Lynette Woodard (born August 12, 1959) is an American basketball player and former head women's basketball coach at Winthrop University. She is a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Woodward played college basketball for the Kansas Jayhawks. She was a member of the United States women's 1984 basketball team that won the gold medal. She became the first female member of the Harlem Globetrotters in 1985. At age 38, she began playing as one of the oldest members in the newly formed American professional Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) in 1997.
Biography
Woodward led Wichita North High School to state basketball championships in 1975 and 1977. She scored 1,678 points and collected 1,030 rebounds in just 62 high school games in three seasons.
Woodard went on to play college basketball with the University of Kansas (KU) in 1978, playing there until 1981 in the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) era of college basketball. She was a four-time All-American at KU, and averaged 26 points per game and scored 3,649 points in total during her four years there, and was the first KU woman to be honored by having her jersey retired. Before being passed by Caitlin Clark in February 2024, Woodard was the unofficial major college basketball's career women's scoring leader, due to the National Collegiate Athletic Association not recognizing statistics from the AIAW.
In 1981, she was signed by an Italian team, UFO Schio (Vicenza), to participate in their league. (Woodard's cousin, Hubert "Geese" Ausbie, played for the Globetrotters from 1961 to 1985.)
In 1989, she was inducted into the National High School Hall of Fame. In 1990, she was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame, and was signed by a Japanese women's team to play in their country. She played there until 1993. She served as athletics director for the Kansas City, Missouri, school district from 1992 to 1994.
In 1997, she was signed by the Cleveland Rockers of the newly founded WNBA. The following year, she was selected in the 1998 expansion draft by the Detroit Shock. Woodard's final WNBA game was played on August 19, 1998, in an 82–68 win over the New York Liberty where she recorded 18 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals. She was waived by the Shock on May 7, 1999. During the WNBA's off-season, she began working as a stockbroker in New York City.
She retired from playing in 1999 and returned to KU serving as assistant coach of the women's basketball team. In late January 2004, she was named interim head coach, filling for the regular coach Marian Washington, who had retired for medical reasons. In September 2004, after she was passed over for head coach, she became a financial consultant for A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc., in Wichita. In June 2005, she was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Woodard also received the 2015 Women's Blue Chip Basketball League Women's Professional Basketball "Trailblazer" Award on August 2, 2015. The award recognizes some of the most influential people in professional women's basketball, specifically those who helped blaze the trail, shape the overall landscape and pave the way for women's professional basketball.
In 2017, she was named the head coach of the Winthrop Eagles women's basketball team.
Career statistics
WNBA
Regular season
|-
| align="left" | 1997
| align="left" | Cleveland
|28||27||25.4||40.1||0.0||67.2||4.1||2.4||1.6||0.4||2.5||7.8
|-
| align="left" | 1998
| align="left" | Detroit
|27||8||14.2||38.7||0.0||57.5||2.4||0.8||0.8||0.1||1.1||3.5
|-
| align="left" | Career
| align="left" | 2 years, 2 teams
|55||35||19.9||39.7||0.0||63.5||3.3||1.6||1.2 ||0.2||1.8||5.7
College
{| class="wikitable"
!Year
!Team
!GP
!Points
!FG%
!3P%
!FT%
!RPG
!APG
!SPG
!BPG
!PPG
|-
|1977-78
|Kansas
|33
|833
|49.7%
| -
|66.4%
|14.8
|2.1
|
|
|25.2
|-
|1978-79
|Kansas
|38
|1177
|56.2%
| -
|65.6%
|14.3
|2.6
|5.1
|1.5
|31.0
|-
|1979-80
|Kansas
|37
|881
|50.4%
| -
|71.4%
|10.5
|4.5
|4.8
|0.9
|23.8
|-
|1980-81
|Kansas
|31
|758
|52.8%
| -
|68.8%
|10.0
|5.5
|4.9
|1.1
|24.5
|-
|Career
|
|139
|3649
|52.5%
| -
|68.1%
|12.5
|3.1
|3.8
|0.9
|26.3
|}
USA Basketball
Woodard was named to the team representing the US at the 1979 World University Games, held in Mexico City, Mexico. The USA team won all seven games to take the gold medal. The USA team played and beat Cuba twice, the team that had defeated them at the Pan Am games. Woodard averaged 14.1 points per game.
- 1981: Wade Trophy
Sources
External links
- Lynette Woodard at Basketball Hall of Fame (archived)
- Lynette Woodard at WBCBL Professional Basketball Trailblazer Award