Georgia Tech’s first-round opponent in the NCAA Tournament will be a return to coach Nell Fortner’s roots. Stephen F. Austin, whom the Yellow Jackets will play Sunday, was where Fortner got her start in college coaching.
On Monday night, when the field was announced, Fortner said she was happy to see “Georgia Tech” flash on the screen as a No. 5 seed. Then she noticed her 12th-seeded opponent.
“It pretty much brought a smile to my face a little bit just because of the history I’ve had with them,” she said.
In 1986, four years out of college at Texas, where she was a two-sport star, Fortner was hired as a graduate assistant at the school in Nacogdoches, Texas. She had been a high-school coach at Killeen (Texas) High for three years when the opportunity arose.
As a GA, in addition to helping coach the Ladyjacks and studying for her master’s degree in education, Fortner said she taught three classes, served as the team’s strength-and-conditioning coach and helped in recruiting. She recalled working 16 to 18 hours a day, and making $500 per month.
“So I had a lot of people buying me food,” Fortner said Monday night, after Tech’s first appearance in the tournament since 2014 was announced. “I had a lot of ramen noodles and all those good times. But I’m going to tell you what: It might have been one of the most fun years of my life. It was so much fun, and I could not have been any more busy than I was that year being a graduate assistant.”
She did well enough that she was hired on as a full-time assistant coach, a job she kept for three years before accepting an assistant coaching job at powerhouse Louisiana Tech to start moving up the coaching ladder.
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Stephen F. Austin doesn’t mean much to most, but it’s a name that carries weight in women’s basketball. The school has made 16 NCAA Tournament appearances. At the start of the season, the Ladyjacks were in the top 10 for all-time wins alongside the likes of Tennessee, Connecticut, Louisiana Tech and Stanford. They were regularly in Top 25 rankings through the late 1990s.
Two coaches in the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, Sue Gunter and Gary Blair, had successful tenures there before moving on. Blair, in fact, was the coach who hired Fortner. In Fortner’s first season as an assistant coach, the Ladyjacks made their first NCAA appearance, beginning a run of 15 consecutive berths.
“He gave me a lot of responsibility,” Fortner said of Blair. “That was my diving board to the next level, and it was a tremendous experience.”
It served her well. Fortner has been head coach at Purdue, with the U.S. national team, the WNBA’s Indiana Fever, Auburn and now Tech. She was named coach of the year in the Big Ten, SEC and now, this season, the ACC.
In 2007, Fortner was named a distinguished alumna of the school.
Tech’s entire stay at the NCAA Tournament in San Antonio, Texas, will be a return to her formative years. Fortner attended high school in New Braunfels, Texas, which is about 30 miles by car northeast of San Antonio.
She was an All-American in basketball and also played volleyball, high jumped and was a cheerleader, according to a San Antonio Express-News story in 2017. According to the story, she averaged 40 points per game as a senior for the Unicorns in the three-on-three format that was in use in girls basketball in Texas at the time.
But, that was then. Fortner isn’t in Texas to reminisce. Tech is back in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2014. The Jackets finished third in the ACC, its highest-ever finish.
“Just really super proud of these players and their hard work and their belief and what we’ve accomplished this season so far,” she said. “There’s been goals set, and we’re seeing some of those goals come to fruition, and we’re not finished yet.”
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