Cyclone Women's Basketball Camps
Head Coach Bill Fennelly

The dean of Big 12 women’s basketball coaches, Bill Fennelly built Iowa State women’s basketball into one of the nation’s elite programs. He gained instant credibility with student-athletes, administrators and fans, establishing a solid foundation that was based on academics, athletics and character. That foundation has grown into a model of success that has been matched by very few women’s basketball programs across the country.

Fennelly is one of the nation’s most respected coaches and his numbers bear witness to the success he has achieved in his career. He has accumulated nearly 500 career wins (473-194) and averaged more than 22 wins per season over his 14 years at Iowa State (307-141). His teams have made 13 NCAA Championship appearances in his 21 seasons as a head coach and he ranks among the nation’s top 25 active women’s basketball college coaches with a .709 winning percentage.

ISU president Gregory Geoffroy and athletics director Jamie Pollard awarded Fennelly a lifetime contract following the 2006-07 campaign, displaying their ultimate confidence in Fennelly’s ability to lead the Cyclones for the long term.

Winning Program
Fennelly invigorated the Iowa State women’s basketball program from the first day he arrived on campus. He took a program that won just 237 games in its first 20 years and guided it to 12 postseason appearances, a pair of NCAA Elite Eight berths, a pair of Big 12 Championship titles, a regular-season conference crown and nine 20-win seasons in his 14 years at the helm.

Three times the Cyclones claimed a school-record 27 wins, including last year’s Elite Eight squad. In just his second season on campus, Iowa State earned its first NCAA Championship berth and since that time the Cyclones have won 14 NCAA Championship games.

Iowa State shocked the women’s basketball world when it knocked off top-seeded Connecticut to advance to the school’s first NCAA Elite Eight in 1999. Ten years later, the 2009 Cyclones put their stamp on women’s basketball history by overcoming a seven-point deficit with 1:30 left to defeat Michigan State and advance to the school’s second NCAA Elite Eight berth. Under Fennelly, ISU made four NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearances, including a streak of three straight from 1999 to 2001.

The Cyclones have been a consistent contender in the Big 12, the nation’s best conference, since its inception in Fennelly’s second season (1996-97) at ISU. The 1999-2000 ISU squad shared the school’s first Big 12 regular-season crown and Iowa State has finished in the upper half of the league’s final standings in nine of its 13 seasons. The Cyclones finished among the top four in the Big 12 standings in three of the last five seasons.

Iowa State has enjoyed more success than any other team in the history of the Big 12 Championship, winning a league-best 21 tournament contests. Iowa State captured Big 12 tournament titles in 1999 and 2000 and played in the championship game four times, most recently in 2007. The Cyclones rank third in all-time Big 12 regular-season victories with 128.

Fennelly’s leadership produced ISU All-Americans Stacy Frese, Angie Welle, Anne O’Neil and Lyndsey Medders. His Cyclones have earned all-conference recognition 36 times, while eight of his players have been selected in the WNBA professional draft.

Nationally Respected
Fennelly is a three-time finalist for the Naismith Coach of the Year Award (2001, 2002, 2005). His peers also voted him the WBCA District 5 Coach of the Year twice (1999, 2005) and he finished runner-up to Tennessee’s Pat Summitt in the 1998 Associated Press Women’s Coach of the Year balloting.

The turnaround in Ames has been noticed on a national level as Fennelly’s squads spent the better part of six seasons in The Associated Press national poll, including 34 weeks in the top 10. The Cyclones were consistently in the Top 20 during the 2008-09 season, ranking 11th in the final coaches’ poll.

Academics
Fennelly made academics a top priority for his Cyclone squads, and his student-athletes have flourished in the classroom. Every student-athlete who completed her eligibility under Fennelly graduated from Iowa State with a degree. Former Cyclone women’s basketball players are littered all over the globe with careers as doctors, lawyers, broadcasters, teachers, accountants and coaches. Many also have continued their playing careers professionally overseas and in the WNBA.

During Fennelly’s tenure, Iowa State has been represented on the academic all-conference list 67 times. Four Cyclones earned academic All-America honors and an ISU player made the district academic All-America list 12 times during that span.

Family
For the Fennelly family, basketball is a way of life. Fennelly insists his wife, Deb, is his all-time greatest recruit, and she has been an integral part of ISU’s success, making each new Cyclone feel like a part of her own family. The couple’s oldest son, Billy, has gone into the family business and is the director of basketball operations at Northwestern University under head coach Joe McKeown. In May, Billy married former Cyclone great Lyndsey Medders, officially adding ISU’s career assist leader to the Fennelly clan. Steven, the youngest son of Bill and Deb and a junior at ISU, also found a niche in the basketball world, serving as a student manager for the Cyclones.
 
Fan Support
Fennelly took a personal approach to expanding the Iowa State fan base into one of most envied crowds in all of women’s basketball. The Cyclones’ yearly attendance average has grown from 733 fans per game the season before Fennelly arrived at ISU to more than 9,000 a contest last season. ISU’s attendance has ranked among the top 11 schools nationally in each of the last 12 seasons, peaking in 2009 by ranking third behind only Connecticut and Tennessee. The Cyclones enjoyed their first-ever sellout crowd in a 2004 WNIT/NIT doubleheader against Saint Joseph’s.

Coaching Tree
Fennelly has mentored a number of former assistant coaches and players who have gone on to successful head coaching careers across the country. Brenda Frese spent four seasons on Fennelly’s ISU staff before taking over the reins of her own program. She led Maryland to six consecutive NCAA appearances and the 2006 national championship. After three seasons on Fennelly’s coaching staff, Robin Pingeton was named head coach at Illinois State. She has guided the Redbirds to a pair of Missouri Valley Conference tournament titles and earned MVC Coach of the Year honors.
 
Former Fennelly assistant Katie Abrahamson-Henderson is the associate head coach at Indiana University. She spent five seasons as head coach at Missouri State, where she led the Lady Bears to two regular-season Missouri Valley Conference championships, three NCAA appearances and a WNIT crown. Chris Kielsmeier started his coaching career as a student manager (I think that was his job) for Fennelly. Now the head coach at Wayne State, Kielsmeier also spent eight seasons as head coach at Howard Payne University, where he led the Lady Jackets to a 33-0 record and the 2008 NCAA Division III national championship. Kelly Kebe Kennedy, an assistant in Ames from 1999-2002, spent four years as the head coach at the University of Akron.
 
Former Cyclone and all-Big 12 performer Janel Grimm Burgess also entered the coaching ranks, taking over the Grand Valley State program in Allendale, Mich. In her second season, Burgess directed the Lakers to a 20-10 mark and an NCAA Division II Championship berth.

Background
A native of Davenport, Iowa, Fennelly acquired an extensive background in coaching before becoming Iowa State’s sixth head coach on July 10, 1995. Fennelly went 166-53 in seven years as head coach at the University of Toledo. He still is the Mid-American Conference’s winningest coach with a .758 win percentage. He compiled six 20-win seasons and six postseason tournament berths at Toledo. Fennelly coached the Rockets to second-, third- and fifth-place finishes in the WNIT and three NCAA Championship appearances, and is a member of Toledo’s Varsity “T” Hall of Fame.

Fennelly spent 12 years as an assistant coach, including stops at William Penn University (Oskaloosa, Iowa), Fresno State and Notre Dame. He graduated from William Penn with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and economics in 1979.