Courting Success

Book excerpt: In the shadows of the nation's most storied football program, Muffet McGraw has quietly built the Notre Dame women's basketball program into a national power. Arguably, women's basketball has been the university's most consistently successful varsity sport. Over the past 15 years, Irish women's basketball teams have made 12 post-season appearances including nine trips to the NCAA tournament. The team's rise to national prominence was underscored with a national championship in 2001. In short, the Notre Dame women's basketball prgram has been steadily built into a perennial national championship contender, and its architect for those 15 years has been Head Coach Muffet McGraw. McGraw has more than 300 victories at Notre Dame and a winning percentage of .729 with numerous awards to attest to McGraw's coaching success. Her honors in 2001 alone: Women's Basketball Coaches Association National Coach of the Year, Naismith's Women's College Coach of the Year, Associated Press' Coach of the Year, Sports Illustrated for Women's Coach of the Year, and Big East Conference Coach of the Year. Personal accolades aside, Coach McGraw works hard to define effective methods for her players that will not only mean success on the court-but will also translate to personal fulfillment in life. Accordingly, in Courting Success McGraw outlines her ingredients for success-on and off the court-by sharing stories of hard lessons learned, the value of finely tuned work ethic and discipline, experiences that motivate and inspire, and "key plays" to put into daily living practice.