UNCG head coach Lynne Agee is widely respected throughout the nation as one of the premier coaches on the women's college basketball scene. Agee embarks on her 29th season with the Spartans in 2009-10. Agee has built quite a resume as she has not only won 66 percent of her games, but was also the first women's basketball coach to lead a school to the NCAA tournament in all three divisions.
For her career achievements at UNCG, she was inducted into the UNCG Athletics Hall of Fame in the fall of 2004. She was the first active head coach to be enshrined in the UNCG Athletics Hall of Fame and was selected to give the acceptance speech on behalf of the class, which included the 1973 women's golf national championship team, the 1982 men's soccer national championship team and longtime faculty athletics representative and longtime friend of Agee's David Knight, who was inducted posthumously.
In fall of 2008, Agee was also inducted into the Guilford County Sports Hall of Fame.
Entering the 2009-10 season, Agee has amassed a 533-275 mark at UNCG and a 579-298 career record in 31 years on the collegiate sidelines. In the last few years, she has surpassed some very impressive milestones. Agee picked up her 500th win at UNCG against Liberty on Dec. 30, 2006, and she earned her 550th career win against Appalachian State on Jan. 13, 2008. She also coached her 800th game at the college level two years ago, and her 800th at UNCG the latter part of the 2008-09 season.
In 2004, she won her 500th career game as a head coach. Entering this season, she is one of 23 active Division I coaches with 500 or more wins. In 28 seasons with the Spartans, Agee has registered more than 83 percent of the program's wins.
Agee not only ranks among the most successful active Division I coaches in North Carolina, but across the country. She ranks second in the state in career wins with 579, trailing only North Carolina's Sylvia Hatchell (812), one of her longtime friends. Agee ranks 12th nationally among active coaches in career wins and 20th all-time.
Under the guidance of Agee, UNCG has reached the 20-win plateau 16 times. The Spartans have also earned berths into the Division I national tournament once, the Division II tournament once and the Division III tournament seven times. With Agee at the helm, UNCG became one of only 10 teams nationally (all divisions) to reach the NCAA tournament each of the first seven years it was held (1982-1988). With UNCG's 1998 NCAA appearance, Agee became the first women's coach in history to take teams to the NCAA tournament in all three divisions.
Agee has led her teams to 13 conference championships, including the 2002 Southern Conference regular-season crown. Agee also led the Spartans to the 1999 Southern Conference regular-season title, the 1998 Southern Conference tournament title and five Big South Conference regular-season championships. UNCG was Big South tournament runner-up four times, as well as Southern Conference tournament runner-up on four other occasions, including three consecutive seasons.
Agee has coached four All-Americans in her time at UNCG. Several of her players have gone on to become high school or college coaches, including current associate head coach Carol Peschel and assistant coach KaLeah Latham and former Spartan assistant coaches Vickie Henson, Amanda Eaton and Nicole Murray.
Agee began her coaching career at William Fleming High School in Roanoke, Va. She compiled a 94-16 record in seven years as head basketball coach there. Agee captured seven league titles, four district championships and one regional title. Agee left William Fleming HS to become women's basketball coach at Roanoke College in 1978. In three years at the helm, Agee compiled a 46-23 record. The definite highlight of her time with the Lady Maroons was the 1980-81 season. Roanoke went 21-6, captured the Virginia Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) Division III state title and qualified for the AIAW national playoffs.
Agee arrived at UNCG in 1981 and led her fist-year squad to a 25-3 record and a trip to the inaugural NCAA Division III tournament. The Spartans finished that remarkable campaign as NCAA Division III runners-up. UNCG ran the table in the Dixie Conference, going a perfect 12-0, and won its last 10 games before its matchup with Elizabethtown (Pa.) in the national championship game. The Spartans rallied from nine points down at halftime to force overtime, but came up just a point shy, losing to the host, 67-66.
The 1986-87 team finished its record-setting year with an astounding 27-3 mark. UNCG set a school record for wins in a single season and also put together a remarkable 24-game winning streak. The Spartans stood just 3-2 early into the season, but ran off 24 straight before its first-round loss to Centre College in the NCAA Division III South Regional. The winning streak still ranks in the top 20 in NCAA Division III history.
The 1987-88 squad rode that momentum from the previous season to a 26-7 record in its final NCAA Division III campaign. UNCG recorded three narrow victories over Centre, Rust and Luther to reach the Final Four, but Concordia (Minn.) ended any hopes of a national championship with a 103-66 triumph over the Spartans. UNCG did come back to defeat Southern Maine, 68-66, in the consolation game to place third in the tournament.
In three seasons of Division II competition, the Spartans compiled a 55-24 record and earned national rankings each year. In fact, the 1990-91 squad was runner-up in the NCAA Division II South Atlantic Regional. UNCG ended that season, its last at the NCAA Division II level, ranked No. 16 in the national poll.
The Spartans completed their transition from NCAA Division III to NCAA Division I in the 1991-92 season. UNCG boasted a 21-6 record in its first season of Division I.
Agee was named Big South Conference Co-Coach of the Year in 1992-93 after guiding her team to a 19-10 record and winning the league's regular-season title in the Spartans' first season of membership. The Spartans went on to dominate the Big South by posting a 70-12 conference record during their five-year membership in the league. UNCG captured or shared the regular-season title every season and advanced to the conference tournament's title game four times.
In 1997-98, its first in the Southern Conference, UNCG posted a 21-9 record, won the conference tournament championship and earned a berth into the NCAA tournament. It was the first appearance for the Spartans in the NCAA Division I tournament.
In 1998-99, UNCG won the conference regular-season title despite the loss of five seniors from the previous year.
The 1999-2000 club finished with an 18-11 record and advanced to the SoCon championship game. Among the 18 wins was an overtime win over 1999 ACC champion Clemson, UNCG's second-ever win against an ACC opponent. The Spartans made history on Feb. 5 of that year with the program's 500th win. UNCG became just the second team in North Carolina to reach the 500-win plateau.
The 2000-01 team turned in the best season ever by an Agee-coached team in Division I play by notching 22 wins. The Spartans reached the SoCon finals for the second straight season, falling by one point to Chattanooga. In 2001-02, Agee was named SoCon Coach of the Year after leading the Spartans to a share of the regular-season title their third straight appearance in the SoCon tournament title game. UNCG was invited to participate in the 2002 Women's National Invitational Tournament for the first time, falling to Virginia Tech 51-46.
In 2002-03, the Spartans notched their 22nd consecutive winning season under Agee, going 14-13 despite an injury to key post player Jennifer Hart early in the year. The 2003-04 season was not a typical one for UNCG. While sending Agee into the 500-win club, the team finished just 9-19, marking the first time a team coached by Agee did not win at least 10 games.
The 2004-05 squad made a drastic improvement over the prior season, posting a 14-14 record and a fourth-place finish in the SoCon regular-season standings. Kristen Boone was named conference freshman of the year while leading the country in steals.
The 2005-06 edition restored UNCG among the elite in the conference. After finishing second in the regular season with a 12-6 slate, the most league wins in five years, the Spartans made a run all the way to the SoCon tournament title game, before ultimately bowing out to long-standing rival Chattanooga, 91-79. Meanwhile, Boone garnered All-SoCon plaudits and registered over 100 steals for the second straight year.
The 2006-07 squad posted 20 wins for the first time since the 2001-02 season, finishing with a 20-10 record. That mark was good for a tie for third place in the SoCon, which saw four teams with 20-plus wins for the first time in conference history. The season saw Boone become UNCG's all-time steals leader with 315 steals and senior Jasmine Byrd record her 1,000th career point. Both Spartans also recorded all-conference honors for the third consecutive year.
The Spartans faced some adversity during the 2007-08 campaign. Playing without All-America candidate Boone, who went down with injury on the eve of the opening day of practice, UNCG struggled and, for only the second time in Agee's 30-year career, failed to win more than 10 games and finished the season with a sub-.500 record in Fleming Gym for the first time.
UNCG did manage to turn things up in the SoCon tournament and won a dominating performance in its opening-round game against Appalachian State before falling to top-seeded Chattanooga. Freshman Monique Floyd was named to the SoCon All-Freshman Team and senior Jasmine Dixon was named to the CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District Team.
UNCG seemed poised to rebound in 2008-09, with Boone back for a fifth year and a Preseason All-Southern Conference selection for the fourth year in a row. Boone tore her ACL again in the season-opener, however, leaving the Spartans without their starting point guard for the second year in a row. UNCG would regroup to post a 13-18 record, winning its first-round SoCon tournament game for the second straight season, as well. Floyd would be named the league's Defensive Player of the Year.
Agee is an original member of the NCAA Women's Basketball Rules Committee and served as a member of the NCAA Division I East Region Selection Committee for three years. She also served, until recently, as a member of the Committee on Basketball Issues for the Women's Basketball Coaches Association. In addition, Agee was an associate athletic director beginning in 1984 and later served as senior woman administrator before returning to coaching exclusively in 1999. She was a part of the athletic administration during the university's transition from NCAA Division III, to Division II and then to Division I.
During her tenure at UNC Greensboro, Agee also served a stint as the women's tennis head coach and led the 1983 team to a Division III national runner-up finish. The Roanoke, Va., native earned a bachelor's degree in health and physical education from Longwood College in 1971 and a master's degree in educational administration from Radford University in 1981.
