Staff report
Anne Donovan and Billy Packer were selected Monday as the Naismith Women's and Men's Outstanding Contributor to Basketball recipients, the Atlanta Tipoff Club announced.
Chosen by the club's board of directors, Donovan and Packer will be honored at the organization's Naismith Awards banquet next March.
As a freshman at Old Dominion, Donovan led the Lady Monarchs to the 1979 national championship and won the inaugural Naismith Women's College Player of the Year award in 1983.
She set school records for points (2,719), rebounds (1,976), and blocked shots (801), and seasonal marks for most games played (38), minutes played (1,159), field goals (377), and field goal percentage (.640). She averaged a double-double for her entire career, with 20 points and 14.5 rebounds per game.
Donovan won Olympic gold medals in 1984 and 1988 as a player, and played five seasons professionally in Japan and one in Italy. She was assistant coach at ODU for six seasons and a coach at East Carolina for three. She coached professionally for nine seasons, with the Indiana Fever, Charlotte Sting, and the Seattle Storm.
While with the Seattle Storm, she became the first female coach to win a WNBA title (2004). Last summer, Donovan coached the U.S. Olympic team to the gold medal in Beijing.
"Anne Donovan is well deserving of this prestigious award. She has committed most of her life to the game of basketball and the success the USA Basketball women's program has seen over the last 30 years is in part due to Anne's contributions as a player, committee member and, most recently, as the head coach of the gold medal-winning 2008 U.S. Olympic Team," Jim Tooley, USA Basketball executive director, said.
Packer played guard on Wake Forest's basketball team for his last three years. Upon graduation he briefly served as an assistant coach at Wake before embarking on a broadcasting career.
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