Woodard named full-time Winthrop women’s coach

Winthrop handed interim women’s basketball coach Lynette Woodard the full-time gig on Monday.

Woodard joined the program last April as an assistant to coach Kevin Cook, and took charge of the program on an interim basis when Cook was suspended in late January. Cook and Winthrop reached a deal to mutually separate in late February and Woodard assumed the interim position. The Eagles lost all 12 games with Woodard in charge, the closing stretch of a tough 2-29 season.

Woodard will be formally introduced at an 11 a.m. press conference Tuesday at the Winthrop Coliseum.

The former Kansas Jayhawk had a decorated playing career in college - she scored over 3,000 points and was a four-time All-American - and with the U.S. women’s national team, playing in the Pan Am Games before captaining the 1984 Olympic team to a gold medal in Los Angeles. Woodard played several years with Harlem Globetrotters, then played overseas for nearly 10 years, capping her career with two seasons in the WNBA.

Woodard is a member of the Kansas Hall of Fame, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, The Globetrotter Hall of Fame and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. She began her coaching career in 1999 at the University of Kansas, where she coached alongside Cook for five seasons.

This story was originally published March 27, 2017 at 1:33 PM with the headline "Woodard named full-time Winthrop women’s coach."