Donovan Takes Over For The Liberty
August 3, 2009 by Lyndsey D'Arcangelo
Filed under Basketball
After a 6 – 11 start for the New York Liberty, head coach Pat Coyle was fired on Friday. Anne Donovan has taken over in the interim and hopes to help set the team on the right track.
Anne Donovan has a proven track record as an WNBA coach.
“We’ve been a very up-and-down team,” Donovan said, according to ESPN.com. “Not just from game to game, but from quarter to quarter, minute to minute. We all know we have to be more consistent with that.”
After making a pretty good run in the playoffs last season, the Liberty are now 7½ games behind first-place Indiana and two behind Atlanta and Chicago for the fourth and final playoff spot in the East.
If anyone can help get the Liberty back to playoff contention, it’s Donovan. She led the U.S. women to a gold medal at the Beijing Olympics last year, and has a winning record of 138-128 as a WNBA coach with Indiana, Charlotte and Seattle.
Donovan was also inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as a player in 1995, and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999. She was the first female coach in the WNBA to win 100 games, setting that standard back in 2005.
Basically put, this is a woman who knows how to coach.
Image: Zuma Press
