
31-4 |
.886 |
|
1990-91 |
Bentley |
33-3 |
.917 |
|
1991-92 |
Bentley |
31-2 |
.939 |
|
1992-93 |
Bentley |
30-4 |
.882 |
|
1993-94 |
Bentley |
25-6 |
.806 |
|
1994-95 |
Bentley |
22-8 |
.733 |
|
1995-96 |
Bentley |
28-3 |
.903 |
|
1996-97 |
Bentley |
27-7 |
.794 |
|
1997-98 |
Bentley |
30-2 |
.938 |
|
1998-99 |
Bentley |
32-3 |
.914 |
|
1999-00 |
Bentley |
27-4 |
.871 |
|
2000-01 |
Bentley |
31-3 |
.912 |
|
2001-02 |
Bentley |
20-9 |
.690 |
|
2002-03 |
Bentley |
33-3 |
.917 |
|
2003-04 |
Bentley |
23-8 |
.742 |
|
2004-05 |
Bentley |
28-8 |
.778 |
|
2005-06 |
Bentley |
20-13 |
.606 |
|
2006-07 |
Bentley |
23-8 |
.742 |
|
Totals |
30 years |
734-201 |
.785 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
By School |
|
|
|
|
1977-83 |
Clark (6 Years) |
123-42 |
.745 |
|
1983-86 |
Massachusetts (3 Years) |
34-49 |
.410 |
|
1986- |
Bentley (21 Years) |
577-110 |
.840 |
C White
Assistant Coach
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In her fifth season as Stevens’ number one assistant is former Falcon standout C White. C, a 2001 graduate and a part-time assistant during the 2001-02 season, returned to the Bentley staff in the fall of 2003 after a year as an assistant at Harvard University.
A major reason for the Falcons’ success from 1997-2001, C was a two-year starter at the point, quarterbacking Bentley to a 27-4 record in 1999-2000 and a 31-3 mark as a senior.
The Westwood native, who averaged 7.1 points and led the Northeast-10 in assist-turnover ratio (2.49-1) her final year, finished her career with 1,056 points (now 25th on Bentley’s all-time list), 486 assists (tenth all-time) and 164 three-pointers (fifth in Bentley history). She was a second-team All-Conference pick as a junior and played on teams that captured the NE-10 regular season and playoff titles each year.
C, 28, received a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing. She now resides in Waltham.
Kathy Karlsson
Assistant Coach
Send an email to Coach Karlsson
New to the coaching staff this season, but not to the Northeast-10 Conference, is Kathy Karlsson. She came to Bentley with an extensive resume, including stints at Brandeis University, Boston University, Merrimack College and the University of Maine. It’s a return to the NE-10 for Karlsson, who was at Merrimack for six seasons before spending the last two years as the associate head coach at Maine.
"We’re very fortunate to have Kathy Karlsson on our coaching staff," said Barbara Stevens, a member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame and the winningest coach in Division II history. "She is an outstanding coach and teacher. With the wealth of coaching experience she possesses, we’re excited about all that she can bring to our program."
Karlsson coached under former Stevens assistant Ann McInerney at both Merrimack and Maine.
During her time at Merrimack, the Warriors posted a 119-65 overall record, including 60-10 during the final two seasons (2003-05). She helped lead Merrimack to their first NCAA Division II tournament berth in 2003 and the national semifinals each of the following two years. In her final year at Merrimack, she was the associate head coach, as well as an assistant athletics director.
Karlsson played three seasons at Maine before graduating in 1991. The Auburn, Maine, native earned her Bachelor’s degree in education and her master’s in human movement/physical education from Boston University in 1992.
